Further Details

A lot of people are wondering what in the world we are doing in Boston. Well, Jake is doing his research for his senior thesis. He has decided to study the Brazilian immigrant population in Boston and how churches here help them become established. We chose Boston because my grandparents house was sitting empty waiting for us and we chose the Brazilian population because Jake is fluent in Portuguese. We were lucky that there is a HUGE Brazilian population in Boston! Jake is working with the Celebration Church, a Brazilian Baptist church here. They are really nice - when I went they even offered a translation ear pierce! They are afraid that Jake is going to try to convert their members, but we have done our best to convince them that we are only here with academic purposes in mind. So far the pastor has been really willing to help Jake and we are very grateful. We will be out here until the end of August and then Jake will write his senior thesis during Fall Semester. So now you know!

Imposter!

I was excited to have a bird feeder right outside the window so I bought some bird seed to attract the birds. This guy is definitely NOT a bird! :) I wondered how my seed was gone so fast!

I think I'll call him Fred.

I Love To See The Temple!

Hana went to the temple for the first time last Friday! Jake and I went with her and had some fun photo ops outside of the temple. It was our first time to the Boston Temple, and it was gorgeous! We had a great time all together!

It's Official... I'm a Water Snob

If the tap water even has a hint of an odd taste, I won't drink it. I mean, I will, but I find it revolting and it makes me gag. And since our water here comes from the local pond, I can't really handle it. So I accepted the fact that I am a water snob and went to the grocery store and bought 4 gallons of water! At least I am embracing my snootiness!

The Lazy Ways of Cohasset

Jake and I are having a great time out here, but it has taken an adjustment to get used to the slow country life. There's not much to do here, and if something is a 30 minute drive away it is considered "close". But it is undeniably beautiful and we love living in the house overlooking the pond and it has a big garden that Jake spent all day in the other day planting things! Here is the view that I wake up to every day:

And that was even a rainy day! You should see it when it is sunny! Last week we got so bored of doing nothing but sitting on our butts looking at the computer, Hana drove us out to some of the closest beaches and we had some fun! The Scituate "beach":

We walked a long way out to the edge of the peninsula but it was fun hopping from one rock to the other! We felt quite victorious, as you can see:

And since it is so beautiful, we had to do a photo-op!

Then we watching the waves crashing over the rocks some more:

After that, we headed to the beach in Cohasset - the prettiest beach in all of Massachusetts if I do say so myself! This is the beach that is only about 5 minutes from my house!

Jealous? You should be! :)

P.S. Jake just got a job teaching archery at a summer academy! Hooray for my manly husband!

Niagara Falls

Since we were only a few miles away, and since Jake had never been, we decided to venture up to Niagara Falls for most of one day! We had a great time watching the vast amounts of water topple over the falls and walking all over the place - until I got a massive blister! That's when we decided to try and drive over to the Canadian side. What a mistake! First, we got interrogated by the Canadian crossing people, then we couldn't find anywhere to park that wasn't under $18 (which we weren't willing to pay since we only planned on staying for 2 hours), and then we decided that since we had payed the toll to get over to this new country we would at least drive around in it! Well, pretty much all we saw were lots of hotels and motels all advertising that they had heart shaped Jacuzzis. Canada - not my favorite place!

At night they light up the falls. Jake and I were too cold to stay for more than one color - red. So there you go! That was all we put up with. Then we hurried back to the hotel and jumped under the blankets to try and warm back up!

And my favorite picture:

Um, DUH!!!

We Made It!!!

Jake and I made it to our Boston house yesterday evening! The trip was great, and we made it through all of Harry Potter 6! No road problems, no weather problems, and no car troubles - so we were really lucky. We also spent about half a day at Niagara Falls, so I'll post pictures of that later. Just wanted to let everyone know we arrived safe and still in love!

And the Countdown Begins!

One week from today (Friday, May 1st) Jake and I are leaving to go live in Boston for 4 months! And we recently decided to cash in our plane tickets and drive across the country! Crazy! The decision to change our travel plans so close to our departure date was a difficult one, but it mainly has to do with the fact that my sister Hana (the one going on a mission) wants to hit all of the church history sites before she reports to the MTC, so we are driving my mom's car out to Boston (where Hana is now) and then my mom will fly there and drive home with Hana (and possibly some other siblings) stopping at all of the church history sites on the way.

So Jake and I will be back in Utah in August, and until then, we will be living in this lovely house:

which is conveniently only 5 minutes from the beach! I'll make sure to blog about all of our adventures in Boston so you can all be jealous of our jet-setting life! :)

Words Cannot Express How SHOCKED I Am!

Well, Hana got her mission call! Let me remind you that she went to school on the east coast, did an archaeological dig in Guatemala, went backpacking through Central America, did a semester abroad at Oxford University in England, and went backpacking through Europe. This is the girl who wants to sleep on dirt floors and doesn't mind showering once a week. So of course, she really wanted to go to the most exotic mission she could. Little did we know that she really would be sent to the most unique mission there is...

