December Activities

A couple Sundays ago we met Caleb & Robyn (and her sister, Becky) for breakfast in Cambridge. We were connected to Robyn through Brian's teacher Tracy from LMU (but she went to BC as well) - Tracy and Robyn are cousins and Robyn recently moved here with her husband - they're very nice!! When we got off the subway, we were shocked to see the stairs/escalator climb up to the street. This is a picture from the bottom of the first set of stairs/escalators (the second one was shorter).

I am working on a little class project for St. Norbert School for my flower girls' class. They read a story about Flat Stanley, so I colored him and put him in his winter clothes and have been taking him with me places. This is us going down the giant escalator.

A few days later, we went to a Christmas party at one of Brian's teachers' house in Newton. Her students turn in their papers at the party, which is probably a great way to get more people to turn them in on time. It was starting to snow a little on our way home, but it was tough to take a picture of since it was very light (but I tried anyway, pic on the right).

Then we stopped to take a picture at the entrance of BC on our way home. Like I said before, everything is so nicely decorated for Christmas!! :)
Lastly, this is our little "Christmas Tree" that we got for our apartment. It is actually rosemary, but it was cheaper than the mini pine trees, and it's edible! :) We put just 2 little ornaments on it because it can't hold much weight, so these 2 are from Dawn in 2007 and are perfect on our little tree.

Catching up

On November 20, Faneuil Hall had their 26th annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony, so we went to check it out. All the trees were lit, there were street performers, and live music. The Christmas Tree was huge!! We just walked around the shops and then ate dinner in the North End at La Galleria 33 - yum!


I will be posting many more pictures of Christmastime here in Boston, hopefully with some snow on the ground too! We have been walking around a lot and I've seen a lot of cute decorations and lights, but never have my camera of course.

Other things over the past few weeks that are notable are the meals we have had with friends. I met Kate at Panera in Brookline during thanksgiving week - she and Conor are getting married this weekend! The night before thanksgiving Daryn & Nichole came over and we went and ate at Harry's Bar down the street. We went to dinner a couple Sundays ago with Maggi, a girl from Orange County who is now going to Harvard Divinity School. Kirsten connected us, but Maggi also knows Pam, Teresa O., and Megan. We had dinner at an Irish pub called Mr. Dooley's downtown. They had live music and the food was great - very cute, fun atmosphere. I also went out last week for lunch at Quotes Cafe to meet a girl named Stephanie. I was connected to Stephanie through Katie, another bridesmaid from Kate's wedding last month. Kate, Katie, and Stephanie all went to USC, but Katie went to New York for some time which is where Stephanie is from. Stephanie did her undergrad here in Boston and now is back here living with her boyfriend. She is an occupational therapist in New Jersey and works with babies, which was really fascinating to learn about. We have been very blessed to be able to meet so many wonderful people here in our new town.

Now onto the weather - here are some pictures to show the progression of the trees in our "backyard" (view from the kitchen window). Green --> yellow/orange --> brown --> bare!
We have a huge pile of leaves on the ground outside our bedroom window from all these trees over the past month. Pretty much all the trees (and bushes) around here are bare now - its sort of sad, yet interesting to think that they are still "alive". Loving the seasons here, as we approach winter. On the news today they said today is the coldest day of the season (fall, since winter starts in a couple weeks). It was 23 this morning, but "felt like" 10 degrees (which is all that really matters!). The wind sure does make a difference, but we are enjoying it & having fun, especially now that we have all our gear (long underwear, beanies, gloves, scarves, ear muffs, jackets, boots, etc.). Next post will hopefully include some snow, which is coming soon!!! :)

Thanksgiving

We had such a wonderful thanksgiving with our new friends here in Boston. We woke up and began baking pumpkin spice cookies and we also made a green bean casserole (pic on right) to bring to our thanksgiving potluck. Around 2:30, Angel & Dan came and picked us up and we headed to Ashland to have dinner at Josh & Amanda's super cute condo! Angel & Dan brought a pumpkin cheesecake that was delicious and also mac n' cheese, and our lovely hosts took care of the turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry sauce - all homemade! I think this was the first time we had homemade stuffing and it was very good!

