Thansgiving and some more stuff :)

I know this is a little late but that's just how I roll :) We had a great Thanksgiving! It was super chill and the food was excellent! We had two other couples over for dinner and we all pitched in so no one had too much work to do. We had a late dinner and then we played games for a couple of hours, watched a couple of movies and everyone went home! I included a couple of pictures from our day.

The table! I really like how it turned out....

Sorry there are so many pictures of the table, but Steve took a lot!

Dave expertly carving our turkey

Lighting the candles!

The whoe crew, minus Steve who was taking the picture

Yummy food!

Steve made the traditional Hale family carrot souffle and it was amazing! He was so proud of it too!

I love Thanksgiving! This year especially. I was feeling so homesick and sorry for myself at first but I realized that I have so much to be thankful for! I am a member of the true church, and I have the best husband ever, I have an amazing family, I am in graduate school getting my education, and the list goes on. I am so thankful for everything I have!

Later that night our fire alarms started going off like every 15 minutes and the only way we could make it stop was if we got on a chair and pushed a button on the alarm. And these alarms aren't quiet, they are seriously so loud it could make you deaf! So we were worried that it wouldn't stop and we wouldn't be able to get any sleep, so we called our land lord. He came over and called the Fire dept to see if they knew how to fix the problem. They didn't... so we just had to disconnect all the fire alarms so we could sleep. Anyways we just wanted to document the first time a fire truck ever visited our apartment!

The moment you've all been waiting for....

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in August (when I had all kinds of free time), I decided it would be a great idea to repaint our table and chairs. These chairs are probably at least 40 years old and still had the original finish and upholstering. Needless to say they were in pretty bad condition-- as you can see in these pictures....

Lookin' pretty beat up eh?

So in August I primed, and painted for HOURS! I got everything all painted and it looked awesome but we never really got around to finishing the re-upholstering of the chairs.... We tried once and it was really hard- so we stopped... and didn't try again for like 3 months :) But when we found out we would be hosting Thanksgiving we figured our guests might enjoy sitting on chairs, so it was time to finish the project!

Steve was the mastermind behind finishing the upholstering. He thought we should make a fitted cover, and he even made up the pattern! My role was to sew the covers and he would use a staple gun to attach them. First we made a prototype out of old fabric and tested it to make sure the pattern would work. It did! I think they turned out really great!

Making the prototype...

Sewing the seat cover!

The finished product! You can see the finished table if you look back at the pictures of our Thanksgiving table setting :)

As for life right now, its GREAT! We are so close to finishing this semester and getting out of Boston for a while! Steve finishes everything next Tuesday and flies to SLC on Wednesday morning. I won't get to leave until the 21st but it won't be too bad. Steve will have more fun in Utah than with me stressing out anyway! I'm so excited to get to spend so much time with our families over the break. I just CAN'T WAIT! Can you tell I'm excited????

CALLING ALL...

FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, it happened. I am officially homesick. Not really for a specific place, but more for my family. So I'm calling all of YOU (you who are reading this are most likely my family...) to come to Boston for the best trip of your life.... and so I can fulfill my craving for family time! I'll even give up my bed so you don't have to sleep on an air mattress :)

I have been doing really well stay un-homesick and adjust to life here so far away from everyone I love, but with the holidays coming up I guess it was inevitable. Every Thanksgiving since I moved out I have been lucky enough to spend it with my parents and at least two sisters and sometimes extended family too. This time around we are doing it with friends which will be lovely, but I don't think it will be quite the same. Anyways, I just wanted to put that invitation out there, so just in case you have been hesitating to call on our hospitality... don't hesitate anymore... DO IT :)

Oh ya, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

October Adventures

I guess I have been seriously lacking in blogging area of my life, because I have been informed that it is time to update it. October was a really busy month for us, especially towards the end. We were both swamped with mid-terms and papers and assignments. I still don't know how Steve kept up because the guy had zero free time. But we made it out, alive and well!

We both had Columbus day off and decided to head up to Salem for the day. It turns out Salem is really only 45 minutes away! It was a fun day! Salem is a cute small(ish) town that totally reminded me of Stars Hollow (The made up town that the Gilmore Girls is set in). We walked around most of the day, and saw the "historic" sights. Historic is in quotations because the sights were mostly old houses/churches that had been turned into witch museums and charged an arm and leg to go in a see them! When we looked online, most of the museum reviews we saw were bad so we tried to avoid the tourist traps and do the free stuff! We did end up going into a monster museum, it was pretty entertaining and best of all cheap-- which is why we picked that tourist trap! It was a museum full of the prototype monsters that make-up artists use to create horror film characters. Some of the big names were, Beetlejuice, Frankenstein, the doll from Chucky, and lots more that I didn't recognize. All in all, Salem was kind of hokey and really touristy but we did enjoy spending the day together and now we can say we've visited!

