9th Annual Family trip to Salem, Mass!

There may have been a lot of confusion, stress and craziness trying to plan the annual trip to Salem this year. But we managed to pull it off successfully. In fact this may have been the BEST trip to Salem…EVER! David loading up the mini van

David and I packed up the 8 mini-van and picked up my family. Because my Dad had some car problems, we needed to all carpool in David’s parents mini van. Work fine for me! I liked that we all got together instead of separate cars.

Dad posing with a witch

I love the differant looks on their faces

Finaly we hit bumper to bumper traffic on the highway heading to Salem. This time we sailed right though. There was no traffic at all. Maybe it was because it was the middle of October, the fact that it was Sunday afternoon or maybe we just got lucky. Whatever the reason, everyone was happy to have made it to Salem without sitting in traffic for hours.

This year we really enjoyed Salem. We saw new stores, watched a motorcycle parade and didn’t have to fight our way through the crowd. The weather was beautiful, not too warm and not too cold. It was a great day!

Tried to take a pictures of all of us

Pumpkin decorating contest

My personal favorate pumpkin! Miss Piggy!


A creepy demon Ernie who David felt the need to hug

The awesome zombie telatubbies. This is what nightmares are made of! Espcially the look on David's face!! Yikes!






My Dad with Frankie




Goofing around in the graveyard



In the graveyard.

The tree which several witches were hung from.

Got a picture of everyone except me. David kindly posed for me.

Love the look on everyones face as they realize what David was doing behind them. Too funny!

Not sure what everyone was looking at....

David the Gray with Gandolf the White

Got to see a motorcycle parade!

Eating lunch on the roof of the parking garage. Mmm cheesey (private joke)!

Love this picture of us! We had so much fun!!

10 Years have passed

Today is the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. I still can how I felt, what I was doing and where I was. Tears still rolls down my face when I hear the stories about loss and heroism. My heart breaks for the children who lost their parent, the parents who lost their children or the families who never fully got closure. Often I find myself wondering what those poor people in the building or airplane felt moments before their death. I put myself in their shoes and wonder if I too would be brave enough to fight or would I have passed out from panic.

September 11 will be a day that I tell my kids of. I want them to understand how it changed our nation. Why we should be thankful to the many men and women in the military. Why we should thank a fireman, police officer or paramedic any chance we can. Today is a day that we should fell blessed for what we have and appreciate that life can end in a moments notice. To remind our family how much we love them. How lucky we are to be a nation that allows us to speak our mind, practice any religion and marry who we want (or divorce who we want).

I hope everyone has turned this event into not a day of mourning but of a day of appreciation and pride of our country.

You can read my post 10 years ago on September 11, 2001 here.

Saw the last of Harry Potter and friends

SPOILER ALERT: This post may contain some information regarding the books. My suggestion is to read the book already!!

Harry Potter may not have died in the last movie, but in a small way he did. Along with the rest of the gang that I have seen grow up in the last several years. It is not secret that I love Harry Potter, heck my blog is an tribute to the movie. But I was not always a HP fan.

My brother and sister loved HP from the very first movie. They were obsessed and I would tease them on the nerdiness of it all. I giggled when I went to see Lord of the Rings in the theater and saw countless kids dressed up as Harry. Not to mention the 3 theaters playing the movie completely sold out. What was so great about this little boy who was a Wizard?

Well I didn’t find out until I got sick and stayed home from work. I was about 20 at the time and was laying on the couch looking for something good to watch on TV. I saw the DVD case with the first Harry Potter movie by the TV. Reluctantly, with some coaxing from my brother, I put the movie in. The rest was history. It was a tornado of me reading all the books, waiting in line at midnight to be the first to get my hands on the newest book, collectable wands placed on my shelves and buying my ticket for the newest movie 2 weeks in advance. I truly became a Harry Potter geek.

Even though I had read the book and knew the fate of Harry and his friends, I was sad to go to the last movie. I knew who was going to die and who was to live, but seeing it with the characters that I have witnessed grow up was both thrilling and slightly sad. I still had to hold back tears when one of the twins died or when Doby was buried.

I personally loved the movie and thought it was one of the few movies that followed the book pretty closely. Many people disagree with my opinion and that’s fine. I love to hear peoples take on the last movie and hear how they would have made it better. I do admit that that I was disappointed at Mrs. Weasley’s big line came up in the movie so flat when it was so strong in the book. But I understand that the book is ALWAYS better then the movie.

Sadly I saw Daniel Radcliff portray Harry Potter for the last time today. Eight years of following this movie is now over. I will patiently wait for the box collection set of DVDs to come out to have a movie marathon with my sister and brother. I like to think that my kids will enjoy watching and reading Harry Potter as much as I did. But after hearing David’s 7 year old Nephew came right out and says Back to the Future was boring and wanted to watch something else made lose hope for the future generations. Then again they still love Wizard of Oz…

Went to the Bruins "Rolling Rally" parade

The Bruins won the Stanley Cup and tradition in Boston was to celebrate by having a “Rolling Rally” parade on the duck boats.
I had never been to a parade to celebrate a Boston sports team win. But David, being a huge Bruins fan, insisted that we go. I agreed and we made plans to meet some of my friends in Boston.

