Valentine's Day weekend our parents came to Somerville to celebrate our engagement with us. I made a breakfast feast which was both fun and yummy! We started with coffee, tea, and some really moist bran muffins.
Followed by homefries and a zucchini and cheddar frittata.
After breakfast we did some lounging and then took a nice walk to Arlington center along the bike path. Peter and Candy got lots of quality Cooper time in as well.
Candy was very pleased with Cooper's cat-like qualities of plopping into her lap the moment she sat on the floor.
After the homemade chicken chili and corn bread we dove into the four layer red velvet cake with a cream cheese based frosting that my mother made from scratch for the event. IT WAS SO YUMMY!!!
My conference for the ORS was in Las Vegas this year. I've never really cared much about seeing Vegas, but doing so on someone else's dime is definitely the way to do it if you're going to! I ate at several celebrity chef restaurants, stayed in a nice hotel, and saw two shows. I made sure to go to a Cirque du Soleil show, which was amazing!!! Mystere is the oldest Cirque show on the strip so it was the most reasonably priced. I really wanted to see O (the water based show), but I couldn't get my coworkers to commit to the cost. Mystere was amazing and everyone really enjoyed the show!
I was only in Vegas for a little over 4 days and that was enough! The place is so bizarre and yucky. Four of us had to get the heck out one day, so we rented a car and drove to see the Hoover Dam.
The dam was big and impressive, but I was more impressed by the surrounding red rock and crisp blue water (I do realize the water wouldn't be there without the dam by the way).
Just after getting back from Las Vegas, we drove out to Orange for Adam's wedding. Adam is a childhood friend of Eben and he asked Eben to be a groomsman. The wedding was a fun time. Adam and Brandi are well on their way in their lives together they've got a baby on the way and have bought a house.
To celebrate Eben's completion of his degree his family got tickets to the Phantom of the Opera in New York City. We all met before the show and enjoyed a beautiful day in the city. Rob and Becca are living on upper west side as Becca attends Columbia Nursing School. We stayed with them and their dogs Evey (in Rob's arms) and Griffin (white puff at the base of the picture). They're place is little, but really cute and they have this roof deck to escape to.
One Saturday in March, we drove to western Mass and met up with Mario, Chrystina, and Pearl to enjoy some fresh maple syrup. Here they are boiling/evaporating the sap to make the delicious sticky goodness.
Not only did we get to have a delicious pancake feast with oodles of syrup, but we got visit with some sheep
and goats.
Following our maple experience, we decided to give the new Pearl backpack a spin on a hike in the woods behind Mario and Chrystina's house.
I spent two days and a night in Halifax, Nova Scotia for work in March. It was really fun! The people were super nice and the food was amazing. My coworker Bryan and I got a bit of time outside the radiology department to explore downtown as well. I'd love to go back there when it's a tad bit warmer and not the day after a freak snowstorm though. This is a view of the Citadel from a square downtown.
This year the River Rat Race and Easter fell on the same weekend. My parents made the journey to join us in Orange for the race. Peter invited Papa to do the race with him, but he opted to be a spectator before climbing into the race. Cooper came too of course and was a very big hit with the crowd!
Eben did the race with Adam again this year and unlike last year, they stayed dry this time! Can you find them in the crowd? He's wearing a black hat, the boat is blue, has his name on it...
Candy and Peter hosted Easter this year since Ginny and Bob have moved into a smaller more manageable place. We did not forgo the egg hunt though. Emily was the winner this year with 20 eggs while I was the runner up with 17. Anders was home with his girlfriend Haley and Genevieve joined us too.
Eben and I have been playing on a dodge ball team all winter. We've played two 'seasons' actually. The first round we ended about 10th of 24 teams, so we felt that was a good showing for first timers. During our second season, we finished 6th or 36 teams! It was such a blast! It must be said that we were the most well coordinated team in the league. The shirts are issued and many of the teams never wear them. Not only did we always wear our shirts, but we also accessorize with the gold and green socks and green sweatbands. There were lots of teams that took the games VERY seriously, but as you can see, we were in it for the fun!
Most recently I participated in a made-up superhero pub crawl. There's nothing like walking around the city wearing a cape!
There's one other major thing I've been up to, but it's not yet ready to be revealed. I'll have to leave you guessing on that one.
