Went to my first Bachelorette Party

I was very excited to get an invitation to my friends Bachelorette Party. Besides my own, I had NEVER been to one and was pretty excited.

We started the night by eating at the North End. I have never had dinner at the North End (little Italy of Boston) and was not disappointed. The street we were on was filled with people and food. I ordered chicken parm with linguini that was so delicious I almost licked the bowl
clean.

As much as I would have loved to stay in the North End to walk around, our next trip was to the bar. We spent four hours dancing, laughing and enjoying some yummy drinks. I loved spending time with just the girls and even made new friends with some of the bridesmaids. The night was fun and went by quickly. I was sad to have to leave as early as I did but I had to take the T (train) back and didn’t want to miss it. By the time I got to my car my feet were aching. Such a fun night!

Offer Accepted

David and I started house hunting in February. During this time we have seen over 30 houses, made 2 offers and have lost out on houses by just few hours. We have dealt with a broker from Hell, homeowners who just won’t budge on their asking price and houses that were simply disgusting. The whole experience is one huge emotional roller coaster.  

We both were mentally and physically exhausted with house-hunting. We needed a break. Plus we needed a new broker who did the work for us. It just wasn’t going well. We felt cursed.

Just when we were about to take a break a new house came up on the market.

It was in the location we wanted, the style we wanted and was exactly in our price range. That night we drove past it and knew we needed to see inside. But the sellers were only allowing people to see it on the day of the open house. So we needed to wait 4 days to get a view of this house.

We got to the open house early and already there was a line of people waiting to go in. Yikes! Not exactly what you wanted to see. They opened the front door and off we went inside. It was amazing and we could instantly see the potential it had. We loved everything about the house and decided right there that we needed this house.

Knowing how quick a house can accept an offer we went right from there to the broker’s office. We made an offer that was strong and we felt pretty darn good about it. Now we had to play the waiting game. 

At 6pm that night, we finally heard from our broker about the house. She said that there were waiting for a few more offers so we needed to wait  a bit longer. Hearing this was upsetting. We didn’t know what other people offered or how many people were trying for this house. We just need to wait.

We waited.

And waited.

AND WAITED!

Monday at around 6pm we didn’t feel too great about getting the house. It was upsetting but we have been at this point before. So close yet so far. Time to keep looking I guess.

Then I got a text message from our broker.

“They accepted you offer.”

WHAT!!!!!!!

I had to literally read it three times before I could tell David what it said. I started to cry and we both started dancing around the room. It was an unreal feeling. We were going to be homeowners!!!

Turns out the sellers had another offer exactly like ours. They chose us because we were the first to hand in the offer! Good thing we didn’t wait a day!

Celebrated a friends wedding shower

Unlike most women my age, I have only gone to 3 wedding showers (one being my own) in my lifetime. Sadly, that is what happens when you devote all your energy and love into just one person. But that’s a whole other topic right there!

It’s no lie that I have missed out on a lot of these events throughout the years. The two wedding showers I went to were for a neighbor and the other was my boss and his wife. So you can imagine how excited when I got the invitation for my friend’s wedding shower! I couldn’t have said “Yes” fast enough.

Her shower was simple, cute and amazing. Her bridesmaids
were attentive and classy. They kept in mind that this was the bride’s day and
not their own. Watching a bride’s maid make the bow bouquet and the maid of
honor making sure everything was perfect made me feel slightly jealous. I was
jealous that my wedding shower wasn’t like this. I was jealous that I didn’t
have a big family cheering me on. I was jealous that my bridesmaids were family
and not one was a friend. I was jealous I wasn’t a bridesmaid. I was jealous that I didn’t get a bow bouquet made for my shower. I was jealous of their new FoodSaver they got as a gift (just kidding….kind of).

But then, seeing my friend’s big smile and all the happy faces in the room made my jealousy quickly go away. I was so happy and honored to be a part of this special day with her. Looking around at the table at my other friends made me realize how great my life really is now. I was surrounded by so much love that day that even writing this makes me a bit teary eyed. I’m so blessed!

Carved pumpkins

It was really hard to get back into the Halloween spirit since the snow had us home bound and unable to go to our friend’s annual Halloween party. Our costumes sadly hung from their hangers being unworn and the cookies I spent hours on went uneaten in the fridge. Having no electricity made everything difficult, boring and cold. How did the pioneers possibly survive without the internet?!

David loved gutting out the pumpkins

Carefully carving out the outline.

David and I were determined to have some kind of Halloween fun. So in the sunlight streaming in from the kitchen, we carved pumpkins.

This is what I usually look like when I'm concentrating

It’s a tradition that my family has done every Halloween and what I plan to do with my kids one day. We choice our designs and went to work.

David’s pumpkin! Isn’t this little bat adorable! I love his eyes. This was David’s first carved pumpkin. So proud of him!!

My pumpkin. This design took me FOREVER to carve out. I have been doing pumpkins like this for a few years now and wanted to challenge myself this year. I thought it came out pretty darn good!

These look great on the deck of the house! At least there will be some kind of lights going on our street.

First big snowfall of the year...BEFORE HALLOWEEN!!

I actually lie a bit with the title of this post. It actually snowed briefly on Thursday night.
It was enough to make this snowball that David was proud to show off. It was also enough to make coat my car in a quarter inch of ice and snow in the morning causing me to be 10 minutes late. Not happy! But it wasn’t enough to stick to the ground or cause a panic.

Now today’s snow fall was a hard hit. It started about 4pm while I was making cookies for our party. At around 6pm the roads it was coming down faster and harder. The roads were quickly becoming dangerous and cars slide in all different directions. By 7pm we had to cancel going to the party. I was not a happy camper having to miss out on the annual Halloween party at my friend’s house.

With our plans cancelled, we decided to watch a scary movie. I wanted something really scary like Phenomena Activity but David wanted to see another movie he didn’t see. We decided on watch a movie called “Behind the Mask, The rise of Leslie Vernon”. Not a great movie and almost laughable to times. I didn’t find it at all scary and more annoying at times.

Just when the movie was finally getting good (I say that loosely) there was a loud pop and the lights went out. The whole street had no power and we were forced to try to keep entertained until we went to bed….at 10pm!

It was not the best Saturday and I went to bed feeling very disappointed and a bit worried. Throughout the night all you could hear was trees breaking. Because the leaves are still on the trees (that rhymed) the snow lay heavy and cause large branches to come down.
Never in my life had I experienced this much snow before Halloween. I am hoping this isn’t a sign of the Winter ahead of us.

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.