There were photo-ops like this EVERYWHERE. I had to BEG Steve to let me take this picture, he felt silly I guess!

I love the musical "Thoroughly Modern Millie" with Julie Andrews. I loved this store too.

The Witch House- One of those tourist traps I was telling you about :) It looks like a witch house though, don't ya think?

There was a free garden in the backyard of some mansion, so we stopped by. It had gorgeous flowers and a HUGE tree...and it was like totally empty which was great!

A couple of weeks ago the weather went crazy! It had been like 70 degrees on Saturday and then Sunday it was SOOO cold, and in the afternoon it SNOWED! This wasn't a wimpy storm either the snowflakes were enormous. The pictures don't do them justice, but we tried anyway. We went for a walk in the snow. I'm not going to lie, I was totally enchanted by the snow falling. I can't say that's ever happened to me before. I guess after 3 years of almost never seeing snow fall will do that to a person :) The snow didn't stick for very long, the next day was like 60 degrees. The weather here is CRAZY. The day after the snowstorm (aka a Noreaster), I was chatting with one of my professors who said she's lived in Boston for 30+ years and it has never snowed so early. I hope this isn't a sign of the longest winter ever!

This is just ONE snowflake. Crazy huh?

Giant Snowflakes!


Two weeks ago Steve had a couple of days off of school and I never have class on Wednesday or Thursdays, so we decided to take a little leaf-peeping tour of Massachusetts. On Wednesday night we drove all the way across the state to the north western corner and stayed the night. Thursday morning we go up and started driving! We made up our own route, it was kind of fun actually. We had a map and basically whenever we came to a junction we looked at the map to where that road would take us, and if we thought it would be good we turned! We ended up seeing some really beautiful areas. I FELL IN LOVE with New England fall colors. I was absolutely enchanted with the trees. There were some that had the most brilliant colors it was incredible. Sometimes we'd round a corner and there would be a hillside full of beautiful fall foliage. I wish I could describe them and do them justice, but I can't so I'm not going to try!

All of the pictures above are from Chesterfield Gorge, Steve's favorite place to fly fish out here. We stopped there for a few hours to enjoy a forest walk. It was so beautiful!

I took this picture of the car window- It was some random bush by a bank or something but I thought it was pretty awesome. It looks like birds feathers or something!

And our last stop before we got home was Walden Pond. This is such a beautiful place. The pond is crystal clear and surrounded by beautiful trees. I think you can see why Thoreau set up his camp here.

This last weekend was our stake conference and Elder M Russel Ballard was here presiding over it. COOLEST THING EVER! The Friday adult meeting was held in the famous Trinity Church in down town Boston. There are no church buildings here large enough to house our whole stake, so we had to meet in a different church. But, they are building a $14 million stake center in Cambridge near the church we currently attend, but it won't be finished until this May. Anyways, this church was so beautiful, and the acoustics were awesome. Elder Ballard has a great sense of humor: Before he started his talk he invited the stake president, temple president, and the mission president and his wife to bear their testimonies from the pulpit so they could tell all their friends and family that they had preached from the pulpit of the Trinity church :) It was a really great meeting, I am so glad we had that opportunity to hear a living apostle preach the gospel to us. His message was basically 'Don't let your world spin so fast you don't take time do the things that matter' especially daily meditation in a quiet place with the scriptures. I was truly touched by his message. After the meeting was over, Steve and I got to SHAKE HIS HAND! He probably took at least 30 minutes shaking hands with and meeting the people in our stake, what a guy! This was really cool for me because I've never had the opportunity to shake an apostle's hand. I was like giddy with excitement! Our Sunday meeting was also really amazing, it was held in a Marriot hotel conference room in down town Boston. I can't say I can remember going to church in crazy places like we did this weekend. During the meeting, Elder Ballard acknowledged that Mitt Romney was there. That was cool, but what was more cool was that I SHOOK HIS HAND TOO! After the meeting, Mitt Romney was shaking hands and meeting people too, (I've heard he used to be in the Stake presidency of our Stake but I'm not for sure) and so I waited for a while and debated whether I should try to shake his hand, I decided not to and we started walking. Then like 3 minutes later, he and his wife were immediately behind us, I couldn't help myself... I, being normal awkward self turned around, looked straight at him and asked "Can I shake your hand?" He was like sure, shook my hand and told me "Have a nice day". How cool is that? It was like Mormon celebrity weekend for me!

The time has come...

