New Apartment Decor

Dane and I will start moving on April 15 into our new apartment. It'll be about a two week process so that we can move a little bit at a time before making one big trip with all the furniture. Makes moving seem not as stressful when you don't have to do it all in 6 hours.

I absolutely love this blog, and today she posted a link to these diy projects for wall hangings. I love the coasters. Dane has a collection of coasters and I think it'd be so cool to hang some in the kitchen like this. Can't wait to decorate our first place together :)

Sam, this is for you!

I have a few pics I took on my phone. This is a Pygmy marmoset. How adorable is this little guy? He's teeny and just sat and watched me while I watched him. One of the highlights of the zoo for me!

Oh No!

I went to PA and NY this weekend and left my camera at home! I'm so disappointed. My mom is mailing it to me, so I hope it gets here soon! We went to the Philadelpha Zoo and I got a penny for Sam and saw so many fun animals. Then Sunday we went to NY for the afternoon and I played with Abby. She's walking and talking up a storm. I'll post some pics and video as soon as I get it back :(

For all the Gchatters out there...

Yesterday Melissa Lulay taught me a wonderful thing to use in Gchat. If you enter V.v.V it will make a lobster! And if you enter :(/) it will make a monkey! The middle slash should actually be a straight line, but for some reason it won't show up in my post. It is the symbol above the backslash. Definitely couldn't figure that out on my own, Melissay Lulay had to instruct me. I just showed Sam and I think I made her day. Just spreading the love.

Update: Sam just showed me that [:/] makes a robot! Again the slash should be the straight line.

Mia is a destroyer

We give Mia paper all the time to shred. I've never seen a dog that loves to just rip up paper. She doesn't eat it, she just tears it into tiny pieces and leaves it all over the living room. Yesterday I got a booklet from some company that was I was never going to read, so I gave Mia the whole thing. This kept her busy for a really long time. So many pages to tear!

We had some people come by last night to see our apartment to rent for May. I can only imagine what they must have thought as they saw the little dog sitting in the living room while we let her destroy this piece of mail.

New Apartment for Us!

On Sunday, Dane and I signed a lease for our new apartment together! We're really excited and absolutely love the apartment. It's not far from where I live now, just on the other side of the Stony Brook T stop and the park. Easy walk to the subway and the Sam Adams Brewery and it even has a roof deck!

The apartment is a two bedroom, but it's kind of 2.5 bedrooms because the bedroom we will use has another small room off of it. Not sure what we'll do with it yet. We'll use the second bedroom as a guest room, since we have people visit often enough. The kitchen is big and we'll have plenty of room to spread out when we cook. Anyone who knows us will understand how important a nice kitchen is to both of us.

The lease starts April 15, but my current lease doesn't end until April 30, so we'll take those two weeks to slowly move things over. We'll be able to do a lot of smaller trips just using my car. Then we'll probably be able to rent a U-Haul for a day to move the larger stuff (beds, couch, desks, etc.). That's when we'll have our moving party and Jason and Sam will come over to help :)

I'll post pictures as soon as I have some. I guess this means I should start thinking about packing. Anyone have some boxes we could use?

St. Patty's Day Fun

Since Friday, Dane and I were host to a friends from PA who came up for St. Patty's Day festivities. Here's the play by play recap of what we did.

Saturday: Everyone finally got here (some people came up Friday night, the rest on Saturday morning). We decided that we would go to the Sam Adams Brewery which is right near my house. The tours were filling up quickly, but we were able to get tickets to a tour later that afternoon. That was fine with us, since my apartment is so close. We were able to just go back and hang out while we waited. First we did some crafts. We each picked a name out of a hat, then had to design a t-shirt for that person.

Drew made this shirt for Regina (I think).

George made this shirt for me. The front says "I'm marrying him" with a big arrow pointing to the right. I have to make sure he's always standing on that side of me when I wear the shirt.

This shirt was made for Kyle by Steve. Classy.

Kyle made this shirt for Drew. Everyone's Irish on St. Patty's Day.

This is the shirt I made for Jayneel. He got to be Irish for the day too.

