Nick and Amanda's Visit

Over a month ago, our friends Nick and Amanda came to visit from Baltimore. For those of you who don't remember Nick and Amanda, they taught with us in South Korea and they're super awesome.

They are planners so we knew all we needed was an open mind to explore. Our first stop was Salem, MA. It was a couple of weeks before Halloween and the place was packed full of people. We thought that Friday morning would be a good time because of school, but it was still busy.  

We visited the Salem Witch Museum and learned a lot of history there. It wasn't a typical walk-around museum it was a more like a show and history lesson.

Nick(Stevens) and Amanda being silly in the park. So did you know that the movie Hocus Pocus was filmed in Salem? I had no idea until Nick and Amanda told me... and Nick had never seen the movie (We forced him to watch it later on). I loved Hocus Pocus growing up, so it was fun for me to see the sites and then watch the movie again.

The school from the movie.

Annoying that it's blurry, but this is the house where the kids live in the movie.

Now moving on....... we visited a TON of graveyards this weekend, among them were Mother Goose, and other famous people whose names escape me.

Let's see if you can figure out their 6 bee's??

Bewitched!

We did a ghost tour and we were told to take lots of pictures with our flash. Sometimes you can capture a ghost.. hahaha.. my ghost looks like a tomb stone.

Skeptical Nick looks skeptical

So sad the picture was blurry but had to post it anyway.. I dressed like this scary guy! So glad I found him for this picture!

After Salem we got home way late. Saturday we walked all over Boston doing the Freedom trail, library and the Boston Public Garden. Again Nick and Amanda know much more than me. Apparently this is a famous bench because it's in the movie
Good Will Hunting. They had to recreate the scene.

I found a famous story book statue and had my picture taken with a little girl who reminded me of our friends daughter, Reagan Talbot.

We finished our Freedom trail walk at the North Church and had our picture taken.  This church was really interesting because back in the day your family would pay a yearly "pew fee" to be able to attend church and you would be assigned a pew.  To conserve heat, these pews were built into boxes with tall walls.  Since patrons essentially owned their pews they would decorate them and furnish them like their own homes to make them comfortable and warm.  All we could think of was how nice this design would be in our churches for child control.

Last on the list was to visit the Harvard Library and see a really really old Bible (an original Gutenberg Bible). Turns out you have to be a Harvard student to get in. Guess who sweet talked a guard and two (male) students to take us to the Bible? Okay it was me :) We got in to the see the Bible and it was huge and old!

We had such a great time traveling more of our state/city with Nick and Amanda, they sure did teach us a lot! So glad you guys came to visit!

Parent's do New England, Boston Style

After such a wonderful weekend in Vermont we came back to Boston to explore with Mom and Dad. Our first stop was the temple. We had worked on a lot of family names so we were able to take them to the temple and seal a large part of Jennifer's side of the family together. It was an amazing two hours. 

American Gothic: Lon and Jennifer Style

After the temple we headed back to the apartment to change and then ventured out into the city. We went to the library first and spent the majority of our time exploring its unique features and then we went to the North End for some seafood and Italian pastries.

Wednesday we went apple picking at Honey Pot Hill Orchards and had a lot of fun. I have been in a baking mood so I was really looking forward to some fresh apples so I could make some yummy fall desserts. When we got there Dad was super excited to find a little creature running up to him. It was almost like the chipmunk wanted him to pet him, but it turned out that Dad was standing on top of his hole. As soon as he walked away the chipmunk ran in.

We wanted to find the best apples to bake and cook with, so we were told to pick the Cortland apples. We taste tested them just to be sure they were good and they were YUMMY! Don't know why Nick and I look angry as we were eating. Must be all the intense energy required to savor these fantastic fruits. I promise we really enjoyed the apples.

While we were there we also had some warm apple cider donuts. The first time we heard of these donuts was at the Deerfield Fair and they were so delicious we had to have them again. We also grabbed some apple cider and a small pumpkin for the road.

Mom and Dad's visit was definitely a treat for us and we enjoyed their company. We can't wait for their next visit so we can go explore Maine!

We had a great time together! Family time=fun time and great memories!

Cape Cod

Well, I waited over a week to post about our trip to Cape Cod for a good reason. If my boss found out that I called in sick just to plan a day trip and surprise the husband, I don't think she would be happy. We needed a day just to chill and it was perfect timing. All of my students were on vacation and we had a car for a few days, so why not go visit a nice beach and enjoy ourselves.

Nick came home from some morning errands and I was packed and ready to go. He was surprised that I was being spontaneous, but he quickly jumped on board. We both needed a break day.

We headed to Chatham first. We ate lunch on the beach, walked in the water, got sunburnt, saw a seal, and took pictures of the light house.

We jumped back into the car and headed to Provincetown, taking a slight detour to snag a picture of a lighthouse in Nantucket.

Once we got to Provincetown we found a place to park and Nick took a short power nap. I don't think I mentioned that Nick hardly slept the night before and he drove the whole way. He was pretty exhausted so the nap was needed.

