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Boston Day 3: New Years Eve

January 6, 2012 · by Ari ·

Okay, I caved. I bought more space. I really wanted to finish blogging about vacation. Also I have an entire week of meals planned out that I can’t wait to write about and the day ~~you’ve all been waiting for~~ I’ve been going on and on and on about AKA my first half marathon is 9 days away. Too many important things happening to wait around figuring things out. Okay, back to the vay cay recap!

We decided to go out and do First Night in Boston. Basically, you buy a pin and it gets you into all of these different events. But before we could really get things started, we had a very important stop to make!

Okay, but seriously, we don't have Pinkberry in Phoenix, so it really is a very important stop. We have a million and one fro yo places, why oh why no Pinkberry?!

Also, Nacho had to do some family tradition including ziploc bags, beans, rice, and things we want in the new year. I still don’t really understand it, but I played along 😉

You should have seen his intent and focus putting this thing together!

Yup, that's it folks.

Come to think of it, the only thing we actually ended up using our pins for was the next stop. Whoops. We went to see an improv troupe. They were decent. The people watching was probably funnier 😉

Weird people know they're weird, so when you ask them to take their picture, they actually don't get too offended. Trust me, it happens to my dad all the time. 🙂

After the improv, Steve took this picture of me and I really like it, so I’m posting it even though it’s kind totally not necessary to my story

He was convinced the cold weather made my eyes look "cool and marbley". I don't know what that means, but there's no double chin, so good job babe!

We explored a little more of downtown Boston while finding our way to some dinner.

We ended up at this Asian noodley place that had no wait and ended up being really delicious! Lisa especially loved it.

She really did love her meal, just not the saki 😉

I ended up with a really yummy brown rice bowl thing. I know, I’m so descriptive.

Brown rice, chicken, veggies, yummmm.

After dinner, we had some drinks and then went to watch the fireworks! I really really really love fireworks! I missed out on them for a lot of 4th of July celebrations (Confession: I couldn’t figure out how to make July plural so I reworded my sentence. I swear I passed 1st grade.) while away at theatre camp (and now I’m not only not smart, I’m also a huge nerd, but I don’t care I love theatre camp!), so seeing fireworks is extra special to me. In an attempt to show me how much he listens, Steve took about a million firework pictures. Don’t worry, I’ll only show you the best 999,999 😉

Ooooohhhh

Aaaaahhhhh

I asked Steve for an alternative to ooohh and ahh and he said "That's pretty badass"

He also suggested "Spectacular"

He definitely does not have a way with words, but he can take pretty Ooohh Aahhh Badass Spectacular pictures 😉

A very belated Happy New Year everyone!

PS: A big thank you to Lisa and David for being such amazing hosts! I wish I could have spent an other month hanging with them in Boston and grossing David out by eating pureed pumpkin every morning for breakfast 🙂 I love you guys!!!

Boston Day 2/3: Cooking and Frog Pond

January 1, 2012 · by Ari ·

On Friday, after a fabulous day in Salem, we all headed back to Lisa and David’s to make a delicious dinner. There were more drinks

David did most of the cooking (he is like an actual cook), but I made the most simple and easy beer bread that ended up being super delicious also!

Self rising flour, beer and brown sugar. So easy.

I also whipped up a little cheese spread to go on top with some fat free cream cheese, cheddar, gouda, salt, pepper, garlic powder and cayenne powder. It was one of those happy moments when I just put things together and they come out delicious 🙂

While we waited on dinner to be ready, we hung out with my favorite dog niece Daisy!

When Lisa spent a month in Switzerland, I got to live with Daisy and it was so wonderful! I love her!!

Jason and I also baked some cookies.

They came out realllllly yummy, but we didn’t end up with any good pictures of them. Boooo. We spent the remainder of the night in eating, drinking and watching Crazy Stupid Love. I love that movie.

The next morning Jason was supposed to go for a run for me, but stayed in bed, so I ventured out into the pouring rain all alone. I hope you’re feeling this guilt trip from your zoom, Jason. Actually, the rain wasn’t too bad, and I kind of got used to it. We don’t really have weather in Phoenix so it was a nice change. You know what else we don’t have? HILLS! Good lord. Hills are hard. I ended up doing 5K at a 9:13 average pace. By the time I got back I was soaking wet and I couldn’t even tell what was rain and what was sweat. I know, I’m gross. Sorry.

Finally everyone else was awake, we had some breakfast and headed into downtown Boston. We parked at some sort of park and ride and then took the subway. Steve takes awesome subway photos!

When we got out we walked around for a little bit, seeing some of the New Years Eve happenings that had already begun, like ice sculptures–cool! Def something you don’t see in AZ!

The next stop on our plan (we seriously planned out stops on a map because we’re awesome like that) was ice skating at Frog Pond! I hadn’t been ice skating since I was like 7 and even then it was at an empty indoor rink in Arizona. I had never even seen an outdoor rink before! I have to admit, I was super nervous about it and when I realized we only had 2 hours before they closed, I was almost relieved because I didn’t know how long I would actually make it. I am super clumsy, and the idea of slipping and falling on some hard cold ice 2 weeks before PF Chang’s did not seem too appealing, so I started out very cautious…

"Ummm, it's cold and this is scary. One trip around the rink is enough, right?"

But I actually got the hang of it much faster than I anticipated!

"Okay, so I'm not dead yet...."

And before I knew it, I was having a blast! Turns out I really really enjoy ice skating!

"Wooohoooo!! This is awesome!"

We all did pretty well and had a really great time!

Jason was so speedy! I decided he was Nancy Kerrigan and I was Tanya harding because I totally wanted to take him out so that I could be the best!Nacho did really well too!

And Lisa can even look pretty while ice skating 🙂

I was so surprised at how much fun it was, and I even started to feel a little sweaty like I was getting a work out! Sweet!!! It ended up being probably my favorite thing we did while in Boston!

Boston Day 1: Mike’s Pastry and Little Italy

December 30, 2011 · by Ari ·

After a lovely morning in Rockport, we headed down into downtown Boston. We parked at Lisa’s fancy hospital (MGH) and experienced some public transportation.

Apparently, everyone is supposed to visit Mike’s Pastry while they’re in Boston and we were all hungry, but not quite ready for dinner so we headed down. I’ve gotta be honest and say that the whole experience wasn’t my favorite. There’s not really a menu and it’s ridiculously crowded and it just gave me major anxiety. I ended up just ordering a cappuccino and stealing bites from everyone else.

Chocolate peanut butter brownie. Sooo rich, but it was super yummy.

Tiramisu--this was my favorite. Probably the best tiramisu I've ever had.

Cannolis. I like the filling of the cannoli. I wish they sold it naked with no shell.

We did things a little backwards and had dessert first. It’s vacation 🙂 We found a delicious restaurant in Little Italy where I had the most delicious mushroom risotto, but somehow this ended up being the only picture from dinner.

You can tell what we were focused on....

After dinner, we walked around downtown Boston for a bit. Soooo pretty.

My hubby takes good pictures 🙂

By the time we got back to Lisa and David’s we were all exhausted and pretty much went straight to bed. Today was Salem…more to come on that soon! Happy New Years Eve Eve everyone!

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