Food....Family.... And a cozy apartment.

This past week we were lucky enough to have AJ's mom visit us in Boston. 

It was so nice to have a family member here with us. 

These past few months have been especially hard being away from family...

I never thought it was going to be easy moving to Boston... but sometimes you don't realize how hard something is until you actually do it.  

The beautiful thing is that on the other hand, sometimes you don't realize how much you learn and grow until you do something really hard.

 I can honestly say that moving to Boston is one of the hardest things I've ever done... hands down. 

This Thanksgiving I realized just how grateful I am for family.  

I've always been thankful for my family... but this year on Thanksgiving it became very real to me.  

I don't think I will ever take my family for granted in the future because I know how hard it is when I don't get to see them whenever I please. 

In addition to being thankful for my family this Thanksgiving, I am also grateful for: my sweet husband, good friends, memories, new adventures, opportunities to learn, the gospel, a place to live, caring people, delicious food, a healthy body... the list goes on and on.  

I read a quote the other day that I really love! It states: 

"Gratitude unlocks the fulness of life. 

It turns what we have into enough and more. 

It turns denial into acceptance, 

chaos into order, 

confusion into clarity. 

It can turn a meal into a feast, 

a house into a home, 

a stranger into a friend. 

Gratitude makes sense of our past, 

brings peace for today, 

and creates a vision for tomorrow." 

-Melody Beattie

For Thanksgiving, AJ invited one of his classmates over for dinner because she doesn't have any family here in Boston and so she was originally going to be spending Thanksgiving alone. 

We were happy to have her! 

Ze bird. 

I coated the inside of the turkey with butter, thyme, garlic, salt & pepper. 

Then I covered the outside with mayonnaise (a trick I learned from my sister-in-law a couple years ago.)

We had turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, green beans, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, pumpkin pie, and apple pie! Thanksgiving dinner done right.

I definitely overestimated how much food we were going to need for the four of us! Our refrigerator is jam packed as a result!!

While my mother-in-law was visiting, she agreed that our apartment needed a little something in order to make it feel more cozy.  So.... we went out and bought some curtains! 

I can't even tell you how happy I am to finally have some curtains in our apartment! Even though it seems so trivial... it really makes a big difference in my opinion.

Tah-dah! Yay for curtains!

And there you have it.... our home for now.

It's amazing how much of a difference it makes when your apartment feels a little more cozy and comfortable.... especially when you are so far away from home.

It makes it a nice place to come home to every night.  

Last night we ate dinner in the North End at an Italian restaurant called Lucca. 

  The food was so delicious!!

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

So there are definitely days that I come home from work completely stressed out from everything I do all day!

But other days, I get to do fun things like this…..

 

It's a birthday calendar for everyone at my work!!

It’s pretty awesome when you get paid to do crafts at work! :)

Another fun thing I am currently doing at work is planning the company Christmas party!!

When I first found out I was going to be in charge of planning the party, I was ECSTATIC!

I love planning these types of things… especially when it comes to Christmas festivities, however….

Lately it has been stressful because I am realizing that it is impossible to please everyone!

So many of my co-workers having been coming up to me and giving suggestions of what they want to do (which is fine), but I obviously can’t make everyone happy. 

So I decided to do what I thought made the most sense…. Take a vote!

The majority of people voted that they wanted to do the party at a restaurant and rent out a banquet room.  I’m really excited because I think it’s going to be a lot of fun!

We are going to do raffle prizes, a white elephant gift exchange, and an employee trivia game.  There are only 14 employees where I work and we all know each other pretty well so I figured a trivia game would be fun to learn things about people that we don't know.

Wish me luck!! There is A TON of pressure involved with planning a company party! 

Yay for Christmas though! I CANNOT wait to go home to visit for Christmas!!!

I already gave my mom all the details of what I want to do while we're visiting.... pretty much down to the hour. :) I can't help it.... I'm just so excited!

Harvard Hockey Game!!

Well I'm still alive!

Haven't blogged in a while.... I've been a busy busy bee. 

Work has been busy... and life in general. 

Everything is swell though so I can't complain. :)

  So last night AJ and I went to a Harvard hockey game!!

My boss had tickets that he wasn't going to be able to use so he gave them to me.... and they were FRONT ROW seats! 

It was really cool because it was a first for both of us...

and we were sitting right along the glass.

I got scared a couple of times though when the hockey players got slammed against the glass right in front of us! 

At one point, all the players broke into a big fight (which isn't allowed in college hockey games) so they ended up throwing a couple of the players out of the game.  

So anyway, it was a super fun night and I learned that hockey is INTENSE!!

AJ watching the game intensely. :) 

One last thing I want to mention.... I LOVE public transportation here in Boston! 

Last night we just hopped right on the bus and it dropped us off in front of Harvard.  

