Boston, Cont'd: Fried Dough, Steamers and a Birthday Bash

We spent the second half of our trip to New England with Dave's family; we planned this trip around being there for his stepmother's 70th birthday party on Saturday, August 8th. On Friday we enjoyed a great day with Paige, as the three of us headed up the coast about an hour to Hampton Beach, Mass. Friday's trip also brought two New England traditions; now, if you already know about steamers and fried dough, then hey -- you are MILES ahead of me. If you aren't familiar with them, then stay tuned.

Before we headed up to Hampton, Paige and I had lunch with my Aunt Theresa, who lives in Chelmsford, Mass. It was wonderful to see her again, and to see my Uncle James as well. Aunt Theresa was the only sibling in my mother's family that moved far away from the midwest, and it has been nice to reconnect with her since Dave's family lives so close to her. (Of course I know my Aunt Mary, who regularly reads this blog, will remind me that I have now seen Aunt Theresa twice in just a few years - I definitely owe HER a visit in Iowa, soon!)

It was a beautiful day for the beach, the sky was filled with puffy white clouds and the breeze on the beach was balmy and not too hot. We walked up and down the beach in the surf, and enjoyed the weather and the people-watching.



Ah, see the jetty below, a trail of rocks that juts out several hundred yards out into the ocean? Looks like it would be so easy to get out where Paige and I are standing below, doesn't it? Like it would just a "hop, skip and a jump" out on these large boulders, all the way to the end.




Well, for some sure-footed people it probably would be. And that was the case with Paige, but NOT me. Good freakin' grief, this was not one of my more graceful adventures. Luckily I was sandwiched between her and Dave, so that they could help me navigate the large crevices between some of the rocks. See this below? Me, laboriously climbing down into the gaps? Not so much with Paige, who has been in cheer and tumbling for the last several years. She easily leapt from rock to rock like a little mountain goat (that's a compliment, Paige) and then would turn around to make sure I was doing ok, God love her. :)

Dave asked about halfway through if we wanted to turn around and go back, and I assured him that NO, this was like mountain climbing, you don't just stop halfway -- we were going for the summit. And, considering this was the most exercise we had on this vacation, it was probably a good thing that we did exert the energy to go all the way out to the end and back.

Before we left the beach and the boardwalk on Hampton, Dave said we just had to try the fried dough. Well, actually it was the "fried doe" or "fried dogh" as a couple of signs read; I was glad that the one we ended up at spelled it correctly, and Paige agreed. Dave just rolled his eyes at my spelling Nazi-ism.

Fried dough is what it sounds like -- think funnel cakes here in the Ozarks, but this is one big dinner plate-sized piece of dough that is deep fried and then covered with your choice of toppings - carmel, powdered sugar, cinnamon sugar and several others. We all three split one, and it was yummy.



Dave's last stop down memory lane was at Brown's, a little restaurant on the beach that has been there for almost 60 years and is famous for its fried seafood and steamers. Steamers, or steamed clams, were what Dave was craving; he said he couldn't leave Mass without having some, and Brown's was "the" place to have them.

They were $12 for a quart (I think; it was about 30 of them) and it was quite the process. First you open the shell, peel the clam out and take off the membrane at the top of the neck. Then you dip it in steaming hot water to clean it off, and then finally in a cup of butter before popping it into your mouth.

I tried one, and that was all I needed. They must be an acquired taste; while I do like fried clams, this was just way too much texture for me, to put it politely. Paige was a trooper and ate about seven or eight, and I think she actually liked them fairly well.

We headed back to Dave's sister's house that evening, and spent the next few days with all of the family. It was especially nice for Paige to be there, since it has been three years since she has been to Boston, and her next few years will be very busy with college. She enjoyed spending time with Gail and Jr, Dave's parents, pictured below.

Dave's sisters worked very hard to put on a great party for Gail, with about 40 people in attendance. Several of Gail and Jr's friends from Florida (where they spend the winter) came to the party, as did some relatives from NY and NJ. It was a fun evening, with some great food and a yummy cake, as you can see from the picture of Paige and Dave below (nice blue frosting, guys!)

Now we're home, and while it was an awesome trip, I'm glad to be back. It was the longest time I've ever been gone from Jace, and I missed him lots. He had a good time with his dad and stepmom, and stayed busy with all his summertime activities, but I know he was glad for me to be home as well. I picked him up after dinner last night and we went for Andy's frozen custard and got caught up on everything.

