Visits with friends and family

Since living in Boston, we have had a few friends to come out for a visit. First there was Becky. Becky got me to go on my first adventure to Target. It isn't always easy to get around here in Boston. The T system is pretty cool, but can be a little slow. It took us about an hour and a half to get to Target. We had to change T lines once and then had to wait on a sketchy bus to drop us off in the Target parking lot. It was funny because when we got on the bus and sat down, neither of us leaned back in our seats because we wanted as little of that bus as possible touching us.

Next there was Jessie. Jessie and I got out and explored Charlestown, the Museum of Fine Art, and, of course, the Crocs store.

Then, came Daniel. Daniel moved here to go to Tufts University, and I know him from my days in Hattiesburg, MS. It rained a lot while he was staying with us, but we did get to go out and enjoy St. Anthony's Feast in the North End.

After all of our guests left, I went on a little trip to Seattle. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see all of my friends (Sorry, Jill, Cory, Rachel, Jori - although I think Jori was out of town - CHRISTMAS, for sure!!). It was really sad being there without Brian...packing our stuff and closing out that chapter of our lives. But, it was nice seeing family and the friends I did get to see. Oh yeah, and the awesome new house Brian's parents just built!!

Rebekah and Crystal

Gina

Chelsea and Christine

Moving day :(

Our sad, empty condo that needs someone to buy it.

Stella

Leo

Isaac

The gigantic house

Trip to da 'Sip

I started this blog a while back. I added some pics, and was going to write about them, but never did. I guess I'll finish this one and start another. Now that we are moved into our new place and we have nice and fast internet, maybe I'll blog more.

Below are pics from my trip home in August. I can't believe that it has been so long ago now!

My Mamaw has a farm, and we went to see all of the animals.

Jen, the donkey.

Cows

The big red barn

Mamaw, posing with one of the barn cats. She loves the camera!

Sweet E. She, too, loves the camera!

The rest of the trip was basically made up of relaxing, and visiting friends and family...and of course, taking pictures of Emme (I threw in a couple of pics of my mom and my friend's little girl too so that you wouldn't think i was TOTALLY obsessed with my niece).

Emme at the lake

My sweet Mama

Emme and the crazy messy "rainbow" ice cream that tasted just like vanilla!

Emme and Emma

Bahston - the first few days

So, it's Sunday morning, and Brian and I have been in Boston now for a month. It is crazy how time flies. We went for a walk yesterday around the city, and I asked Brian, "Do you feel like you live here yet?" He thought about it for a minute, and said that he does. I can't say the same yet. I think it is because we don't have any of our stuff here, and I don't have a job yet. Hopefully once we get out of corp housing and into a space we can make our own, it will feel more like home.

Because I got my camera fixed, and I have put a few of my photos on my computer, I'll go ahead and write about the end of our trip.

We packed our bags in the Adirondacks, and left, bound for Boston, Massachusetts. We decided to take a more scenic route because A) it was a more scenic route, and B) we couldn't check into our corp housing until after 3pm. I am so happy we made that decision. I had no idea how beautiful of a drive it would be. We had to hop on a ferry in order to start our scenic drive, and so we boarded the Ft. Ticonderoga Ferry. It has officially been operating since 1799.

Waiting to drive onto the ferry:

While on the ferry, if we had any "CHILOREN" we would have had to watch them. But, no CHILOREN for us yet...

On our way on the ferry across Lake Champlain to Vermont, we could have bought some Vermont Maple Syrup. I am kind of regretting the fact that we didn't jump on that opportunity.

Finally, the ferry arrives in Vermont!

We drove through Vermont and passed lots of pretty farms and the Norman Rockwell Museum. We stopped for lunch at the White Cottage in Woodstock, VT.

As I write this, and go through our pics, I realize that I didn't take a single picture of New Hampshire. When we go up there this fall (I say "when" because I am going to MAKE Brian take me to see the fall foliage), I will take lots of pics.

After much anticipation and many loooooooooong days of driving, we made it to our new city.

The state welcomed us...

Our first glimpse of Boston...

I don't think I mentioned it through the blog, but I do love our GPS. While we used our maps a few times, the GPS got us here.

Part of the "Big Dig"...

We got to our corp housing, and parked the car in a 30 minute space so that we could check into the housing and ask where we could park the car for the evening. We drove from Seattle to Boston without getting the first speeding or parking ticket. We were in our new city for less than 30 minutes and got a parking ticket. Welcome to Boston!

