thanksgiving 09

last night i got back from a long weekend in rhode island. i loved my parents house & loved the time with my family. i loved hanging out & laughing with allen. both car rides were good & full of conversation. i got to hang out with my old friend jacqueline. joel had only been to boston once [while running the marathon!] so it was fun to give him a taste of other boston stuff.

we didn't take as many photos as i would have liked, but here are a few. interspersed with details of the weekend and things i'm SO very thankful for...
thankful that my fam could be together
thankful to be surrounded by such studly history majors :)
thankful that this self-timed photo turned out hilarious
thankful that allen is fun & funny & can read my mind about goofy photosthankful that joel got to go to fenway park. even though it was dark & cold.
thankful that we got to see paul revere's grave. jk i don't care about that... thankful that my parents love each other so well.

[words cannot express how grateful i am for the weekend. photos can't either. but they're a good start]

so what's a progressive dinner?

i thought everyone knew about progressive dinners... basically, you progress through the stages of dinner, stopping at different people's homes for different courses of the meal. ours had 4 stops: appetizers, dinner, dessert, and porch sitting.

our group of 10 friends carpooled to the various sites. after appetizers we got a tour of the church where matt/ann marie live. at our house we had an entire thanksgiving feast, including a turkey carved with an electric knife. dan/becca's apartment was perfect for dessert; we sat on the floor around their stone table [japanese style!!!]. we ended at the awesome porch at chris' house & continued into the basement to play wii golf. ok, the guys played wii golf while the girls watched...



my friends are SO awesome. i'm incredibly grateful that they like to do fun, creative things. i'm grateful that we can all be ourselves when we're together. and i'm sooooo grateful that they willingly accept new people into the group.

my 5 things

ummm, i read a hundred different blogs throughout the week. one of them posts regularly about various people's "5 things" [aka: top 5 things people want to do in a lifetime].

made me think about mine:

1. go to europe
2. have my own garden
3. kiss as the ball drops on new years eve
4. stay with my whole big fam at the beach again
5. write a children's book. seriously. this is a new dream~ [and no, not one about a tiny baby leaf... been there. done that.]

early november ramblings

sometimes when i'm driving i think of things i want to blog about. they all leave my brain the second i walk in the door... why IS that?!

i know i at least wanted to celebrate two things:
1. last night was my final GED class for the semester. i don't start again till february. my students were REALLY grateful and they all improved on their post-tests! 2. on saturday i'll be taking my 2 final certification exams. once i pass those, there's just one simple application standing between me and all those elementary ed. positions. wahoo!

this weekend my friends are planning a progressive dinner. it'll be my first since college & i'm wicked excited. we're doing thanksgiving style; our house is the base for the full meal!

speaking of thanksgiving, this one will involve a lot of firsts-- 1st time staying in mom/dad's new [HUGE!] rhode island house, 1st time driving from philly to RI in holiday traffic [or any traffic, for that matter...], 1st time bringing a boyfriend to any holiday with my family. zoiks!
[isn't this photo adorable? i just decided to share abby's chair& she scooted right over to make room for me~]

i LOVE being home

[the AWESOME photo behind my blog title was taken by my friend christiane]


it's sooooooo wonderful to be at home for an entire weekend! it gives me opportunities to see lots of people i love, to enjoy fall weather, and to finally breathe...


last night my friend julie, her husband duane, and their 3 darling kids came over for s'mores. melissa and my friend rebecca joined our little bonfire~

two years ago

i was just starting my year of adventure in japan. i took lots of photos during the fall season & they continue to take my breath away...

the swine flu won

my best friend is brilliant! H1N1 halloween costumes!!! <3dr. turk and JD made sure we didn't spread our sickness around too much~
[i'm like "joel, what are you doing in this picture??" he goes "making sure you're ok". haha]
we planned to be the black eyed peas as a back-up plan. good thing we didn't!!


[the party was super fun. everyone thought we were hilarious. lots of my friends showed up. the weather was SO awesome (no coats necessary!). i've never had such a great halloween~]