Tis the Season

December is always a fun month in the city. This December started out with our friend's birthday outing. She always picks such fun places to try out. This year she picked Kingston Station and Stoddard's. I really enjoyed both places and it was a really fun night in the city.

Last weekend we walked down the street and picked up our Christmas tree at Ricky's Flower mart in Union Square. This has become an annual tradition for us. It's so convenient to be able to walk home with your tree and not deal with having to secure it to the roof of your car. Thanks to three strands of LED lights our tree is glowing and certainly visible on the street.

In fact, after we put the lights on we wanted to make sure you could really see it from the street so we ran outside. While staring at our tree we noticed a film crew outside of All-Star Sandwich Bar and went to investigate. Sure enough, Chad Ochocinco was hanging out with a restaurant full of his friends. Just another celebrity to check out our neighborhood.

This past weekend we decided to go out and enjoy the holiday season in the city. Our first stop was It's a Wonderful Life at the Brattle Theater. I absolutely love this movie and always tear up at the end. It's become one of our holiday traditions and I always look forward to it. After the movie, we headed over to dinner at NuBar at the Sheraton Commander Hotel in Harvard Square. The hotel looks so beautiful with all of the white lights. We had eaten at NuBar once before when we had our wedding tasting but we hadn't had anything from their actual menu so we were looking forward to checking it out. The appetizers are outstanding. I had the serrano ham with arugula salad. The dressing on the salad was the perfect match for the peppery arugula. JO got the squid and really enjoyed it. I got the clam roast for dinner and it certainly lived up to the billing. It was featured on Chronicle a while back. The clams had some really deep flavor and I loved the roasted tomatoes and bacon paired with them. Dessert was also delicious.

We spent a few minutes hanging out in the lobby admiring the Christmas tree and remembering different things from our wedding day. One of the reasons we picked the Sheraton Commander for wedding was that we wanted a place we could go back to and reminisce about the day.

Despite the frigid weather, we headed into Boston after dinner. We wanted to check out the holiday decorations at the Omni Parker and stop by The Last Hurrah, one of my favorite places in the city. We took some time to admire the tree in the lobby before grabbing a drink. I will never grow tired of this place. I love the old charm and the quiet atmosphere. I also love that you can get really dressed up, or be totally casual.

It was a perfect city night and just what I needed heading into the last week of school before the vacation.

Campfires in the Square

Last night the weather continued to cooperate. We headed into the Square for the annual tree lighting at the Charles Hotel. Most years we are freezing and sipping hot chocolate to keep us warm. Not this year! The trees looked beautiful and once again the jazz playing santas provided great music.


It was so beautiful out that we decided to take advantage of being able to dine outside at the end of November so we grabbed a table at Charlie's Kitchen Beer Garden. Early on we didn't need our jackets. It felt surreal to be outside this late in the year and not be freezing. As the evening progressed it got a bit colder but lucky for us our table was right next to the wood burning stove. A few of our friends joined us and the evening was a lot of fun.

Global Warming...or the Best Thanksgiving Break Ever!

Remember a few weeks ago when it snowed in October? Well, in true New England fashion it was gorgeously sunny and in the mid 60s yesterday and today. Seriously! I'm not kidding!

In what has become an annual tradition I headed into Harvard Square on Plaid Friday (small business post Thanksgiving shopping day) to do some holiday shopping. It's such a great alternative to mall shopping since it's not usually crowded and there are some really unique stores. Usually though I have to bundle up. Not this year! It was an absolutely glorious day to be in the Square. JO joined me for the walk and we grabbed lunch at an Indian restaurant overlooking Winthrop Park and JFK Street. I ended up staying in the Square for a while longer after JO left because I just couldn't believe how beautiful it was out. I got most of my holiday shopping done. We ended up heading back to the Square to go see Hugo and have dinner at Wagamamma.