I'm also back to work and getting caught up here; finishing typing this over my lunch hour, and now must get back to reading and following up on all the emails that came in while I was on vacation. I'll close with a big "Thank you!" to all of Dave's family, his friend Scott and other EMC friends, and my Aunt Theresa for showing us a great time while we were in New England, it was a blast!

Boston Trip: Day Five... well, Five, Six, Seven, blah blah blah.

I had to give up on my hope of being all organized and posting daily or even every other day -- just too much to do and not enough time to get the laptop out. The week has flown by, and now we're at Dave's sister's home in Leominster, MA. After spending Monday on Martha's Vineyard we then headed to Provincetown, at the tip of the Cape, on Tuesday. It was about 60 miles from where we were staying, and a nice mid-day ride in the convertible.

P-town, as it is called, is very quaint, and is well-known for the alternative lifestyle, kind of a Eureka Springs on the east coast. Lots of beautiful cottages, and neat stores, art galleries, and trendy eateries. We had lunch on the back porch of a restaurant, right on the beach. It certainly hasn't been a cheap trip as far as eating goes -- I think we have spent $40-50 on most evening meals, and even some lunches. Ack!

The Cape Cod beaches were beautiful, but the water was COLD! There were lots of people swimming, but we just walked in the water each time, no getting all the way in.

On Wednesday we left the Cape and headed to the waterfront in Boston, where we were staying Wednesday night. We spent the afternoon walking around the waterfront, went to Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall Marketplace, where we bought some t-shirts (and a green Boston ball cap with a red clover for me) to take home to the kids.



Then we ended the afternoon at the New England Aquarium which was absolutely beautiful and very interesting. I hope we will bring back Jace and Neil in the next few years to visit some of the city and surrounding areas.









Wednesday night we met up for drinks and dinner with Scott, a work colleague of Dave's, who lives in the Boston area. Dave and Scott have worked together via email and phone for the last few years but haven't met until now. They caught up over a few beers (and wine for me, of course) and we enjoyed a fun evening.



Paige was flying into Boston on Thursday afternoon, so we took a short half-day trip north of Boston to visit Salem and Gloucester. We didn't stay long in either place, but did see a few of the sights in both; I really wanted to see Gloucester and the memorial to the fishermen. First we drove through Salem; the picture below is one of the original houses that was there during the time of the Salem Witch Hunt. It was neat to see many of these buildings and know that they have been there for hundreds of years. The city hall in Salem is the second oldest city hall in the nation.





I remembered Gloucester from the movie The Perfect Storm, depicting the true story of a ship that went down in 1991. And now with the popularity of the Discovery Channel's Deadliest Catch series, we all have the opportunity to see the harrowing jobs of the fishermen on the crab boats.

But to be there in Gloucester and see the memorial itself was so touching, and really sobering, to see the thousands of fishermen who have lost their lives... some of the stats on the memorial behind Dave:

• Men known to be lost at sea and honored here: 5,368
• Of the nearly 1,000 ships lost, those lost with all hands: 265
• Thousands of widows sturggled to survive and raise their children. Many of those fatherless children entered the trade of their lost fathers.
• Between 1860-1906, a staggering 660 ships sank. Many of the fishermen were saved, 3,880 men were lost.
• A single storm in 1862 claimed 15 schooners and 120 men, while another devastating storm in 1879 took the lives of 159 men.

On the bottom of the memorial is a verse from Psalms: They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep. Psalms 107, 23-24.

This was one of my favorite places we have visited on our trip; I would've liked to have spent more time in Gloucester, but we had to head back to the city and get Paige, and start the second half of our vacation with Dave's family. We've already been here a couple of days, but I'll have to post more on that later.

Day Three Boston Trip: "Mah-tha's Vineyard"

Day Two and Three have flown by and I will tell about them in a bit, but just had to title today's post as such, since I've been kidding Dave about it for the last few weeks.

He's lived in the Ozarks for 25 years, and most of the time you really can't tell that he is from Boston. Occasionally a word will creep in here and there, but overall he really doesn't have his "Bah-ston" accent anymore. However this is one word where you can just tell he is from the Northeast. He's tired of me ribbing him about it whenever we have been talking to friends about our upcoming trip: "C'mon, just tell them where we're going while we're on Cape Cod, just tell them!"...

Anyway, our trip to Martha's Vineyard was yesterday, and it was neat to see but we didn't end up spending all day there - headed back on the 3:45pm ferry. Here are a few pics:

We took the ferry over to MV and landed in Oak Bluffs, one of the four main towns on the island. We had to laugh when we saw the Nancy's restaurant - we asked someone who worked at the bar outside when the actual restaurant opened and her reply was "Oh, we usually open around 11ish"... sounds like the concept of "island time" isn't just in the tropics, huh?