Top: Josh & Amanda Bottom: Dan & Angel

The Saturday following Thanksgiving we went over to Deb's apartment in Coolidge Corner/Brookline. Deb is dating Kevin, who is a colleague of Brian's and is in his 4th year of the program (this is them on the right). There was another couple there (John & Suzanna) who have been married almost 15 years. She is from Finland and he is from Seattle and is his 5th year of Brian's program. Also at the table was Deb's roommate Yvonne, who is from Germany. We had a lot of fun just sitting and talking with them all evening, and the food was awesome - Deb did most of it. We brought some of our cookies as well as dinner rolls from Trader Joe's. John also made some awesome butternut squash soup.

Since we also had thanksgiving back in California we had 3 thanksgiving meals and all of them were absolutely wonderful!!!

First visit back to Cali!

It has been a while since my last post, so I will do my best in recapping the last month. We started November by going back to California for 2 weddings and to visit family and friends. We were very busy during our stay there, but it was so great seeing everyone!! And both of the weddings were absolutely gorgeous! My bridesmaid, Kate, a friend from nursing school, was the first wedding and I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. It was such a fun day!! I had never met some of the other bridesmaids and the groomsmen, but they are a great bunch. Kate's wedding was very elegant and the setting couldn't have been more perfect - at San Juan Capistrano Mission and then to the Laguna Cliffs resort in Dana Point for the reception! Congrats to Mr. & Mrs. Bullock - and thank you for letting us share in your special day!

Our second wedding was for one of our groomsmen, Evan, a high school buddy of Brian's. This may have been the most extravagant wedding I have ever been to (and probably ever will). The ceremony was at our church, San Antonio, and Brian and I did the Prayers of the Faithful (petitions), which I was so nervous to do (I hate microphones!!). However, I think we did a great job!! The reception was at the beautiful Nixon Library, where there were 3 bars during cocktail hour, not to mention a live musician as well as a painter!! Also, the table centerpieces were out of this world!

The flower arrangements were absolutely beautiful. The one below was by the cake/dessert table, but they were also on the altar at the church. Gorgeous!

We tried to spend as much time as we could with our families while we were home. We met my grandma, aunt and mom for breakfast one morning (left). My dad's side of the family had a thanksgiving dinner for us while we were home, which was so nice! Somehow I forgot to take pictures though! We also had lunch with Brian's family too. The picture on the right is of balloons outside Pam's house - she always decorates for her guests! She and her family had a lovely dinner for us!! Also during our time in CA I was able to visit with some of my lovely nursing buddies!!!

Sari, Caroline & Me

Krystin (& Noah), Katie, Pami, Erin, Me, & Tiffany

That just about sums up our trip back in California. It was so much fun and we really enjoyed the weather! We left Boston at 6:00 am at 34 degrees and arrived in Los Angeles around lunch time where it was about 100 degrees!!! It was great! We were peeling off all our layers. :) We were happy to be there for some record breaking November temps, but it was only for the first couple days. We also got to drive again! We were so excited for that - we thought we were going to forget how to drive, but of course we didn't! It was nice having the freedom you get with a car, but we spent so much on gas and that we do not miss. :) Lastly, our time catching up with friends was wonderful and we were able to see our pregnant friends "showing" their baby bellies now!! This is me with the beautiful mommy-to-be, Emily!

Our first dinner guests!