...to update this blog. I haven't been posting anything for a couple of reasons 1. because we don't have any pictures of anything we have been doing, and 2. our lives have not been full of excitement lately! Don't get me wrong, life is great but kind of ordinary! A couple of weeks ago I was able to go to Utah for a week to attend my high school best friend's wedding and it was so fun! I got to see my new niece Lucy Jayne, and my in-laws. While there I went on a major shopping spree (my graduation money has been burning a hole in my pocket all summer long!) and had a shopping dream day... I loved everything I tried on and had to carefully choose what I didn't want so I could stay within my budget; plus we were at the outlet malls so I got steals on everything! Moving on, I got to hang out with my awesome sisters that live in Provo and they came to the wedding with me which was so fun.

At the wedding I got to see so many friends from high school. I haven't seen some of these girls in like 3 years! It's funny what seeing people from high school does to you though. Even though I am totally confident and comfortable with myself, I found my old high school insecurities coming back in a flood. How weird is that, that even after 3 years I still felt 18! However, I still had so much fun seeing these people I have great memories with. Then, Brittany and I drove up to Twin Falls for her reception there. Neither of us have been back for over 2 years. It was nice to go back and see people we haven't for years!

After all the wedding stuff was over with I got spend the rest of my time with Kiersty, Seth and Brittany in Provo! We had so much fun together, and yes Megan and Mhari, we missed you both! The day I flew out Kiersty couldn't get out of work and Brittany had school so I went up to Centerville to hang out with my mother in law. We got lunch and caught a movie (Julie and Julia... super cute show!) and then went to Costco so I could bring home my beloved tortilla land tortillas that I have been missing oh so badly since our move.

For those of you who don't know what these tortillas are YOU ARE MISSING OUT, and should head immediately to your nearest Costco and buy some. These tortillas come to you refrigerated because they haven't ever been cooked! When you buy them they are still "tortilla dough" and you cook them at home for the first time. They are sooooooo MUCH BETTER than a normal tortilla. And after we moved here I went through tortilla withdrawal. Literally. I called every Costco in like a 50 mile radius to see if they stocked these bad boys, then I called the corporate office to see if they would ship some to me... they told me to call my local Costco... been there done that... Eventually I gave up until I realized that since I was in Utah, I could stuff some in my backpack and bring home this western goodness. I was going to buy one package (one pack has 44 tortillas)... instead I brought home three (don't worry, you can freeze them)! Sandra did the math, and figured out I brought home ~14 lbs of tortillas! Haha. If you have never been able to say you know someone who is crazy, you can now!

Moving on...

When I got home from Utah, Steve had already started school (bummer), and I started my grad school orientation a couple of days later. So summer has officially ended and we have entered another new phase of life called "We are both in school". So far it has been pretty good. I really like my classes and my program. I think I am going to have some great experiences through grad school. I won't be starting clinic until next semester so this semester I get to just focus on the academic part, I am kind of bummed about this but it's nice to get eased into things, right?

Steve is taking 62 MIT semester credits which translates into ~21 regular credits. He ended up having to drop a class because he had so many scheduling conflicts. Needless to say, he is a busy man! He has been doing really well with it though. He has miraculously kept up on his 5-6 hours of reading per night and is loving what he's doing. A couple of weeks ago we went to a C-function, which is a culture function put on by one of the ethnic groups in his program. This one was put on by the Japan club. They served sushi which I had good intentions of trying but couldn't bring myself to eat a huge slab of raw fish on a bed of rice, looking at it actually made my stomach turn.. Steve tried it but said it was gross, so I trusted him and threw mine away.

The weather here has turned into the beautiful fall. It kind of changes from day to day. So there are the days that are still in 80's and hot but most days have been cooler than that and there is that crisp fall chill in the air that I have missed so much in the past couple of years living in Arizona. I am so excited about this season. It has always been my favorite, I love the crisp air, the yummy foods that are in season, and the holidays of fall, plus New England is famous for their amazing fall foliage! I can't wait. I have been dying to be able to make pumpkin goodies in celebration of fall-- On Sunday I finally made some pumpkin bread!

My ward's relief society hosted a 'Best of Boston' night last week and I heard of so many fun things to do in the fall... Here is my list
-Go leaf peeping
-Apple picking
-see a cranberry harvest
-visit Salem, MA-- before Halloween, cause on Halloween it's creepy!
- I think there is more that I can't think of right now, but if we get all of this done we will be doing good I think!

Best Ever!

For Steve's break from school we went on a six day camping trip. It was the best vacation ever, besides the fact that we got rained on everyday besides the first and last (the two days we spent mostly in the car). It was so nice not having to share Steve with mountains of homework! Everywhere we went we took the scenic route and just basically marched to the beat of our own drummer, if we wanted to stop at look at the scenery we did, if we didn't eat lunch until 3:30 in the afternoon and dinner at 10 pm-- no big deal right?! We were on vacation! It was lovely.

