The Last Three Weeks in Boston

Chuck graduated from MIT on Friday, June 6th. The three weeks leading up to that day were CRAZY. A lot of "end of the year" activities happened and we were busy non-stop. If we weren't at a school activity, party, dinner with friends or some other fun thing, we were at our apartment trying to pack. Sleep was always the last thing on our list of to-dos.

Some days we had so many activities, we had to run (or I should say "Uber") back and forth between events. Like the night we went to Sloan Follies because Chuck sang and played with the Rolling Sloans, then went to Fenway Park for a retirement party for Don Rosenfield, the LGO director and then back to Sloan Follies because Chuck had to sing with the a capella group. Phew. I'm exhausted by it all over again just thinking about it!

The view from the room where Don's retirement party was held.

While the rest of the MBA class flew to the British Virgin Islands for a graduation trip, we flew to Louisville over Memorial Day weekend for my cousin's wedding and our friends Shane and Liz's wedding shower and bachelor/bachelorette parties. My cousin's wedding was AMAZING. Most of us cried through the entire ceremony because it was so sweet and then the reception was awesome too.

As Matron of Honor, I was in charge of the planning for Liz's bachelorette party and had to plan most of it from Boston. Thank God for my sisters and cousins who helped me pull it off! That weekend was way too much fun.

Liz's parents and mother-in-law accidentally crashed a part of the evening. So we took a picture with them.

When we got back to Boston, I finished up my last week of work and that's when the lack of sleep really began. Chuck's dad came in that Sunday to stay a night and then head to Foxwoods for a few days. My sister and her boyfriend Austin arrived in Boston Monday to spend the week sight-seeing and exploring both with us and on their own in the city. Tuesday we got a break from driving to the airport, but Wednesday we were right back there to get Chuck's mom and sisters, and on Thursday we picked up my parents, Laura and my Grandma!

With Gold at some Sloan party on the Harbor.

My last sailboat picture. :(

Besides the actual graduation on Friday, Thursday of that week might have been my favorite day. During the day, Sloan held a convocation just for Sloan graduates (the graduation Friday was for ALL MIT students- undergrad, graduate, etc.) at a theater in downtown Boston. The Dean spoke, a student speaker gave a speech that made everyone laugh and cry and want to change their lives, and there was pretty music.

Chuck and his classmate/friend Marcus

Selfie in the T station

After the convocation, we ran back by our apartment for a short bit before heading back into downtown Boston to the Prudential Center to go to a Sloan reception at the top of the Pru. Besides the top floor of Eastgate apartments, the top of the Pru offers some of the best views of Boston. It had been raining all day so I didn't get many good pictures, but did snap one of MIT's campus from the top.

Like all good Sloan events, there was tons of free food and of course, drinks. Oh and this sweet ice sculpture.

After the event at the PRU around 10:30 (told you, sleep was always last) we headed to one of our most frequented spots in Cambridge, the Asgard. On Thursday nights they always have live band karaoke. So naturally we had all of our visiting family meet us up there where we caught up on our day and enjoyed some karaoke. Of course we participated, too.

All the siblings!

Around 2 am when the restaurant closed, our ginormous group wreaked havoc on the streets as our family felt inspired to create the human MIT and then human LGO in the middle of Central Square.

Yep, that's my Grandma- enjoying watching our crazy antics at 2 in the morning.

Can't stop laughing at Austin as the L.

Then we walked home and quick anecdote:I decided to take my shoes off and walk barefoot through Central Square and then spent the following 3 days convinced I had contracted a disease from it. I do not advise walking through Central Square barefoot, ever. I think Chuck and I finally crawled into bed around 3am and set our alarms for 6am because he had to be somewhere a little after 7 to get in line for Commencement. 

I'd say we made the most of our time in Boston in the final weeks.

Reverse Bucket List

***I wrote this post on May 1 and intended to post it sometime towards the end of our time in Boston, but obviously never got around to it. So here it is now, just for fun. 
_____________

I just invented the term Reverse Bucket List.

Moving to Boston for MIT was an amazing decision and experience for us for several reasons. Yes the two degrees Chuck will have soon are awesome. Yes the people we've met are wonderful. But on par with those two things I'd say are the experiences we've had just by living in two different parts of the country. Chuck and I were both born and raised in Kentucky and while we had both traveled some before we moved to Boston, the amount of traveling we've done in the past two years is more than we've done in our entire lives. I tried to count the number of plane rides we've taken and can't because it's so many. I've tried to come up with a list of all the cities we visited and can't, because it's too many to remember. So what I did come up with was a list of basically "things we probably never would have done in our lifetime but did because of where we lived." It's almost like a Bucket List, except written AFTER the fact. Hence: the Reverse Bucket List.

So here's the list: Things We Probably/Maybe Never Would Have Done But Did.