Here's a shirt we saw while in Oak Bluffs... liked it enough to get a pic of it, but didn't really think I needed another T-shirt.


The annoying part of the day was the bus transportation all over the island. It was hot, sticky, crammed full of people and just plain uncomfortable. Especially when we really would've liked to rent a Jeep or a motorcycle for the day. But that would've meant spending $100-$180, and we had agreed that we are going to stay within our budget on this trip. The old Dave/Nancy would've just plunked that $$ down and enjoyed the heck out of the day. But we have been "acting our wage" (with Dave Ramsey, for those of you who know about him... I will post more on it after vacation) and to spend an additional $100+ was not something we were going to allow ourselves to do.

We both agreed after a few hours that we were ready to head back to the Cape, even though our original plan had been to eat dinner on MV and catch the 7pm ferry back. As we arrived on the bus back to Oak Bluffs, the driver pointed out the big white tents that were set up on the beautiful lawn area near the ferry. She said it was a "Celebrity Dream Auction" that started at 4pm, and there would be all kinds of celebs there - Michael J Fox and family, Ted Danson and Mary Steemburgen, and a few more she mentioned. I considered for a second if we should stay, since I had mused to Dave on our way there that "maybe we would see some famous people". But it just wasn't worth the wait, I was ready to get back to our B&B and a nice shower and comfy bed for a late afternoon nap.



I will have to post the Day Two pics and write more later. I've been on the computer for three hours, and the first two were on the pesky budget. It is amazing- no matter WHEN I take vacation in the summer, it seems that more often than not that is the week that budget adjustments are due!

More soon.

Boston Trip: Day One

We are here in Cape Cod, Mass and are already on Vacation, Day Two. But I have to catch the blog up on all the pre-vacay stuff first!

I was very surprised and happy that Jace did have a ballgame on Thursday night, despite the rain we had Wednesday night and Thursday morning. So I was able to be at their game, and it was an awesome one to see. I arrived a bit late, and Jace's team, the Dodgers, was up to bat but already feeling stressed, as the other team, the Rockies, had led off batting and were up five runs already. The Dodgers didn't fare so well on batting, either, and all of us parents commented that we could really tell they were stressed and tense. This was the game that would determine if the Dodgers would go to the World Series of their baseball league, so it wasn't surprising that they were stressed.

When the Dodgers went back to the field, the same pitcher started the second inning, but was just having a bad night, and kept walking the Rockies batters. So Coach Tom put Jace in to pitch. As a mom, I was worried for him, because sometimes he can really let the stress get to him even in the normal games, much less one like this game. But he was AWESOME! Calm and focused, he pitched the rest of the game, and after a nail-biting extra (fifth)inning, the Dodgers came back to WIN! I was so proud of Jace and their whole team! I missed the World Series game on Friday night, but he called me afterwards, and they won the World Series too. Yay!





After Jace's game was over, we hurried home to hang out with Dave, Paige and Paige's friend Taylor, who was in visiting for a few days from Dallas, TX. He is a sweetie, and I can see why he and Paige get along so well. We all just sat and talked for awhile after dinner for a couple of hours. Then they headed back to Paige's house, to continue on with their busy four days. She had a lot planned for them to do, I know she was happy to have him visit and meet her family and friends.



Dave and I started our trip out right on Friday night, with our friends Garry and Heather in KC. Our flight left out of KC Saturday morning at 6AM, so we were glad to stay with them Friday night and only have a ten minute trip to the airport in the morning. I brought the spaghetti sauce Dave had fixed for our dinner with Paige on Thursday night, so we treated Garry and Heather to a bruschetta appetizer and pasta dinner on Friday night, as a thank-you for letting us crash with them.




We are excited that we will be seeing more of them over the next few years, since Paige will be going to college just 20 minutes away from their home. It will make the visits to see Paige twice as nice, with friends there as well!

Our flight on Saturday was early, but the upside to that was that we arrived in Boston by 10 AM. As our luggage came off the carousel, Dave joked that we won the prize because our big suitcase was the very first one out. Then we waited, and waited, and waited for our second suitcase with all of our toiletries in it. When they turned the carousel off and it hadn't showed up, I knew we were in trouble. One of the luggage guys came in to the area and said that there were five pieces of luggage that hadn't made it on our flight, and they would be on a later flight. Well, crap. We made arrangements for it to be delivered to our B&B on Cape Cod, and just hoped for the best.

