Lately

Last month my step-mom's aunt and uncle (Jim & Fran) were visiting Cape Cod, so they drove into the city to meet us for lunch. We ate at the Union Oyster House, which is America's oldest (still-operating) restaurant - really cool place with good food. The Kennedy's ate there often and we sat right across from "The Kennedy Booth". This is a picture of us at lunch - Jim and Fran are next to me and their traveling buddies are next to Brian.

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We had a picnic and went hiking in the Arnold Arboretum with our friends Ben and Tara.

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Thankfully I had the weekend of our anniversary off. So, we celebrated our 1st anniversary by taking a little trip (in our fabulous new car) to Portsmouth, NH. It's a cute little town on the harbor, right next to Maine. We just walked around the town, shopping in the cute stores, went to Kittery, Maine for a lobster dinner (for Brian), and got hour long massages the next day. We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel and they left us some nice chocolate covered strawberries and champagne. On our way home, we drove through New Castle, NH, which is apparently the smallest town in NH and is entirely on islands. We saw some of the cutest houses there - I could move there in a second! Unfortunately we were focused on driving and I didn't get many pictures though. To end our trip, we stopped to have dinner at Hibachi Japanese Steakhouse. It was just like being back home :) We are certain there are places like these in Boston - we just haven't found them yet. Here are some pictures from our anniversary trip:

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I had to work on the 4th of July in the evening, so we had a picnic lunch in the park with our friends Chris and Cate. We also were housesitting the beagles, Lily & Molly over the weekend, which is A LOT easier to do with a car now. Their house is about 15 min walk from the subway stop, so it was kind of a pain getting there before.

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Lastly, I've been working a ton! After our anniversary weekend, I worked 8 days straight (between VA and Whidden) and then had 1 day off before starting a row of 12 work days. On my day off, we went downtown and wandered around as usual. We went to a cupcake shop that we've heard lots about and got mini cupcakes which were amazing. Then we walked on the bridge over the Charles River - it was a beautiful summer day in Boston. To end the fun on my day off, we had dinner at a nice modern restaurant in Newton (something we couldn't do before because we didn't have a car). So, now I am on day 3 of my 12 day stretch. Things are going really well at work - I am officially working on my own, no more orientation at the VA. I am working as an RN for real now - 2.5 yrs after getting my license! HA! And I only have 3 more days of orientation at Whidden and then I will be working per diem there. So, things are going very well over here!!