Happy Anniversary +5 days to Us!

Happy Second Anniversary to us! Well, a few days late but we were busy celebrating and all :) In keeping with our annual tradition of traveling to commemorate the date, we drove up to North Conway, New Hampshire for a little hiking and sightseeing. A little lower-key than last year's Alaska trip, but still a great getaway.

We stayed at a cute B&B called The Cabernet Inn that served the most amazing breakfasts (can we say honey walnut stuffed french toast?). The innkeepers pointed us towards a couple of interesting hikes, and all these pics are from one of them called Arethusa Falls. I managed not to get eaten alive by bugs after a healthy dose of Off. That's one thing about moving back East that I'm not looking forward to--bug season. I wonder why there aren't really any mosquitos in California? That alone might be reason enough to get me to move back West!

We also drove up the Mount Washington Auto Road, which I did as a kid with my parents but I don't remember at all. Kind of funny to go back with my husband :) The highest recorded wind speed in the world was recorded at the summit of the mountain years ago--231mph!

The only other major activity of the weekend was a little outlet shopping, haha! Oh, and we had some surprisingly delicious meals too. One place called Delaney's Hole in the Wall (which wasn't a hole in the wall at all) had a seafood linguine alfredo--the giant scallops, lobster pieces, and shrimp were amazing. Ah, East coast seafood...OK, maybe we'll stay here a little longer ;)

Summer's here

Wow, everything just decided to bloom overnight. We didn't have a Spring season here in Boston this year (unless you count the endless rainy days we had as Spring) and skipped right into Summer. It's in the 80s today and on the drive home yesterday I noticed that suddenly all the tulips were out and all the trees have leaves--green leaves, pink flowers, white flowers, bushes with yellow flowers--you name it, it was in bloom.

That of course meant that I had to pop an Allegra this morning to make sure I didn't claw my eyes out scratching them due to all the pollen in the air. It was more preventative than anything though as I really haven't had a major allergy attack yet this year, just lots of sneezing which is waaaaay better than the itchy eyes, runny/stuffy nose thing.

Yay for sunshine!

Updated house pics

I took some new pics of the downstairs rooms in the house. There's definitely been progress, but we've still got more to do. We're in desperate need of "accessories" now--pictures, homey knick-knacks, etc. And there are no pictures of the red room because right now it's basically a holding area for the still-unpacked boxes, leftover apartment furniture, tools.... But anyway, for your viewing pleasure:

The Living Room
We still need to get a couple of armchairs for more seating in here, but this is the one room that's 90% complete. The entertainment unit is in need of some of the pretty things mentioned above to fill up the shelves, so don't mind the gaping open spaces. We're just happy that we finally found something nice to put the TV on instead of my old coffee table, and W. finally has his nightstand back instead of using it to hold the DVD player/amp/CD player, etc.

Kitchen

This room is a far cry from the 1970s avocado green kitchen we had in our last apartment before this house. The granite counters, storage space, counter space, stainless steel appliances, and lighting are all awesome. Even our kitchen table is fun--we got a counter-height table and love it.

Dining Room

Definitely a room that needs more decorating! The table is square with a hidden butterfly leaf for easy expansion when we have guests--no protecting and storing an extra table leaf under the bed for us. I swear the butterfly leaf is the best thing since sliced bread. The kitchen table above actually has a butterfly leaf as well. I got the little buffet unit from Target; it was the perfect size for the space (and priced right) but man it was a pain in the butt to put together (and I've put together a lot of DIY furniture).

Downstairs 1/2 Bathroom

Self-explanatory. Also in need of little touches.

I'll take some pictures of the upstairs rooms at some point and add those too. Thinking of doing some painting, but we'll see if I actually muster up the enthusiasm to do it ;)

Happy Birthday, W!

Happy Birthday to my dear hubby! It's the 6th one we've celebrated together I think, and I'm looking forward to many, many more. It'll be a pretty low-key celebration this year compared to the huge parties of years past (we miss you guys in S.F.), but we're both looking forward to a nice dinner out tonight.

Last weekend we celebrated with my family and had dinner at this Sichuan place that has really spicy food...right up W's alley. I, meanwhile, had to keep adding rice to my plate to try to keep the flames in my mouth from flaring up too high. Good times.

What does it mean?

On the MSN page, the weather forecast for our town this coming Thursday shows this icon:

What the heck does that mean? Sunny with snow flurries? Seriously, that's just nuts. On a positive note, we had a lovely weekend full of sun, but this whole week is supposed to be pretty rainy. Oh well, better than rain on the weekend and sun during the week, I suppose.

Good times

I had so much fun catching up with an old friend over the phone last night. It had been waaaaaay too long and I miss her (hi again, MK! :)). Another bonus is that she actually reads this blog, so now that I know I have a grand total of at least 3 semi-regular readers I guess I'll keep publishing my blather as it comes to me.

