On the Harry Potter Bandwagon (no spoilers)

Woohoo! Got my hands on Harry Potter 7 last night. I was surprised it was available so quickly at my local library. I had pre-requested it several weeks ago and assumed I was around #1000-something on the request list and would never actually get it (that's how the Palo Alto library seemed to work for popular titles). But lo and behold, only a week and a half after its release, I got an e-mail from the library that the book was mine for pickup. Impressive. Apparently they got lots of copies and people have just been devouring the book and returning it quickly.

I got through about 280 pages over 4 hours or so of reading last night. Action-packed! Do I really have to work today??? I considered calling in sick so I could spend the day reading instead, but I'd already told my assistant yesterday that I was picking up the book so I thought she might get suspicious :P

I definitely plan on buying the whole series now that it's complete and re-reading from beginning to end. I've forgotten some things since reading #6 (shocker), but that's OK. More good reading to look forward to.

Blinds!!!

Hooraaaaaaay!!! Ten months after moving in we finally have real window coverings on all the windows in the house. A few weeks ago we ordered the last set of blinds we needed from Home Depot and oinstalled them over the last couple of nights. The paper blinds are finally gone!

Now to find curtains. It's never-ending....

1 wedding down, 2 to go

WC and I just got back from our first of three weddings in California this year. Actually, make that four California weddings as my college blockmate just invited us to his S.F. wedding in October as well. If we went, that would be a wedding at the beginning of Oct., beginning of Sept. and beginning of Nov., all in the bay area. If funds were unlimited I wouldn't mind adding another event to the schedule as an excuse to hang out with friends again, but alas the real world is not so kind.

The wedding on 7/14 was great. Lots of fun with great friends. John Jow, WC's and my favorite DJ from our clubbing days, was spinning the music for the event which just made it more fun. Ran around a bit doing my wedding coordinator thing for my friends, but I continue to enjoy doing that stuff and will eventually have to get my "business" started back up in Boston and pick up where I left off with it in California.

We stayed for a week after the wedding, mostly so I could attend SC's bridal shower the following Saturday but it was a great excuse for sticking around and enjoying other activities with the rest of the crowd. SC and I had another successful venture out to the Gilroy Outlets, went rock climbing twice, played some outdoor volleyball at Stanford like in the good ol' days, had lots of good eats (Korea House, Vietnam Village, etc.), and even squeezed in a night of clubbing. Great times.

SC's shower went off well, I think. Lots of people were distracted by the Harry Potter release though. MH didn't sleep all night because she was reading it right up to the point where she had to leave for the shower. RL forgot her picture for the scrapbook; but amazingly JY and CCC remembered their pics--what a role reversal! It was fun hanging out with all the gals and I just wish I could come back for the bachelorette as well.

Last night we ordered pizza and vegged before hitting the sack early in an attempt to recover from our jet lag. Spirit Airlines does not the most comfortable planes for sleeping, but for $340/ticket, what can you do?

Visitors #4 from Cali

Not that we're keeping track or anything, but we've had our fourth visit from California-based friends since we moved here 9 months ago. W. and G. came out for an ultimate frisbee tournament this past weekend and stayed with us on Friday and Saturday night. It was so great to see them and have them stay at the house. We love having guests!

It was the first ultimate game that either W. (my W., not G's W. :)) or I had ever watched and it was a lot of fun. The "spirit of the game" as they call it is very apparent. Lots of sideline cheering, all self-reffed games, and the fact that the team had traveled out all the way from California were all pretty telling that there's a real love for the sport. This was a meeting of some of the elite teams across the country, so we saw some good games. We even got to see W. make an amazing play, taking away an opportunity from the guy he was defending and intercepting the throw that was meant for the opponent. After a diving catch, W. landed in the end zone and scored the second to last point for the win! Yay, W.!

We also managed to find some good airfare for two of our trips out to California for weddings later this year. I've been looking for months and prices have just been through the roof, but we managed to get some pretty good deals in the last few days for the July and September weddings. Still looking for tix for the November wedding, but we'll get there. I don't want to think anymore about how much we're spending just on flights this year :P Can't wait to see everyone in a few weeks though!

We have GOT to stop buying toys

So, yeah, we budgeted for it and all but we're a weeeee bit over the estimate and, seriously, we just have to stop now. No Christmas presents, birthday presents, or extra trips this year cuz they're all rolled up into this baby: the 2006 Suzuki GSX-R 600.

This replaces the Honda CBR F4i that W. sold before we left California. The GSX-R is a better fitting bike for him (he can put his feet flat on the ground with this model whereas he was on tip-toes on the F4i) and it's a pretty sweet ride. We plan on making more trips into Boston now that we don't have to worry so much about parking.

Our first destination on our first ride? I surprised W. with the Jamba Juice I learned about on the Boston University campus! You should have seen his face--I wish I had a picture of his enormously huge grin when I pointed out the Jamba sign :)

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.