Our trip started in south eastern Maine. I wanted to see some of the lighthouses that are there. We ended up seeing three (one up close and two from afar). We also walked up along the coast at this beautiful state park. The rocks on this coast seriously look like petrified wood-- it's crazy! Maine was beautiful though, I want to be one of those old retired people who "summers" in Maine :).

One of the lighthouses we saw from afar-- It took something like 10 years to build because half of the day the bottom part of it is underwater. Crazy huh?

These are all pictures of 'Portland Head Light', it is one of the most photographed lighthouses in the U.S, I think you can see why. The grounds for the lighthouse were beautiful and there was this huge park. If you ever drive through Maine- drive by here!

This is the restaurant we picked to eat Maine lobster at (well Steve at lobster-- I ate a cheeseburger!) Steve didn't order a lobster though he ordered a lobster roll which is lobster, mayo and lettuce in a bun. He loved it! The restaurant was so nice and CHEAP! We ate outside and listened to the waves crash up on the rocks

Entering New Hampshire....

Best tinfoil dinners ever.
They were a little unconventional because the day we had them there was a torrential downpour and our campsite-including our fire pit- was under like 3 inches of water. We ended up having to go into town and buy a tarp, some rope and some stakes and make a 'shelter' (pictured below) just so we could have a place to be dry. Instead of heating these up in the fire we heated them up on a griddle on our campstove. They were seriously so good though, we are going to make them at home just for fun!

Our awesome shelter, that made a great clothesline too!

The next couple of pictures are of the place we stayed in New Hampshire, White Lake state park. The lake was beautiful and had a nice sandy beach and surprisingly warm water.

Our friends, the Dawsons, met us in New Hampshire for a night and then we camped in Vermont together too.

All kinds of crazy mushrooms grow in the mountains of New England. We saw different varieties of mushrooms everywhere we went!

White Lake

Entering Vermont....

We got to Vermont and decided it was time for a hike. After all we had been camping for three days and no hike yet because of all the rain. So we set up camp and headed out for out hike. Almost as soon as we started walking, it started to pour. And I mean POUR! We decided to keep going. We got half a mile into our hike and these pictures show how wet we were. You can see the dry patches on my shirt.

This was the only part of my shorts that was dry. We were SOOO wet!

The vista we hiked to see...

Most of this hike looked just like this picture- LOTS of trees... everywhere!

On Monday we went for another hike but FORGOT OUR CAMERA :( I was sooo sad when I realized one mile in that we didn't have it. So no pictures but oh well. We hiked Mount killington in Vermont. I'd like to say I loved the whole thing but it was HARD and I didn't feel great therefore I became tired and irritable. I eventually came out of it and the hike ended up being fun.When we were half a mile from the top it started to... guess... RAIN... so most people we saw were telling us the hike to the top wasn't worth it because all you could see was white and nothing else. However we decided to keep going, right as we came out of the trees the clouds parted and the view from was incredible. You could see green mountains for miles. We stayed up there for probably half an hour just looking. But once again the clouds moved in and we started the descent.

This is the view from our campsite! We looked at this while eating dinner and playing games! I've never had such an incredible from our campsite!

Steve staked our tent into a tree stump and it definitely got stuck. We started calling it the sword in the stone. Finally our friend pulled it out though...

Our campsite had this cute little lean-to shelter. It definitely saved us from some rain!

Some of our other friends met us in Vermont. From left to right it's us, the Dawson's, and the Segrera's with their little girl Elana.

We were planning on going to Six Flags New England on our way home but in the end decided it was going to be too expensive. Instead, we stopped a roadside ice cream shop for some vermont maple soft serve and drove to a ski resort that had an alpine slide. It was almost like a roller coaster!

This was so fun. I can't wait to do another one!

A couple of days after we got home Steve got a fly fishing bug (haha no pun intended) and we ended up driving to Western Mass. so he could do some fly fishing. I think it might have been his favorite day of all! He caught some fish, and I set up our hammock between some trees and read my book. It was great.

Steve tying some expert flies.

Where I set the hammock up

Steve's awesome get-up :) Love it.


On Friday we went to the Museum of Science, spent 5 hours and still didn't see the whole thing! Some of the highlights were the lightning show, the huge stuffed moose, seeing a saguaro cactus (well it was fake but whatever), and the giant ear. We also saw a cool exhibit on pregnancy and child birth. There was really exhibits for just about everything. I can't wait till someone comes to visit so we have an excuse to go back!










Now Steve is back in school (he started today), I'm feeling pretty nervous about this semester, it's going to be a new adjustment and I might never see Steve but, it should be ok right?Anyways, I go to Utah for a week tomorrow cause my best friend from high school is getting married. I will get to meet our new niece and get spend time with my sisters!

P.S. Sorry if you are inundated with pictures but I couldn't help myself! I wanted you to get a taste of the New England.