Last month we went to Daryn & Nichole's house for dinner so we thought it was time for us to have them over at our place. Conor and Kate also asked to hang out on Friday night so they came over as well. These were our first guests over for dinner and I think the night went very well!!! I made homemade lasagna (which Brian and I thought tasted really good) and Brian put together a Caesar salad and garlic bread. We cleaned up the house on Friday and it looked awesome! It was our first time pulling our kitchen table away from the wall so that we could all 6 sit. We knew our kitchen was small, but it was REALLY tight with all of us at the table. I liked it though. :) As we were sitting at the table with our new friends I just thought to myself that this is happiness! I was so happy to have them over and getting to know them better. They are all wonderful people and it is so fun that Daryn & Nichole were just married in August and Kate & Conor are getting married in December, so we have lots of fun wedding stuff we can talk about too. I didn't get any pictures of our dinner or guests, but these are a couple of the kitchen table. :)

On Saturday, we met Angel & Dan at Parish Cafe downtown for lunch where we also met their friends Amanda & Josh. They are from Virgina (and were actually at the BC vs. VT game we went to) and they moved here a couple years ago - Dan and Josh work together. We enjoyed our lunch at another great restaurant and then we walked over to the bowling alley. My first two frames were strikes! I was so shocked! Josh won the first game with a 144 I think (and I had a 142 I believe) and I won the next game with a 108. My total for both games was the highest with a 250! :) Brian was bowling really well too! We had fun, but our lane needed repairs - we had to go to the counter all the time because the pins wouldn't set up or they got stuck in the back or something. At least they gave us all free shoe rentals because of it! That was a $8 savings per couple :)

After bowling we walked over to the Boston Vegetarian Food Festival. I found out about it a few weeks ago when looking up things to do, so I thought we should check it out. It was free and we got free samples and tastings. It was fun - it was our healthy trick-or-treating!! :) After Amanda and Josh left, we walked around some more with Dan and Angel and then we left. They walked to the nearby subway station and we waited for the bus which was right outside the building (Brian pointed out that we were at that stop from when we came home from the zoo). So we waited, but then decided maybe we would go back in and buy some vegan pizza for dinner. By the time we got to that table it was gone, so we just walked around once more and sampled a few more things and then left, making it JUST in time for the bus! Perfect!

We ended up going to mass at 8pm at St. Clement Shrine. Brian and I were comfortable in what we were wearing except our faces and ears were freezing!! I believe it was about 37 degrees out at the time (the low that night was going to be 31). Mass was nice - another great homily by Fr. Peter!! It is pretty amazing how many young adults go to that church - I would say that mass had about 93% young adults!! Pretty cool. Unfortunately, it took us so long to get home because the subways were all so busy going in our direction - must be due to halloween although we didn't see too many people dressed up.

We had another wonderful weekend!! The trees are looking amazing, but the leaves are falling quickly it seems. I am worried that there won't be many more on the trees by the time we come home from our trip back to California. We leave on Wednesday to go back home and we are so excited to see our family and friends!! Our days are jam packed with get-togethers, including 2 weddings, but we are looking forward to it!!

Loving Boston!

It's been a while since I have posted so this will likely be a longer post. A couple weekends ago, we went to a party (more of a gathering) in Newton with some of Brian's colleagues from the doctoral program. It didn't start until 8pm, so we were going to try to get there a little after that, but by the time we wrote down all the directions and figured out our route(s) to and from the house, it was almost 9 when we were left our place. Thus, we missed our 2nd bus and the next one wasn't for an hour, so we decided to just walk (about 40 minutes through quiet, dark residential areas). We enjoyed our walk - it was a chilly fall night, but we got to see some new places and the smells were lovely. We stayed for about 1.5 hours, but we never moved from the house foyer! We didn't even make it out onto the porch where another group of people were. I met a lot more of Brian's classmates and their significant others, which was great. There were a couple girls there who are getting their Master's in nursing (to be Nurse Practitioners), so I really enjoyed talking with them. Then a lovely couple, Ben & Tara, drove us home which was so nice! I wish I could take more pictures for you, but it's just not right yet...once I get to know people a little better. :)

That Sunday, we went to 8pm mass at St. Clement's, which is a little further into town, but it is very easily accessible. I love that they have a 8pm mass - that would be great for nurses who work days from 7a-7p. Right after mass they have adoration, which is great too! The priest, Fr. Peter, gave the best homily that I have heard in a while! This is a little excerpt from it:

"When I anoint someone in the hospital I also bring a bottle of oil so everyone can see it. I tell them that back in the time of Christ, the most important item in your house was not the cat, nor your wallet. It was olive oil. Not only was it food, it was also your health care system. You could put it on your body and you could put it in your body. There is something about olive oil. Olive trees are very durable. You can't seem to kill them. A bottle of olive oil spells longevity. When the farmers harvest olives, they never pick all the olives from the tree. They always leave the olives on the lowest branches. Why? Then someone could go by and pick them. That is exactly why. All the widows and the poor in the village knew that those olives were left for them. It was the farmers' way of telling God, that they were grateful for providing the most important thing in their home. It was their way of telling God that their thanks were not just empty words. The leper who went back to thank our Lord let Jesus know that his thanks was not just empty words. We too have to remember to thank our Lord not just with lips but with deeds as well."

We decided to go back there this past weekend on Sunday, but at the 11am mass instead since that is when Jen and her fiance go. Fr. Peter gave another great homily, which I felt was directed to me right now. He talked about "the waiting room", which is a period of time while you are waiting for something great to come along and during this time it's what you do that builds character! This was so powerful to me since I am currently in a "waiting room" for a wonderful job. After mass, Jen usually goes out for lunch with a small group, but she had marriage prep instead, so Brian and I decided to hit up Newbury street for some winter gear. We stopped first at Patagonia and bought Brian a nice jacket and some pants, then we ate lunch at Sonsie (so good!!!), and over to The North Face we went. There we got some snow sneakers for Brian and I got a jacket. Then we just walked down Newbury street, went Olive Oil tasting, sampled some gelato (I tried sweet potato, which was actually pretty good) and eventually headed home.

The day before, Saturday, we went to lunch at Aquitaine in the South End and met Angel & Dan there. We had to wait about 45 minutes for a table, but it was worth it! They have $10 brunch all day on Saturday and you get a good amount of food. After our lunch, we walked around a bit (it was pretty chilly!) and then went to see The Town, which we really liked. It was fun to watch it and recognize certain places/things since it was about Boston/Charlestown. Definitely a movie to see if you haven't done so yet. Then we headed home and while we were on the subway, Brian got a message about some classmates meeting at a restaurant really close to our apartment called "Joshua Tree", so we stopped by there on our way home. We had dinner there, which was also very good, and had a wonderful time hanging out and getting to know people. There was about 8 of us total there, but we primarily talked to one couple, Conor and Kate, who I just met at the party the previous weekend. Kate is one of the nursing girls in the master's program at Mass Gen. She and Conor are getting married in December and so we have a lot of things in common that we can talk about. They're really nice.

We are really enjoying Boston! We are getting to know so many wonderful people from all over the country! We have friends from Florida, Colorado, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Indiana, and even Canada! Some people don't even have cell phones, which is a huge change from OC where 99.9% of the population has a cell phone, with a large percentage of people having iPhones! Everywhere we have eaten has been fantastic! There are so many places to eat around here and very few of them are big name restaurants, which makes it even more fun/better!

Lastly, the trees are beginning to change color and it's absolutely beautiful!! I love the weather here right now, especially now that we are prepared for the cold. :)

Our Weekend

Thursday Brian and I ran some errands downtown and I bought my first pair of quality rain boots! So exciting! I was happy to see it raining on Friday so that I could wear them. :)

