Vacation Recap: The Rest of the Week

No adventures the rest of the week; we spent it reading, sleeping and walking around town.

Vacation Recap: Lobster Day!

Lobster Day is when my family has a lobster bake on the shore:

Pot on the fire pit

Sorry boys and girls.

Into the pot they go!

Cooking time!

A colorful assortment of coolers (filled with beer)

Yes, the lobsters are being served out of a trash can...

Dinner Time!

Vacation Recap: Day 4

Day 4 (Tuesday) of our Maine vacation gave us some very needed rest and relaxation. Dad conducted some business, Chris went wakeboarding and Carly, Mom and I went into town for some chowder ('cuse me, Chowdah) and wireless.

Vacation Recap: Day 3

This year's family vacation had a theme: Adventure.

So we ventured to Monhegan Island. In order to get there, we had to take a 2 hour boat ride out of the harbor.
(Hurray for Dramamine)(Thar she blows)

Monhegan is an popular artist colony, many of the artists live there year 'round.There are hiking trails around the island, all of which lead to the cliffs on the other side with some spectacular views.Chris makes a friend!

Vacation Recap; Day 2

Sunday, while the rest of my extended family were debating whether the fact that Mass was an hour earlier was a deal breaker, we were climbing a mountain.

Mt Battie is located in Camden, a beautiful Harbor town:("It's only a mile-Straight up")

Mom, Carly, Chris and trekked up the trail while Dad drive the car to meet us at the top. For the most part it was like walking up a steep hill, other times it was like this:

(It's a little bit daunting at first, but if you take it nice and slow and have suitable footwear, it's surprisingly easy.)

The views were breath taking:

Vacation Recap

Yeah, yeah, my vacation officially ended two weeks and it’s taken me this long to blog about it. Well, I’ve had more important things to do, like de-clog my bathroom sink, bake banana bread or, I don’t know, actually work. (As much as I like blogging, this doesn’t pay the bills….)

Day 1

After a trip from hell, we woke up to this view:

Totally worth the 7 hour stroll though construction zones and rubbernecking.

Then it was off to pick you my baby sister at Colby after her summer of stimulating chemistry research.

Which lead us to lunch in the town that our Puritan ancestors founded after they arrived in the new world, after they missed the Mayflower voyage. (True story)

My mom had seen an ad for whoopie pie shop nearby and knowing my affinity for the sugary delight, we had to stop.

Delicious.

Some Thoughts For This Weekend

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism". ~Erma Bombeck

(Quote from Google's Quote Garden)

Come to the Dark Side, They really do have cookies!

While searching for a wedding gift on Williams Sonoma's website, I found this:

(Image from their website. It's real!)

My inner Star Wars geek is doing a happy dance to the tune played in the Cantina (which is also my ring tone)!

The Country Mice Visit the Big City

Fact: I have been living in Jersey for almost a year and up until last Saturday night, I had yet to get into the City (The City being New York City, not Newark. No one in their right mind would go to Newark for fun, unless you’re going to a Devil’s game and even then you need to travel by tank and have a RPG handy.) The last time I was in the Big Apple, was last March when I had to wander around the Met searching for Images of Renaissance women; did I mention that I also had suffered a bout of food poisoning the night before? Fun times.

It was looking like it was going to be a quiet weekend at home. Not that there was anything wrong with that, Chris and I had just come off of a weekend of carousing at a Bucknellian wedding and we were still pretty tired. (A blog post to come later, when I move my photos from my camera to the computer.) Anyway, I was thinking I had a weekend of laundry and grocery shopping to look forward to, when I got a call from my friend Rachel, who wanted to know if Chris and I wanted to come into the city for dinner and a show. I was ecstatic, (I hadn’t seen Rachel since the last Bucknell wedding), Chris was less so. He was up on seeing Rachel, but iffy on actually going into the city.

You see, as we have come to find out, doing fun and exciting things in New York is a lot harder when you don’t actually live in New York. Do you take the train? The Dover station is 10 minutes and the boys have taken the train into the city on multiple occasions but it’s expensive and you are very much dependent on the train schedule, which could cut short your trip if the train stops running at a certain time of night. Then do you drive? It takes us about an hour door to door, more if there’s traffic. But then you have to decide which President will make your trip easier- do you take the Tunnel (Lincoln) or the Bridge (Washington)? Then there is parking. Do you risk on street or pay through the nose in a garage?

We drove.

We actually lucked out on that aspect. After locating Rachel’s apartment (one block from the UN), we ran into a parking garage a block down with a weekend special.
After that, the rest of the night locked into place.

We had a great dinner catching up at a little Mexican restaurant (Quesadillas! Guacamole!), walked up and down 2nd Avenue where most of the restaurants had opened their large windows to the street or set up tables on the sidewalk, and grabbed a drink at a quiet bar in Union square where we watched party goers, skate boarders and a guy in a full Viking costume stream by.

We ended the night by taking in a show, Stuffed and Unstrung, an adult puppet show brought to you by the letter H, as in Brian Henson, as in Jim Henson’s son. Think Whose Line is it Anyway mixed with The Muppet show and add some alcohol to taste. The result: pure genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a99I7Vsh6dI
I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Saturday's a Happy Day!

Ah weekends.

How I love them.

Ever since I was legally obligated to go to school five days a week, I anticipated the two days that I didn’t have to sit behind a desk for eight hours. I anticipated them even more now, sitting behind a desk five days a week for eight hours, but without the recess.

Elementary through High school, I would sleep in as long as I possibly could. I thoroughly enjoyed the moment waking where I realized I woke up on my own, not my alarm or my dad. It was nice to see it was light outside. I didn’t have to get up right away. I could turn over and sleep some more if I really wanted to. I would have day where I didn’t have to think about touching the homework until Sunday night if I could manage it.

In college, Saturdays were also homework free, unless I had a final. I always slept late and got up just in time for a leisurely stroll through campus to the Bison for lunch (unless it was cold, then it was more of a brisk speed walk). I didn’t have to rush off to class or meeting; I could enjoy my food (Well, try to at least, considering what sometimes passed for food….) I could go back to my room to watch TV, read (not a textbook!), check out the 19863745283754203948 events that were always occurring somewhere on campus, or maybe a nap. Soon it was dinner and time to get ready for the evening’s itinerary.

Now that I am an “adult”, I relish the days where I don’t have to get up before the sun, drag myself to work, and try to stay awake. I actually get up now at a time that my college self would have thought scandalous. (8am? Why in the hell would you want to be awake at that hour?) I like that I don’t have jump in the shower right away and rush through straightening my hair. I can get out of bed and do some yoga before the day starts, not after work when I am so exhausted that I would much rather be doing the “sleeping sloth” then cat, dog or whatever.

There also is another reason why I love the weekends:

Laundry.

For some weird reason, I love to do the laundry. I love it from dragging it down to the basement to hanging it in my closet, starched and pressed. In fact, I won’t let anyone else wash my clothes. Mostly it’s due to the fact, that I don’t want anyone with good intentions to accidently throw one of my Hand Wash Only shirts into the dryer on high. (It happened. It was almost devastating.) There is also something cathartic about putting dirty clothes into machines and have them come fluffy and clean with in a hour. It’s like all the anxiety, stress, frustration and those pesky coffee stains from the previous week are rinsed away and I can start the clean (and fluffy).