- Skipped rocks on Lake Champlain
- Ate lobster rolls in Maine
- Practiced dunking at the Basketball Hall of Fame
- Fed horses at a farm in New Hampshire
- Drove the Sea to Sky Highway from Vancouver to Whistler, Canada
- Went to a beer festival in Portland, Oregon
- Listened to live music in the park underneath the Space Needle
- Took jumping pictures in the middle of the Badlands in South Dakota
- Cheered the Red Sox on at Fenway Park in the same season they won the World Series
- Saw the Battle of Little Big Horn site, Mt. Rushmore, and the Crazy Horse monument all in the same day.
- Hiked on Mt. Rainier
- Took our car on a ferry to the San Juan Islands
- Rode bikes around Stanley Park in Vancouver... twice.
- Visited NYC twice in the same month.
- Went white water rafting on a river in Washington State. (Chuck, not me. No thanks.)
- Had Easter Brunch on a boat on Lake Washington
- Toured the Vanderbilt family summer "cottages" in Newport, RI.

Spring Gala

On Saturday, May 3rd we went down to Newport, Rhode Island for the Sloan Spring Gala. Every year, Sloan hosts two formals- Fall Ball and Spring Gala. We haven't made it to any of the other formals, so made a point to get tickets for the Spring Gala this year, our last chance to get all fancy with our Sloan/LGO friends.

We drove down to Newport Saturday morning with our friends Brittany and Marcus. We stopped for lunch and then toured one of the Newport Mansions, The Breakers. If you don't know (which I didn't before doing a lot of research), the Newport Mansions are the former summer homes of some of America's richest families in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Several of them were built and owned by members of the Vanderbilt family. They were all similar to the Biltmore, but smaller.

Still, the mansions were ridiculously huge, especially considering the families only spent 3 months out of the entire year living in them! They didn't allow any pictures inside any the mansions (during tours), and people were watching us like hawks so unfortunately I only have outdoor pictures.

The back of The Breakers

After our tour, we found a liquor store to get the fixins for Mint Juleps, since it was Derby Day in Kentucky after all, then headed to the hotel to watch some Derby coverage and get ready for the Gala.

That evening, it was finally time for the Gala! The Gala was held at the Rosecliff Mansion, and it was beautiful.

Is this real life?

We took a ton of pictures, enjoyed a cocktail hour on the back porch and in the yard, and then had an amazing dinner in big tents on the lawn. I felt like we were at a party in The Great Gatsby, except our party was a lot more tame and not quite as lavish...

After dinner, there was of course dessert, and then a DJ and a dance party. It was packed, really hot, and really fun.

This picture is crazy. Our friends Jan and Orion are partially disappearing from the picture Back To The Future-style! (They're glasses and hats were green, so disappeared with the green screen behind them.)

 The LGOs at Spring Gala!

The next day, we slept in a little and then went to a late brunch, accidentally happened upon a parade, and then toured one more mansion, Marblehead, before heading back to Boston.

The mansions were incredible and the self-guided tours were great. I wish we had more time to go back to Newport and do more tours or spend more time exploring the town. It seemed like a really fun place with a lot more to see and do! It was also fun to learn some history and Chuck and I may or may not have developed a small obsession with the Vanderbilt family and watched a documentary on the family and read a ton of Wikipedia later after we got home.

Boston Marathon 2014

On the Monday Pat was here visiting, Chuck and I both had off from work/school because it was Marathon Monday. For my Kentucky friends: imagine Oaks Day in Louisville. That is kind of like Marathon Monday here. Schools are closed, most people have off work (and if they don't, they're probably "sick" that day) and everyone is out doing SOMETHING, whether they are at the main event or not.

Boston's weather hasn't really gotten nice yet, but on Marathon Monday this year, it was perfect. High 60s and sunny all day. As you'll see from my pictures in a second, Boston was really showing off. We couldn't have wished for better weather to be outside in all day. Chuckie, Pat and I got up early and walked from our apartment over the bridge into Boston to find a spot on the race route. We tried to time it so we would get to the route before the elite runners ran past, and we timed it perfectly. We found a not-so-busy spot on the route right at the "1K to go!" point.

We saw all of the elite runners come past except for the wheelchair leaders who had already passed. First were the women.

Rita Jeptoo- who set the course record for women with her win!

Meb Keflezighi (yes I had to  look up that last name)- the winner of the men's race and also the first American to win since 1983! USA! USA!

 

We stuck around a little while longer, tried to find some friends we knew were nearby but failed, and then decided to walk towards the finish line. Once we got through the checkpoint to get on Newbury Street (the road parallel to Boylston/Finish Line), we found that the area around the Finish Line had reached capacity, so they weren't letting anyone else in that area. So we walked Newbury Street, got a cupcake at Georgetown Cupcake, and then continued all the way to the Boston Public Garden to start the search for a lunch spot.

We cut through the Common which we found was also runner headquarters. Hundreds of runners who had finished the race at that point were all over the grass in the Common. They all looked exhausted and most of them had their shoes and socks off, just letting their feet breathe. I wanted to congratulate every single one of them but then we never would have had lunch, so I resisted.

We walked and walked and walked, and eventually ended up at the Hard Rock Cafe near Faneuil Hall because there was no wait and we could sit outside.

It was so awesome to see thousands of people limping all over the city throughout the day with their medals hanging proudly from their necks. I seriously admire anyone who can run a marathon, or even a mini marathon for that matter. I can barely run 1 mile, so to run 26.2 and still be out walking around, eating lunch, shopping... well that's just amazing to me.

The Marathon was basically perfect this year which is what I think everyone needed and hoped for after last year. It was awesome to get to be a part of it and witness something that is such a big part of Boston's history and culture!