Mini Break

I'm currently home visiting New England. John and I took a little mini vacation over the past long weekend. After stopping by CT to see my family and drop Chester off, John and I headed to Boston. Boston is one of my favorite cities- the location, the seafood, the history, the shopping- it is fantastic. So, in my new tradition, I'm simply posting some photos with captions to show the highlights of the trip.

Friday night we went to a Red Soxs game, they won.

On top of the Green Monster at Fenway

Saturday we took the Old Town Trolley Tour around Boston. If you haven't used OTTT before, they are a wonderful way to see a city. And if you book online, you get a discount.

My lobster roll from Quincy Market .

It was super yummy! I love me some seafood.

3 floors of spiral stairs in the Old State House

We took a Swan Boat ride in Boston Common.

I love swan boats, and the peaceful ride around the lake.

The site of the Boston Massacre.

Faneuil Hall, also known as Quincy Market, one of my favorite places in Boston.

Enjoying, thoroughly, my lobster dinner. Yes, I had lobster three times in 24 hours. :) And like a good new england girl, I got both claws and the tail out whole. oh, and of course sucked all the meat out of each little leg. yummmmm, I love lobster!

Then Saturday we saw RENT. I love RENT, a lot, maybe too much. I saw it twice in May when they toured DC * and I own both video versions. I might have also hung a RENT poster in my 1st college dorm room. And if you lurked around my house you may find 3 RENT CDs, and a tee-shirt. Oh, and the book, and the program. Anyway, on this night we got last minute cheap, limited view seats....we were in the 4th row! Amazing!

* I may or may not have waited at the stage door with John in tow to act as my personal photographer for that show. You'll have to wait and see. ;)

This was all on our way to an old family friend's wedding- it was lovely. Photos from that event to come.

Holy Onesie!

A friend’s daughter was baptized over the weekend. And none of the traditional baptism gifts fit with my gift philosophy (or more simply stated, my idea of what makes a good gift)- items should be attractive, fun, personal and purposeful (even if its sole purpose is to hang on the wall). So, I "Leigh-bellished" (that is a very technical term, so don’t be alarmed if you aren’t familiar with it) some onesies to fit with the spiritual theme of the day.

And since I had the printable iron-on paper out, I made a couple of bandanas for my puppy-niece, Darbi. After all, it's my job to spoil her. :)

Chicagoland

We had a terrific time in Chicago! It was a perfect mix of chilling and hanging out with my sister and my niece puppy Darbi, and activity (lots of walking) to explore new things. I took about 200 photos. So, in hopes of keeping the 2 followers and handful of some what faithful reader that I have, rather than posting detailed information about our adventures and an overwhelming number of photos, I’m going to show photo highlights with brief captions. You’re welcome. :)

Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore- Mt. Baldy

It was lovely, and we had great weather!

Darbi enjoying the beach.

We attended the Cubs vs. Cardinals game, Cubbies won.

John loved Wrigley!

Sarah and I after the game.

We took a historical and architectural boat tour. Again, we enjoyed lovely weather and had a great time! It was really fun, and interesting.

The Chicago Skyline as seen from the lake

The ferris wheel at Navy Pier.

The super cool “Cloud Gate” sculpture, otherwise known as the Bean of Chicago, in Millennium Park.

Standing in front of Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park. I was kind of bummed that we missed the evening light show. Still it was really nice sitting next to the fountain, with boats docked in the lake on the other side.

The Field Museum

John, with Sue, one of the 2 most complete T-Rex skeletons in existence.

They had a special exhibit about pirates, based on the recovered pirate ship, Whydah. It was a really cool exhibit; they did a nice job weaving the sailors stories and included great artifacts.

Addendum and Travel News

John so enjoyed driving the boat on during our little sailing adventure, he has now decided he wants to own a boat. I'd just like to get the house thing settled.

In other news, we are taking off for the Windy City in the morning! Be back in a week! :)

photo

4th of July

To celebrate July 4^th, we took an extended long weekend to the Roanoke area of southwestern Virginia to visit John's family. While there we spent a day on the warm waters of Smith Mountain Lake. We rented a little motorboat; it was Chester's first boating experience. He loved it! After all it is a combination of his two favorite activities- swimming and riding in the car with windows down and sunroof open! Even with sunburn, it was a wonderful day!

The Search Is Over (?)

I mentioned about a month ago that we've been house hunting. Well, over our extra long holiday weekend away we found out that we had 2 offers accepted. Yes, you read right- we got 2 accepted. After some discussion and a pro/con list, we picked one of the houses. The one we selected is a short sale, so our fingers are crossed that things will move fast (I'd be okay with "break-neck speed") and there are no major troubles with the house (short-sales are sold "as is"). Keeping our fingers crossed….