We never have to worry about finding a parking spot....

not to mention it ends up saving us a lot of money!

It's great. :)

Baking Adventures

Like many other bakers, I get a little wrapped up in pumpkin during the fall months.  I can’t help it… I love everything with pumpkin in it!

Now, AJ isn’t much of a pumpkin fan…. Which is both good and bad for me! It’s good because it means more for me… and it’s bad for the exact same reason. :)

This past week I made  pumpkin chocolate chip bread and I was surprised at how good it turned out considering my oven doesn't even have a temperature gauge or thermometer!!! Yep that’s right…. I have to GUESS what temperature I think my oven is at whenever I use it.  (See below)  It gets really annoying because I have to check on everything I bake and cook every two minutes to make sure it's not burning.  Needless to say…. It makes baking very difficult!

 I was on Skype with my mom and brother earlier today and I was trying to show and explain to them how my stove consists of just knobs without temperature gauges and they got a real good laugh!!! My mom thought it was absolutely hilarious that I have to guess what temperature my oven is at! 

Since AJ doesn’t like pumpkin and I cannot afford to eat two whole loaves by myself, I took one of the loaves to work and everyone loved it! 

I think the bread was a success given the challenges I ran into! :)

Fall is in the air...

Fall is my favorite time of the year!!

I love everything about it. 

I love waking up to the crisp chill in the air... I love baking fall treats (aka everything pumpkin).... I love the fall leaves... I love wearing boots and scarves again... I love everything about it!

Yesterday AJ and I took a drive up through New Hampshire to see all the fall leaves and it was absolutely beautiful! New Hampshire has some decent sized mountains and it felt a lot like home to me. The weather could not have been more perfect... it was high 70's low 80's with a slight breeze the whole day.  It's been so cold in Boston recently so it felt really nice to have warm weather again! 

Here are some pictures from our New Hampshire adventure! Oh and we decided we officially love New Hampshire because they have no state taxes and their state motto is "Live Free or Die"... Haha. 

It's on all the New Hampshire license plates. How awesome is that?!

I was impressed with the mountains here... they obviously aren't like the Rockies but they are big for the East Coast!

Love & Don't Love

Now that we have officially been living in Boston for 36 days now, I thought I would make a list of all the things I really love about Boston and the things I don't love as much....

LOVE 

1.All the houses & neighborhoods are so cute & unique.... it feels a lot like Europe in that way. (I could be entertained for days by just walking around through the adorable neighborhoods)

2. There are so many delicious places to eat. There are hardly any chain restaurants... most of the places are quaint little cafes or small restaurants and many of them are family-owned.

3. There are lots of young people here

4. Everyone here constantly walks, bikes, jogs, etc (you really don't need a car)

5. It is so GREEN everywhere you go (especially outside of Boston.... the freeways and streets are lined with greenery and it's gorgeous!)

6. Downtown Boston.... it's such a lively place and there's always so much going on! I really love working downtown. 

7. Shopping in Boston!! There are tons of options as far as shopping goes here!

8. There is always so much to do here (especially at night--everything stays open really late)

9. You get to meet so many cool and different people every day

10. There are SO many opportunities for missionary work!! The other day I was talking to a taxi driver and he had heard of the "Mormons" but didn't know a lot about the church.  I had the opportunity to tell him a little bit about what we believe and it was such a great experience! He mentioned how he has seen the LDS temple in Boston and thought it was beautiful! But he had one question for me...."Who is the man standing at the top of the temple with a trumpet and what in the world is he announcing??" haha I thought that was pretty funny! I told him that the man's name is Moroni and that I didn't know if he was announcing anything in particular but that I would find out! :) Good times! 

11. Boston is very old and there is so much history here

12. Public transportation is awesome and SO easy to use (it was definitely scary at first but I'm getting the hang of it)

13. The support system in our ward is awesome! Everyone is so great and most of the people in our ward are in the same boat we're in (young people going to school/working/etc)

DON'T LOVE

1. Traffic (at ALL times of the day)

2. Humidity... my clothes never feel fully clean and I constantly feel like I need to take a shower!

3. Everything is EXPENSIVE!! From housing to groceries, everything is a lot more expensive in Boston.  Just to give you an idea, a gallon of milk costs $4.19 here.  That's a lot considering I'm used to paying $2.09 at the Wal-Mart in Utah. 

4. I don't have any family in Boston :( 

5. There is no Cafe Rio 

6. Pretty much everybody here drinks and so when you tell them that you don't drink alcohol, they simply can't believe it! They are either really confused or they consider it unfortunate that you don't drink. ;)

Well, that's it for now.  I'm sure my love/don't love list will continue to grow the longer I live here. 

This is where I work.... in the heart of downtown Boston.  Pretty neat huh?!

These pictures don't do the neighborhoods here justice... but you can get an idea of what some of the neighborhoods are like here.  I love it!