Yup - she is officially going to the Salt Lake Temple Square Mission!!! She is speaking English and reports to the MTC on August 5th! She did put on her papers that she is from Orem and that her family still lives in Orem, but I guess the Lord really wants her to go to Salt Lake! Now we just have to convince my mom to keep the rules.... Good luck! She is already talking about driving up to see her once a week and taking a tour from her or bringing her lunch or even moving up there and setting up binoculars so she can keep tabs on her. And you think she's kidding! This will be interesting to see how the dynamics of having her on a mission only 40 minutes from home.... Congrats Hana!
(I don't know who they are in the picture, but it's a pretty accurate representation of how she will look!)

Fun Family!

My beautiful, amazing, and Hilarious cousin Jackie is coming tomorrow and staying for a whole week! I'm so excited for the adventures we are going to have! If you can think of anything fun for us to do, let me know!

Every Day Is A Little Bit Easier

One year ago today a dear friend of mine passed away after valiantly fighting off breast cancer. So my mom and I went up to Logan today to visit her grave. We hadn't seen her headstone since it was put in after she was buried and we thought it was so beautiful! It was an emotionally hard day for my mom and I'm so proud of how good she did! So we spent a little time with her and even though we miss her so much, we are also SO grateful for the time we had with her! We miss you Deniece!

Color Me Mine

Alex, Rob, My Mom and I had a good time at Color Me Mine a few weeks ago. It was our first time at Color Me Mine, and we certainly learned a lot! Robbie picked out a fish plate to paint and fell head-over-heals in love with this paint called The Naked Truth. I'm sure he liked it just because it had the word "naked" in it, but it was still entertaining none the less. I think he used half a bottle on his own and you can't even tell because the actual paint is practically transparent!

Alex picked out a cute mug and painted it in stripes and then blew paint bubbles inside the mug to give it a kind of texture. It didn't work out so well...

I made a cake plate because I've always wanted one. I used masking tape to make really clean lines, but the tape kept rolling and so I didn't get the exact lines I wanted, but I was still happy with the finished project nonetheless.
It may look pastel-ly, but it came out VERY orange and VERY yellow. It is perfect! It was a very fun day!

Monsters vs Aliens - B+

This is a really fun movie! Kids and adults alike will enjoy this! And I definitely suggest you see it in 3D. It was the way it was meant to be seen, and it really added to a good movie. And if you don't like 3D movies, then you are out of luck, because there are like 7 movies coming out all in 3D, so it looks like it is the next "big thing".

Obviously this movie has a bare plot and was made just to pack jokes into it, but I was obviously okay with that because I kept giggling throughout the whole movie! It is absolutely appropriate for every age and isn't too scary. The brilliant colors and constant movements will capture any child's attention, and they make sure to put enough jokes in there to amuse the parents who go too.

Pretty much I only had two complaints with the movie - the sparse plot, which I understand because it's not supposed to be a deep movie, and the fact that the funniest character "Bob" isn't as funny as he could have been because most of his jokes were played over and over on every preview. So as funny as they were, I had heard most of them before and it definitely took away from the movie. I wish they had kept more of it under wraps so that I could have honestly laughed rather than just laughed at the memory of the first time I had heard it.

This is a movie you must definitely see!

Knowing - a Solid "D" Movie

Jake and I went and saw this movie on Monday and I was really excited to see it. Hollywood has been retarded lately and for the past couple of months there have really been no good movies at the theaters. So finally I was excited to go see this one.

Even though I graded this movie a D, I have to admit that up until the last 20 minutes or so I was seriously considering giving it a B, maybe even a B+ depending on my overall mood that day. But man, that had to have been one of the WORST ending to a movie EVER!!!

Also, I'm not really a Nicholas Cage fan. I don't really find him believable in his roles. I think the only movie that he is in that I really liked him as an actor was It Could Happen To You. And the fact that in this movie he is supposed to be an MIT professor, well, let's just say it didn't sit well with me.

I won't give away too much because most of the movie is never shown in previews, so the general concept is that there is a paper full of numbers that has been in a time capsule for 50 years and when it is uncovered, Nicholas Cage happens to figure out that the numbers are actually the date and the number of dead of every major crisis for the past 50 years. An interesting concept in a movie, and I was pretty excited to see where they would take it. I wasn't happy with the direction it took. Oh well.

This movie is pretty intense, and for me, intense = scary. Jake didn't think it was intense at all, but there was a part where scary albino people dressed all in black who never spoke were approaching the car where the children were and I was almost crying I was so scared. So if you are like me and don't handle intense very well, watch out.

The rest of the people in the movie do pretty well. The main little boy was good, although at the end of the movie I realized that he blended so well into the background that even after watching a movie that he partially starred in for 130 minutes, I couldn't pick him out of a lineup if I tried. The best actors in this movie are those who have been told to act freaky. Like the little girl in the beginning - she does a really good job at playing the disturbed little girl without overdoing it.

Would I recommend this movie? Only if you really want to see a movie and you have already seen everything else at the box office. But you have been warned about the ending. Not only does it go completely over the edge of the unbelievable cliff, but it jumps off it with a flying leap out of a car going 80mph. Hopefully there are alternate endings on the DVD.

Rated PG-13 because of some violent images, general scariness (if you are me), and some language.

My Life Has Been Saved!!!

No more dead mouse smell.

I'm in love.

Not a scented spray

but an air sanitizer that smells good.

Still no sign of the little bugger.