We had to run to make our tour because we all got caught up in making our custom t-shirts. It was really fun and we tried some new varieties of Sam Adams. They served a beer called Brick Red, and it was really good. Apparently it's a regional brew, so it is only served in certain bars in the Boston area during certain seasons. Glad we got to try it! Here we are with out tour guide, who definitely had a handful with all of us there.

After the tour we just hung out in the apartment, and I made dinner for everyone. Drew's favorite Chicken Vodka (also known as penna alla vodka with chicken).

Sunday: We woke up late enough that we decided to just go get lunch at Cabot's in Newton. It's a great little 50's style restaurant. The milkshakes and frappes are amazing. Steve and Doug decided to get this one.

Jayneel sleeping in my kitchen on an air mattress. And snuggling with one of my stuffed animals.


Dane couldn't believe his eyes. It was coffee and oreo flavored, and oh so delicious.

The boys decided to go to a sports bar and watch the Bruins game, but I knew I wouldn't make it through the whole game. I opted to stay home and nap while they went out. After my nap, Emily, Ben and I joined everyone at O'Leary's on Beacon Street for some dinner. I had pot roast (I was torn between that and the Guiness beef stew) and a pint of Magner's. It was a good choice.

Monday: I went into work for the morning, while the PA boys wandered around Boston. I met up with them later at the Rattlesnake Bar and Grill on Boylston Street. After we got back to the apartment we relaxed a bit to prepare for the big day.

Tuesday: St. Patty's Day! We met up with Dane's co-worker, Clarke, in Cambridge for a bar crawl. Clarke and his sons do this bar crawl every year for the past 14 years! We had to get in on the tradition. We started at the Burren (one of the best Irish pubs in the country, or so I've read). It was awesome. I finally got some Guiness beef stew and enjoyed some Smithwick's while we listened to Irish music. Going to the Burren definitely got Dane and I even more excited for our honeymoon in Ireland.

When we sat down to eat, I happened to end up right in front of the speaker. And it was loud. Thank goodness I was concentrating on my delicious meal.

We moved on from the Burren, but lost Clarke for a while. We decided to go into the Joshua Tree, right across the street. This turned out to be a really good decision, because they had Sam Adams Brick Red on tap! We all got a glass.

I finally saw the back of Dane's shirt. I thought it was really cute.

After Joshua Tree, we went to Phoenix Landing, kind of by accident. Jayneel got a "blinky thingy" from the waitress and we had some green shots. After that it was back to the apartment so we could get Kyle to the aiport on time.

We had some chinese food for dinner, and all went to bed pretty early. I woke up for work on Wednesday, and when I got home everyone had gone. It's so quiet now! I'm glad everyone was able to come up this year. Now time to start planning for next year!

Snuggle Time with Mia

The other day when I got home from work, Mia and I had some snuggle time on the couch. Whenever I'm the first one home she gets all excited and will run and jump up on the couch, wait for me to sit down, then put her head on my stomach. She was especially vocal today and had me cracking up. She usually doesn't really enjoy being covered with the blanket, but I was cold and the way she was laying meant she was going to have to deal with it. Mia seems to be doing just fine, as long as I pet her.

True or False

It is acceptable for a woman to wear sweatpants out in public.


Melissa Lulay raises this important question. I say yes, but depending on where she's going. Grocery shopping came up and I would say it's definitely ok for going to the supermarket, especially in my neighborhood. But there's disagreement. I'm curious as to other opinions here. What do you think?

My co-workers are nuts

So yesterday our office scheduled our "photo shoot" for the yearbook picture of our staff. This turned into a huge production. We had the day on our calendars for about two weeks, Chad critiqued our outfits, and we had to do multiple locations before we got one that Chad was happy with. This is obviously my favorite one, because I think it captures our essences. I laughing at Chad and looking kind of sassy, Chad is still trying to direct the shoot even though he's cracking up, and Jenny is all smiles even though something ridiculous is happening. Love my office.

March Calendar

For your viewing pleasure, Hoops and Yoyo have given us a printable calendar for the month of March. If you don't know who Hoops and Yoyo are, go here and enjoy! I love their e-cards. They are so silly that I can't help but laugh when I see or hear them.