Xmas

Mom and Paige

While my mom was here from Nov 29th until Dec 6th we did a lot of fun things, but also met our cousin Paige from Australia. Her grandfather is Jeff who is my grandpa Ernies' brother. It was great getting to know her. While mom was here, we went to some awesome restaurants- Tavern on the Green, Spice Market, Mesa Grill, and Cafe des Artiste. We also went to some Chelsea galleries- aaah, the sequined and spiny red white and blue patriotic saddle! The Neue Gallery had a fabulous exhibit on Gustav Klimt. There was also napping and a lot of walking around. We had a drink at the Cafe Pierre at the Hotel Pierre and saw the tree at Rockefeller Center. It was so much fun! Come back mom!

Behind the red curtain at this fancy hotel is a burger joint

Kate, Paige and I in Washington Square Park

All of us after having dinner at Sticky Rice

By the way, this is my street :)

At Rockefeller Center

Bronx Gridlock Takes it ALLLLL!!!!!!

The roller derby is the awesomest thing ever!!!! I can't wait for it to start again. My first game happened to be the championship and although my favorite players- Cheapskate and Suzy Hotrod were on Queens of Pain- the Bronx Gridlock ended up winning...

Bean Town, Day 2

We had to finish the Freedom Trail, so we walked up to Bunker Hill and then the billion steps up the monument to the top- it was a great view of the city. Next we headed over the the park along the Charles River and watched all the boats- mostly sailboats. From there we thought we could see the Harvard campus- ooh! We walked along the river for a while, then headed to Newbury Street where there was a lot of shopping and restaurants and got some sushi. We were pretty tired, so we decided to head back to NYC. Since it was Labor Day, the trip back took a few extra hours. It was sad because we could see the skyline and we were so close but it took like 2 more hours at that point. All in all a great introduction to Boston- I think we did a lot in the time we were there. Hopefully we'll be back soon.

Pahk the cah in havahd yahd

We went to Boston for about 30 hours. We just made the 9 am Chinatown bus, and after 4 hours of driving through beautiful New England, we arrived at the Boston Bus Terminal. We headed out on foot and spent the next, oh probably 7 hours walking around Beantown.
We headed up to the Boston Commons and wandered through the lovely park, and then started on the Freedom Trail- a painted red line that takes you by a lot of downtown Boston... its pretty cool because it takes you past a lot sights- the gold dome of the Boston State House, a graveyard where Sam Adams and some other patriots are buried, and the Quincy Markets- where we got a bowl of clam chowdah. We wandered to the Aquarium and looked out over the water then headed back to that red line. We saw some churches and old meeting houses and Paul Revere's House. It was a nice day, a great walk, and all the leaves were beautiful- just starting to turn yellow. We go a piece of Boston Cream Pie- from a pretty famous bakery (there was a huge line) called Mike's. We still hadn't figured out where to stay, and we could see the Marriot across the river, so we headed over and ended up getting an amazing apartment type room (with a living room and kitchen) on the 8th floor corner overlooking downtown Boston and the Charles River. After a bit of a rest, we went to see the USS Constitution, still following the Freedom Trail. Next we had to get some good seafood, so we went to the Barking Crab, which was a fun sort of tent like place on the water. The food was great and as we were eating a fireworks show started going on.

Boston State House

Fountain in Boston Commons

Sam Adams Grave

Old-looking important building

the hahbah

clam chowdah in Faneuil Market

Paul Revere's House!

The beautiful view of the Charles River from our apartment-like hotel room

Chris and boat

USS Constitution

The Barking Crab!! We sat along the river and a huge fireworks show went off while we were there...

Shakespeare in the Park

Chris and I naively walked over to the ticket office on Lafayette 20 minutes before they started giving out the FREE tickets to that nights performance of Romeo and Juliet. We were like, yah, we'll just grab some tickets... when we got there the line went so far down the block you couldn't even see the end. We trekked to the end of the line where they told us that the people had told them that tickets would run out 10 people in front of us, but we waited anyways. When we finally got to the front, they were giving out single tickets not together so we grabbed 3 (one for Chris Burns) and headed to the park.
We met Chris at the entrance to the Central Park Zoo and went in and saw lotsa birds, red pandas, penguins, monkeys, seals, and giant polar bears. It was great.

Marmoset

Red Panda and Sea Lion Head

Birdies

When we left the zoo it was 5:00 pm and the Shakespeare didnt start until 8:00 so we decided to walk around, and then it started raining. This would have been fine if we had remembered our umbrella, but Chris and I are still used to California weather where you can pretty much look outside and tell what temp it is and if its sunny or rainy.

We wandered around came across another free thing in the park, this time a concert and a band that I actually like was playing, Apples in Stereo, so we listened to a few of there songs in the rain. After this we wandered over to the Delacorte Theater near Belvedere Castle.
The theater was really cool, its outside and Elizabethan style, which I guess just means that it comes out into the audience. It was a full circle that could rotate and it had this opening that had probably and a couple inches of water, so they were often walking in water. Its hard to explain, but it was really cool. Juliet was played by Lauren Ambrose (Claire from Six Feet Under) and I thought she was good. My favorite were Mercution and the maid, who was the comic relief and played by Camryn Manheim. Romeo was a bit overdramatic for me. All in all, it was a really great production and it was free!

Take me out to the ball game!

Chris got free tix from his coworker to see a Mets Game so we ventured out to Queens and had a great time at the Mets vs Diamondbacks Game.

We had pretty good seats- a great view

Shea Stadium

Chris could only afford one beer because they were $6.75!!!

CF Walk in Voorheesville

On May 4th Binky and I headed to Budget to rent a minivan to make the roadtrip to Voorheesville, NY- upstate about 4 hrs. We headed to Brooklyn to get Sully and Lucy and then headed to Tarrytown to get Chris. By the way, the property Chris works on is absolutely beautiful. So, we headed up towards Albany, with me at the helm and making a lot of stupid mistakes because of my unfamiliarity with turnpikes and tollroads. I think it took us like 6 hours by the time we actually got there and had some delicious mac n cheese at Binkys house. We met Binkys friend and family and were welcomed by her mom, Tami.
The next day, we headed to a park to do the walk. It was a sea of light pink seeing all of our team, Eds Vespas. We started on the strenuous walk (flat and slow paced) and had a great time with Sully and everyone walking around the park.

Starting out strong with Sully in the lead

So exhausting...

All together, we ended up raising $100,000 for Cystic Fibrosis research!!! Wow!! I was really proud of the $320 that Chris and I raised and I really want to thank everyone that helped out. After the walk we all headed back to Binkys for a Cinco de Mayo party. It turned into a fun day of Bocci ball, Whiffle ball, and kick ball.

Look at Lucys Bocci ball form!
Whiffle ball outfield- note the difference in form :)

Binky kicking her heart out



A funny picture of Tami

After a day of games, we rested and then hung out in the backyard around a fire. It was a really fun time and interesting seeing New York outside of the big city. It was really beautiful out there and you could see the stars!!

Fire monsters!!!