Brian spent all day Friday at school for a colloquium and meeting for a presentation he has on Monday with Nichole. I headed over to BC around 3:00 to read in the library until they were done with their meeting. Then, Nichole and her husband, Daryn (who is in another class of Brian's), drove us to their house in Waltham to have dinner. Authentic Tacos with homemade tortillas!! It was great!! We hung out there for a few hours and had a really great time getting to know them. We then walked our way to the bus stop where we had to wait about 40 minutes for the bus and then we got lost transitioning between bus connections. I was so frustrated that google maps doesn't give you the connecting route and to make matters worse, the intersection was for 6 roads so we had no clue which to walk down AND it was raining. We eventually asked a bus driver where our pick up location was and he told us "over the bridge and across the street". As we were waiting to cross the street (because here in Boston you never know when the walk sign will turn green [they have a horrible system here, surprisingly since its such a pedestrian city]), we saw the bus we needed to get on just pulling away from the stop. We at least knew now where we needed to be, but had to wait about 30 more minutes for the next one. Ay yi yi. It was a learning experience...

The theology department was having a retreat this weekend, but we decided to just go up for the day on Saturday so that Brian could get some homework done. He arranged for us to get a ride with a classmate named Jen who lives pretty close by. She picked us up around 4 and we made our way to the Jesuit retreat center in Cohasset. We got lost quite a few times on the way (even with 2 sets of directions), but we finally made it there just in time for dinner and the sun setting beautifully on the water. This retreat center was absolutely gorgeous! Such a peaceful place to spend some time and the house was quite impressive too. We stayed until about 8:3o or so socializing and getting to know people and then headed home. We had such a great time and met some really neat people. The way home went much quicker because we took the freeway, but then we hit a ton of traffic due to a Red Sox game, but we enjoyed talking to Jen and getting to know her too.

Sunday we went to St. Ignatius for mass, but we went at 10:00 for the first time. Daryn and Nichole were there - she was teaching confirmation after mass and then Brian and her were meeting at 12:30 to go over their presentation once more. It was fun to be at mass and see a familiar face - since we used to know so many people at San Antonio masses.

It's been a lot of fun getting to know people and picking their brains on attire and preparations for the winter. Most of the people we have met are from all over - Florida, Colorado, Canada, Minnesota, but almost all of them have lived or at least been to California at some point in their lives. In addition, Daryn & Nichole just got married in August, Angel & Dan were married in April, and Jen just got engaged. Just some fun little observations :)

It has been getting much colder lately! It was in the upper 50's when we were in Cohasset by the water, but then when we left for church at 9:45 am it was 50 degrees out. However, my husband still decided to wear shorts and a t-shirt, but I was bundled up with boots, scarf and jacket.

We had such a nice weekend and it was fun to see some different areas of Massachusetts...and by car!! It's totally different, but increased my fear of driving here. The streets here are ridiculous and their signage is horrible! I will definitely need a GPS once I start driving here, which hopefully won't be anytime too soon (although I do miss the convenience and freedom of my own vehicle). For now, I will stick to the public transportation, which is kinda fun. :)

More Creative Dinners

It's been a while since my last food post, so I thought I would share with you some of the things we've been cooking.

Broccoli, spinach and potato soup


Spinach and green pea rice with chicken


Used the last of my apple picking apples to make Cinnamon Apple Chips


Nothing like homemade pesto! Yummy!!

Walnut & date wild rice and mashed sweet potatoes
(this one started out good, but half way through we were not feeling it anymore. The sweet potatoes were supposed to be a soup, but I decided to not add more water and keep them mashed. The potatoes went nicely mixed with the wild rice, but that rice is just so hard to work with.)

Pretty much every week we try to soak some kind of dry bean that we will use throughout the week. This week we decided to use garbanzo beans (chickpeas), which is definitely different from the usual black or pinto beans. So, to start I made homemade hummus, but it wasn't quite as good as the store bought ones. And then we have tried incorporating the garbanzos into our weekly meals:

Walnut & Raisin Waldorf Salad and a chickpea quinoa with almonds and raisins

Spiced chicken with garbanzo beans along with a yogurt sauce
and some sweet potatoes & peas

Spinach and garbanzo beans with thyme butternut squash
(We ate out for lunch at an Italian place across the street, which was really yummy and then we went out for a few hours running errands. When we got home Brian was craving a huge mound of spinach, so this is what I did with his mound haha)