We walked around Provincetown for a few hours and the only thing really on my agenda was to eat LOBSTER.

 Prepping for my friend to join the table so I could dip him in some butter and chow down.

Nick was impressed that the claw still looked like a claw outside the shell, and of course I made funny voices as I played with it! HAHA! Our waiter even caught on and called my lobster by it's name that escapes me.

We walked around and munched on ice cream and sea salt taffy. The beach views were beautiful and well worth the late night ride home.

Carson Beach, Boston

As a church activity our ward decided to do a beach day. Unfortunately nobody showed up when we were there, except for the missionaries, so we did some silly things before we left.

As you can tell it was a cloudy day and low tide, so we just took fun pictures. The missionaries had fun pretending Nick was the incredible Hulk!

I finally had a great excuse to wear my sunhat from Korea again and it felt great.

 I gotta say that I love this man so much... until he picks me up and throws me around.. silly boy

Overall we stayed at the beach for a little over an hour just having fun and taking goofy pictures. Great times that we will never forget!

Valentine's Day 2015

Since being snowed in basically the whole time we have been here we decided to get out and go on a day long date.

We woke up and got all dressed up and left for the temple. The bus system is not running on schedule so it's a hit or freeze situation. As we just left the house we saw a bus pass by and we knew that the next one would be 30-60 minutes away so we walked to a different bus route. We didn't have luck on our side so we froze for about 30 minutes. Lucky the bus was warm enough that my feet regained some feeling. The bus took us to the subway tracks and we jumped on our train and headed to downtown Boston. In downtown we had a subway exchange so we could head up past the Harvard area where the temple is located. We finally arrived at the end of the red subway line and saw this while waited for our bus. 

A super tall wall of snow... we are running out of places to pile it and it just keeps coming.

The bus finally arrived at half past frozen feet and we were off to the temple.....well toward the temple at least. It turns out the temple is a half mile walk from the bus drop off point. No sidewalks.. just us walking with cars driving.

We made it though and it is a gorgeous temple on the inside and out. After the temple we walked back to the bus stop and again as we were almost there we watched a bus pass. I cannot explain the feeling of freezing and depression mixed together when you learn that these buses run 1 hour apart. This was one of those times where you could say it couldn't get any worse.....THEN it started snowing. We had good spirits about it though and lucky a bus rescued us about 40 minutes into our wait time.

We made it back to town and ate an early dinner and grabbed dessert for the road.

Then we went back underground to jump on the subway to head home... five stops into the trip we figured out we were going the opposite way of home so we jumped off and jumped on the train going the right way. We finally made it to our station and we eventually got on our bus and got home safely. My Valentine's Day surprise was waiting in mailbox and I was super excited to open it. Nick gave me the greatest gift ever. He adopted a sea turtle for me!!!!!! I can either name a baby sea turtle or I can track a sea turtle but I can't do both. I think I'm going to go for tracking a turtle because then I can keep track of him. I'm super excited about it! As I was reading through my Adoption papers Nick was drawing a bath for my feet because, didn't I mention I couldn't feel them anymore?

Well our day getting out of the house was eventful to say the least. I hope all of you had a great Valentine's Day and a great 3 day weekend. 

If you take anything away from this blog please let it be one of these three things. 1) the temple and cannolis are always worth the risk. 2) proper foot wear is a must! 3) if you are handed a snow ball... make snow cream :)

Why BOSTON????

I'm sorry it's been a while since our last blog post.  When we got back to Alabama life was super busy with family and things. I will catch you up on all the things we did at a later date because everyone seems to be asking the same question... WHY Boston???

The Story

Over a year ago Nick and I were faced with a life decision.... Korea for a third year or moving somewhere for Nick to continue his education. As we did research we decided to look and apply to schools in Boston, MA. We prayed about it and knew Boston was the place but we also both knew it wouldn't be for school. So now the decision was Boston or Korea. We got tired of going back and forth... are we staying in Korea or are we leaving and moving to Boston.....we finally just left fate up to a quick game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and Korea won. Not long after we THOUGHT we had made a decision things quickly changed.

A Korean visitor came to CEV (our school) to talk with Richard and Suzi. She is the director of BIA Boston International Academy. The first day of her visit she handed me information on the school and I immediately knew that the "What are we going to do in Boston?" prayer had been answered. I finished my conversation with her and went back to the apartment to talk with Nick. He also felt the confirmation that this was going to be our future.

The topic of moving to Boston and starting a business took over our conversations and we finally just looked at each other with tears in our eyes and made the decision to come home and not stay a third year. It was a HARD decision but the right one.

When we got back to Alabama we spent a lot of time with family but we also had the opportunity to fly out to Boston for a three day trip and pick the apartment we wanted to live in. It was a great trip because we fell in love with the third floor of the house pictured below!

WE ARE SO EXCITED!!!!!
Let this new adventure begin.... With a snow storm!!!!