We got to Boston at about 7am. The weather was cool and I wish I brought a sweatshirt. The parade didn’t start until 10am so we had a lot of waiting to do. But if order for us to get a good spot, we needed to get their nice and early.
The sun came out and it got HOT!! I wish I brought a nice cold drink but I didn’t dare lose my place because the crowd was forming. Hundred of people lined the sidewalk to catch a glimpse of the cup and team that were to pass by.

Finally, after what seemed like FOREVER, the duck boats were in view. They made their way to us and were inches away from us. I loved watching David’s face as the players he rooted for were right in front of him.

Even though I am not a Bruins fan and had no clue who any of the players were (except for Tim Thomas) I got into the whole parade. I clapped, waved and smiled big as they passed by. It was amazing.

The Stanley cup passed by us and I felt an electricity in the crowd. It was truly awesome to witness. I felt like I just saw a piece of history. David nearly jumped the roadblocks to when the cup was right in front of us.

Although we waited 3 hours for the parade to start, it was well worth it, despite that we both got major sunburns and almost past out from the heat. David kept that smile on his face the entire day. Nothing better then that!

Watched the Bruins win the cup!

I would love to say how exciting this day was for me. How I watched the Bruins win surrounded by countless fans. How I high-fived random fans as beer is being passed out to celebrate. Proudly showing off my Bruins pride along with the way while confetti is being tossed.

Nope.

When they won I was home. Alone. In bed. Sigh…so boring.

David is a HUGE Bruins fan whereas I am not. I prefer my Patriots and Sox to the Bruins or Celtics. So when David asked if it was okay to watch the game with a group of his friends at a bar, I was fine with that. But there was no way in Hell that I was going to miss watching the Bruins possibly win the Stanley Cup, considering since the Bruins have not won the Stanley Cup in my lifetime.

This all came down to this game. The Vancouver Canucks were a strong team and so were the Bruins. Each team had won 3 games and whoever won this game brought home the cup. Bruins fans wanted that cup and chants of “We want the cup” became our motto.

So I laid under the covers in bed and watched the last hockey game of the season. It was an easy win for the Bruins and they dominated this game winning with a score of 4-0.

I cheered and wrote a Facebook message congratulating the Bruins on their win. Then I fell asleep. David came home and had this huge grin on his face late that night. I woke up briefly and then passed out again.

Hmmm… this sounds like my activities when the Red Sox won the series in 2004. I wish these games were on earlier. Oh well. Congrats Bruins and their die hard fans!

Decided to start saving for a house.

David and I have been living together in our small arrangement for a little over a month now. Our space is small and cramped yet we are managing. It has been a huge adjustment for me from having my own large space.

There are several reasons on why we moved in with David’s parents. One reason for moving in was so that we want to be able to save for a house of our own. A lower rent payment is going to help us achieve our goal of being homeowners.

On this day we finally decided to get serious and open our first joint savings account! Yikes! Such a huge step in our relationship!!

Our plan is simple and aggressive. We need to save $15,000 (5% of $300,000) by May 2012. Seems like a hard to reach goal since we opened the account with just $10. But we are determined to make this dream a reality for us.

I have shared my goals out loud with family, friends and coworkers. All seem to have same reaction. Happy, yet ask when the wedding is. Apparently you need to be married in order to have a house or start a family. I didn’t think this was 1950 anymore.

Owning a house will mean so much for us. It will mean privacy, owning equity, a big step in our relationship and lastly starting a family.

Let’s hope that by next year we will be house hunting!

Survived Rapture!

According to Harold Camping, the end of the world or “Rapture” was to begin at 6pm on May 21, 2011.

From what he said, God was going to be taking people who followed and truly believe straight to Heaven. Everyone else would have 6 months to repent and surrender themselves to God because on October 21, 2011 the world would be destroyed. People left on Earth would suffer greatly and lots of death/destruction would be around us.

Harold Camping has predicted the end of the world in 1994. When the world did not end, he blamed it on a miscalculation. What he didn’t realize (or care about) was that his followers where quitting their jobs, maxing out their credit cards and in some extreme cases committing suicide. It has been the same this time. His followers really believe him 100%! Nice guy, huh.

On May 21, 2011 at 6pm I was in Boston with David. We were on our way to a Red Sox game. At around 5:50pm a thick fog covered Boston. Traffic was heavy and we were stuck staring at this strange fog rolling in.

5:59pm we were still in traffic seeing the fog inch its way to us. And then the clock struck 6pm…..

It was truly amazing what we were witnessing…..

Traffic was letting up and we were able to get to Fenway. And that fog was just fog. Nobody was taken into Heaven. No earthquakes or storms happened. Nothing exciting but the fact that traffic was moving again.

Thanks for the laugh Harold Camping!