We left Boston and headed south in our rental car, which is a Mustang convertible -- what a sweet car!!


Traffic was crazy, and it took about two hours to get to the Cape, but it was an enjoyable ride, although not so good on the hairstyle:



We stopped in Plymouth, Mass on the way to Cape Cod, to see Plymouth Rock and the harbor. Plymouth Rock is, well, just a rock. Although what more would one expect, I guess -- the Pilgrims used it as a step off of the Mayflower, so I guess it wouldn't be anything spectacular. The harbor was beautiful, and there was a replica of the Mayflower there; it was the actual size of the original boat, and much smaller than you would think, for the number of Pilgrims that made the voyage on it from England to America. We didn't go on the tour inside the boat, I hope that we can come back with Jace in a couple years and take him to see some of these same things.








We made it to Cape and our B&B about 4pm yesterday, and are preparing to start Day Two today. Will post more tonight, time to go enjoy the beautiful weather and a walk on the beach.

#*&% Weather!!

I think I could easily title more than half of my posts over the last few months as "Rain, Rain Go Away". Here we are again today, with outside activities planned for the afternoon and it is raining -- huh, well imagine that. I know the weather has been crazy all over the US, with temps in the 100s in Seattle and one of the coolest, rainiest summers in New York, so we're not the only ones lamenting (or b*itching) about the weather, but geez!! We were supposed to go with Paige and her friend Taylor, who is visiting from Texas, to the lake today, and I don't know that it will happen now.

And Jace's baseball game was rained out on Tuesday night, so postponed 'til tonight, and now it looks like it will be rained out again. If so then I will be missing his last two games, (possibly the World Series of their league, if they win this next game) because we will be in Boston.

Just venting a bit; oh well, I guess we will just have to figure something else out with Paige and her friend (as Dave calls him- "Paige, how is your friend doing?" She and I kind of laughed about that; she is still his little girl, but he is really trying to do better with her dating!) if the rain doesn't go away. And then tonight it is last minute packing and prep for our trip that starts tomorrow...woo hoo!

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

Or, really, hair in really crappy looking layers until last Friday, and now it is cropped and as short as I've had it in years:



I'm liking it - the only thing I told the hairdresser (my new one, Shelly) is that I wanted to be able to pull it back in a ponytail, even a really, really short one was fine. So I can do that, and I'm rid of the layers-- it's a win-win.

I knew it was time to lose the layers when I fixed it last weekend in St. Louis, and kind of flipped up the layers on the ends, since there were SO many layers.

The husband said, "you've kinda got that Florence Henderson flip goin' on" -- what?? Hello? He backpedaled, saying that he always thought she was the hot mom when he was young, but it didn't fix things. I don't care if she was cute back in the 70s, no woman wants to be told she's got hair like the mom in the Brady Bunch!!

He was much smarter with this new cut, and kept it simple, saying I looked beautiful and he likes my hair any way that I want to wear it. Good answer, honey.

We're getting ready for our trip to Boston, and the week will be filled with laundry, packing, Jace's last two baseball games, the gym, getting the dog/house sitter set up, and all the last minute things. Whew! Happy Monday!

Whew, I Made It

A little tongue in cheek humor there for my sibs, who learned via my blog that I was having minor surgery on Tuesday. Rob, (the first blogger in the fam, although, hello, Rob -- no post for the past month, what's up with that!?) checked out my blog Monday night and emailed the siblings on Tuesday about my surgery, and I did get a little grief from a couple sibs who read Rob's email (well, really only one, the one who doesn't keep up with the blog... uh, you know who you are, S___n). :)

I just didn't want to make a big deal out of it... you know, the whole thought process that if you DON'T make a big deal out of it then it isn't a big deal, and then nothing bad will happen! And nothing did - the surgery went fine, I had lots of TLC from the hubby and Jace, and I headed back to work today. They removed a lot of tissue/cysts, and it may come back again, we'll just have to see. The bummer for me is that I can't go swimming for a month, until my follow-up visit, to give my insides a chance to heal. Dang, if I had known that I might've put the surgery off for another month, knowing that we have some lake time left and a vacation planned to Boston, where Dave's family lives, and they have a gorgeous inground pool.

I'm also off the exercise wagon for a few days until I'm feeling like getting back on the elliptical again, so have been trying to at least eat semi-healthy while I'm vegging out on the sofa. Better enjoy the time off while I can!