Brian standing in front of our apartment building before he found out about the ticket... (I wish I would have taken an "after" picture - it wasn't cute).

Our apartment...

The view from our windows...

We are currently looking for places to rent. While living downtown has its advantages (close to all of the "T" stations, lots of restaurants and shopping, walking distance to the North End - Boston's Little Italy), it is VERY tourist-y. It has been a great place to start since we have been able to walk around easily and explore our first month here. I can't wait to see where we end up next!

The great ice cream challenge

Until my camera is fixed, I can't post any pics from Boston, but I thought I would share with you a little challenge Brian decided that we should take on during our trip...find the best ice cream in America (or in the states we went through and saw little ice cream stands). We weren't sure what the rules would be. We debated for a while...should we stick with one flavor? Would that flavor be vanilla? Chocolate? Do we do add ons like nuts or sprinkles? We had A LOT of time on the road to discuss it. We finally decided on ice cream. Just that simple. Whatever looked good at the time, we would order it.

We started in Walla Walla, WA where we had fresh strawberry ice cream. It was homemade and was quite tasty, but was a little to icy and not very creamy. The flavor was good though. We forgot the camera that night, so no pic :(

The next time we got ice cream was in Butte, MT. It was at the restaurant where we got the bad beer. We didn't have high hopes, but decided to go for it anyway. They didn't have just ice cream on the menu, so we got a dessert that had ice cream in it. It was vanilla ice cream...nice and creamy. It tasted like the ice cream I used to get as a kid that had the wooden spoon that came with it. It was definitely a contender.

From there, we drove down winding two lane highways to Yellowstone National Park. Along the way, we found a little ice cream shop and decided to stop in even though it was only 10:30 in the morning. We got plain vanilla there too. Nice and creamy, but very much just your standard vanilla ice cream. Not bad, but not a winner either.

We had to skip a couple of places. Alli was going to take us to eat ice cream in Billings, but unfortunately, we just didn't have time. We had so much fun though, it didn't matter that we missed out on ice cream...plus, we had great ribs!

Our next ice cream adventure was on the way to Mt. Rushmore. We were driving through this little town, and saw that they were selling homemade ice cream at the local antique store. While we didn't find anything to take to the Antiques Road Show, we did find some darn good ice cream. Brian got the "Black Hills Gold." It was chocolate ice cream with fudge, caramel, and butterfingers. I got the vanilla version of the same ice cream. DE-LISH!!! It was the top runner of the trip so far.

Next stop on the ice cream adventure was Chicago. We walked around for a while looking for ice cream, but didn't find anything. Finally after looking around - walking through the city in HEELS - we asked someone where we could find the closest ice cream shop. Once we were pointed in the right direction, we found it. Only, it wasn't ice cream, it was fro-yo. Fine...frozen yogurt could probably ease the pain that was radiating through my feet. Well, I was wrong. We got chocolate/strawberry fro-yo. It was disgusting. So, I had sore feet and a bad taste in my mouth. That soon would change...in a little town outside of Buffalo, NY.

We were on our way to Buffalo. It was a loooooooonnnnngggg drive through lots and lots of states. We both needed to take a little bio break when we spied a little ice cream shop called "Two Scoops". It was there that we found it. THE BEST ICE CREAM IN AMERICA (or at least the best we found on our trip across the country). The flavor was Birthday Bash. It consisted of cake batter ice cream, blue frosting and sprinkles.

**Sigh** - a little piece of heaven...

We tried more ice cream in other places too. Like, in the Adirondacks, after our long and sweaty hike. Brian ordered a medium, and I ordered a small. I really wonder what a large looks like...

Our final stop for ice cream was Woodstock, Vermont. It was a little place called the White Cottage. We stopped there for lunch, and grabbed ice cream too (well, Brian had a shake and that doesn't count in the contest). I had the cake batter ice cream. It had chocolate swirls and pieces of yellow cake in it. While it was good, it wasn't the best.

So, there you have it friends...if ever you want to eat the best ice cream in America (or at least in the states we went through), head towards Buffalo, New York. AND, since it is only a few hours from Boston, come by and see us too. Oh yeah, one word to the wise, if you like sprinkles like I do, note that they don't call them sprinkles on the east coast. The are called "jimmies." I learned that the hard way.