My apologies for not blogging more, and I am going to try to be better about it!! Here's a little update on the past couple months - I'll try to include lots of pictures.
- - - SEPTEMBER- - - 
My friend Alice from nursing school is in the Army and she was in Boston for a conference, so we met up for dinner. She brought a friend she met that day, Heath, who is also a nurse and in the Air Force. We had a lovely Italian dinner in the North End. It's always so good to meet up with friends from California!
Brian's dad came to visit and stayed for a week. Although I had to work a lot, we enjoyed having him here and Brian loved spending quality time with him. We wandered about Boston...
...we napped on Bunker Hill
(my first time here! Brian went when Daniel visited in May)
...and we walked the Battle Road in Lexington and Concord.
(A first for us all!)Brian & his dad also visited the Adams National Historical Park/House, which they really enjoyed.
- - - OCTOBER- - - We started off October by heading to
Cohasset, MA for a retreat for Theology doctoral students and their spouses/significant others'. The retreat house is right on the water and is the coziest house ever! There is nothing like drinking wine and sitting by the wood-burning fire, talking to
wonderful friends. It was a beautiful weekend with some beautiful people. We were very thankful that I was fortunate enough to get 3 days off in a row, allowing us to retreat for the entire weekend.
The picture on the left is me with two of our favorite couples - Conor & Kate, and Ben & Tara. We spent Saturday afternoon walking around the small town of Cohasset town and this is a pic of us eating some whoopie pies!
We came across a little obstacle in our path on the way back to the retreat house - the tide had come in, blocking the one road that leads to the house.
It was a wonderful weekend of relaxation, prayer, and fellowship. I really enjoyed getting to know some of Brian's classmates too. At the end of the retreat, we were helping clean things up (part of our youth ministry nature I guess) and we stumbled upon the biggest book ever! Look at that thing!
The wonderful Wintheiser's were visiting a friend in Cape Cod, so we drove down and had dinner with them. It was our first visit to
the Cape and it was a memorable one. Mike & Angie drove us around a bit and gave us a little tour of some of the Cape. It's beautiful down there and the beach was perfect (although it was quite windy and cold!). Here's a picture of us at the Chatham Lighthouse.
We went back to the house (which is the vacation home for Angie's childhood friend, Bev) and she and her husband were making a perfect lobster dinner. They had a lobster for everyone and one of them was a biggie! We held it while it was still alive and it was heavy!!! I want to say it was about 5 lbs? That was our first time holding a live lobster - thankfully his claws were still banded together!
Here is Mike with the lobster after it came out of the hot tub.
And the beautiful dinner table (by the way, she made the best homemade Caesar salad dressing EVER!)
After dinner we sat by the fire in the back - it was so peaceful and it felt like we were in the middle of the woods. It was such a wonderful evening!!!
Brian got sick the following week, which resulted in a trip to the ER one evening. He's been having chronic headaches for a while now and we were worried about meningitis when he woke
up with fatigue and stiff neck. The ER ruled out meningitis and sent him home with pain meds. The next day he had nausea and vomiting all day but thankfully started to feel better at the end of the night. He woke up the next day - still with the headache, but no more flu-like symptoms, so he headed to the airport to pick up Dick, our long time friend from youth ministry who came to spend the weekend with us. I worked the first day, so Brian took him around town. I was off the next couple days, so the first day we drove to New Hampshire to see some fall colors. We just
picked a random place on a map, drove there and found somewhere to have lunch. Then our friend Conor, who's from NH, suggested we drive to Mount Monadnock, so we went there and did some hiking. This is a picture from the top of the mountain...on the other side
you could see Boston on the horizon. It was a beautiful place for hiking and we saw some great fall foliage there. Afterwards, we headed to the Boston Seaport for seafood.
We had a great day.
The following day we went to see the Head of the Charles Regatta - an annual world rowing race that takes place on the Charles River in Cambridge. I was super excited because there were lots of vendors handing out free stuff/food, which ended up being our lunch that day. It was fun and I just love checking out events like this around Boston!
We then just wandered about Boston, looking in antique shops, strolling through the peaceful
Public Garden, and eating Italian dinner in the North End. After dinner, we went to the Top of the Hub, the 52nd floor of the Prudential Center for drinks...but we soon discovered that we could just get pictures of the view (what we really
wanted) without spending a dime. So instead, we headed to Finale, our favorite dessert place. A lovely ending to a lovely visit! :)
The last week of October was going to be spent with my grandparents visiting, but my grandma got sick and they couldn't make it afterall. :( So, this pretty much sums up September and October! We keep ourselves busy and are enjoying all that Boston has to offer (which is a lot!).
baptism and a little shower with some friends. We left Boston early on my birthday and arrived in Cali late afternoon - I got a couple birthday wishes at the airport and we got to board with the families on Southwest, which allowed us to sit together thankfully! So, I like to think that was my treat for flying on my birthday. :) 
Once we got settled in, we went to dinner with my mom's side of the family at the amazing Woodranch. Unfortunately my mom wasn't feeling too good, but it was just nice to be able to spend my birthday with family! We saw all the parents that first night in California!!! :)