The entertainment unit was delivered today! I haven't seen it yet but W. says it looks great. Tonight's project (for him at least) is to figure out how to re-wire everything. Once that's done, the living room will be 90% set up. We just need to get a couple of armchairs and figure out how to decorate the fireplace mantle. Yay for progress!

The other thing that was delivered today that W. couldn't resist buying was a new pair of snowboard bindings. Got them through a clearance website we know about though so they were a super good deal. Hey, Mr. Ice Ice Baby, if you're reading this they're the same bindings you got and showed us in Tahoe. So much for not spending any more money though :P On the plus side, I've been really good about bringing lunch to work and making dinners at home...how many homemade meals do you think it takes to equal the cost of an A4? ;)

It smells like spring today

Supposed to be in the high 60s today. It's sunny and the birds are chirping--made me smile on the way into work.

This whole earlier start to daylight savings time is cool with me so far. I love that it's bright when I get up in the morning and there's still light when I leave work at the end of the day. Of course, it helps that I get out hours earlier than I have at previous jobs :P

New cars are fun

Well, it's a new-to-me car anyway :) Finally picked up the new ride on Saturday and it's been fun to drive so far, though I do need to get used to the smaller windows. Visibility is not as good as in my old Civic so I find myself triple-checking for cars before I switch lanes. I love having leather seats. Oh, and the adjustable lumbar support thing in the driver's seat is awesome!

There are so many little toys and bells and whistles to learn about. Right now I'm just focusing on learning where all the radio and climate controls are without having to look at them...funny the things that become instinct and how lost you are when the environment around you changes.

So many updates...

Our S.F Trip
The bad news is that we had to postpone our planned trip to Vail this year because the friends who were going with us had some things come up and couldn't make the trip anymore. The good news is we spent a week in the bay area recently boarding with said friends in Tahoe instead (tough life, I know :P). We boarded for three days straight at Kirkwood, Heavenly, then Sierra.


We had a fantastic time. The first day at Kirkwood was a little icy, but well-groomed so it was still pretty good. That night it dumped several feet of fresh powder and continued to snow all day. For a beginner like me, it was a bit too much of a good thing as the deep powder along with the snowy conditions made it a little difficult to do any carving. In fact, we ended up hiking a good portion of the day because our friend S's board didn't have enough wax on it and even on a solid downslope she wasn't moving more than a few inches in the slightly wet snow. Between hiking back down to the shop and digging out of huge drifts all day, I got more of a workout getting out of trouble than actually boarding :P

The last day at Sierra though was epic. Just the right amount of powder, sunny conditions, relatively short lines--it was great! And I did improve my carving skills a bit, so all in all we ended the trip on a very high note.

So what do you do after spending three days straight snowboarding? Go rock climbing the next day and then play volleyball two days in a row after that, of course! :) Amazingly, our bodies held out; no injuries, no major pains. We had an absolutely fantastic time on our trip, all due to seeing and spending time with all our friends out there. Special thanks to S, R, and their dog Rocky for hosting us in their lovely home all week. Can't wait to see you all again in July when we're out for the first wedding this season!

Big Weekend Purchase #1
Since we've been back, we've been pretty busy. We've been missing a few big furniture items even after six months of (painful, tedious, boring) shopping, one of which is an entertainment unit for the TV and stereo components. Right now the nice new TV is sitting on our old coffee table and the stereo components on a $10 BB&B nightstand. This weekend though we finally decided on a wall unit that fits all our various technologies and matches the furniture we already have. Phew.... That was pretty painful. It should be here next week. Then we just need to get another chair or two for more seating and the living room will be finis!

Then there's Big Weekend Purchase #2. After even more painful shopping, today we finally got our hands on the car we've been shopping for since November. We ended up with a Certified Used 2005 Audi A4 1.8T Quattro. I kind of still can't believe it. My '98 Civic is going to my sisters so they can finally have a car and I'll be picking this baby up in a week or so. On a side note, Audi has a pretty amazing Certified program compared to the others we looked at: 2 additional years or 50,000 miles on top of the original 4 years/50,000 miles. So my '05 car has slightly more coverage than a brand new '07 would. That's pretty cool.

So now, basically, we have no money left :P Guess we'll be sitting at home enjoying our TV for entertainment for a while!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Happy Chinese New Year, everybody! It's been a busy few weekends for W. and I getting ready for the holiday and today we did the requisite visits to different family members houses. Tomorrow we finish up the visits with my immediate family coming over to our house and then the extended family gathering at my aunt & uncle's place. I'd write more but, frankly, I'm exhausted. Spent almost all day yesterday cleaning the entire 2400 sq. ft. house to get ready for the new year. Time for some rest....

Happy, healthy, and prosperous new year wishes to you all!