This morning I headed out early to run some errands. It was so gorgeous out that I was inspired to do some urban hiking. I headed through Kendall Square to the Salt and Pepper Bridge. The view is so amazing from that corner of Cambridge. You get this full panoramic view of the Boston skyline. I love watching the airplanes as the take off over the skyscrapers. I sat on a bench and just soaked up the sun and views. I am so lucky to live where I live! This spectacular spot is just a 25 minute walk from my apartment. I regret that I haven't taken this walk more often in the past three years. That's certainly going to change.

Tonight it's off to Harvard Square again for the tree lighting at the Charles Hotel. It's still beautiful out... this is what Christmas in California must feel like. I'm hoping to take advantage of the nice weather with one more outdoor dining experience before the weather becomes more wintery.

Boston Music Awards

A few weeks ago, during a particularly rough day at school, I decided to eat lunch in my classroom. I almost never do this because I usually need a break from the room. On this day though my brain was on overload and I wanted to take a few minutes to check my email on my phone. The email I got from JO asking me if I wanted to go to the Boston Music Awards at the Liberty Hotel was exactly the energy boost I needed. Of course I said yes. I absolutely love the Liberty Hotel as evidenced here, here, and here.

In one of my posts from last spring I talked about how great it is to have something to look forward to on a Sunday night. It really extends the weekend and you're not so focused on the week ahead. That's exactly how I felt on Sunday night as we headed to the hotel for the awards. We really had no idea what to expect from the event but we were excited to get dressed up and hang out at the hotel.

Upon arriving at the hotel we were greeted with a red carpet and a press area for the artists to have their official pictures taken. We headed upstairs to study the schedule of performances. The way the show was set up was to have performances going on in several different rooms in the hotel leading up to the awards which are announced in the five story open lobby. We were a bit early so we passed the time by people watching and enjoying a drink from Clink.

JO was really looking forward to seeing Freezepop. They were performing in the ballroom and we were able to get a spot right next to the stage. After their set we checked out Viva Viva. Both bands were really good. On our way upstairs we stopped to watch some epic bartending. Seriously, the bartender looked like she had been put on fast forward. We checked out the Wandas before listening to the awards announcements.




The neat thing about the awards announcements is that the artists are floating all over the hotel. We happened to be standing next to one of the winners when her name was announced so we got to enjoy the celebration.


Drop Kick Murphy's accepting their award!

We had such a great time we're already planning our return next year. We definitely want to stay longer. After the awards there a bunch more performances. We couldn't stay this year because we were exhausted from hosting Thanksgiving. It was a lot of fun to get all dressed up and mingle with some of Boston's best local musicians. Plus, we loved getting to tour the hotel!

Thanksgiving Fest

Thanksgiving Fest is one of my favorite fests that we host for our friends. This is our third year hosting our Thanksgiving Fest at this apartment and we definitely have it down to a fine science. This year our final count rang in at 21 +3... 21 adults and 3 babies! We managed to fit everyone around one long table in our kitchen.



We also unveiled our new steamer trunk wine chest. This piece of furniture will come in handy if we have to move and we no longer have 20 kitchen cabinets. I enjoyed how the neighborhood Rif Raf didn't think JO and Ernie could move it into our apartment.



The evening was a huge success. It's so nice that this group of friends have a few annual events each year to bring everyone together and I love that our kitchen is big enough to have everyone sit at the same table.

Out and About

The last few weeks have certainly been busy. I really thought that after the wedding I would have all of this free time. That really hasn't happened. Despite this, we've still managed to get out and enjoy the city.

We went to Daedalus and NuBar for the perfect little Harvard Square outing. Daedalus has added some new items to their menu, including my personal favorite fried artichoke hearts. I also discovered that NuBar has an excellent prosecco, complete with a raspberry. I'm so glad we changed our wedding venue to the Sheraton Commander. This way we always have a place to go back to when we want to reminisce. I really enjoy the atmosphere in NuBar and am looking forward to dinner there soon.

I met up with my blog inspiring friend for dinner at the Rattlesnake on Boylston Street. We got detained by the transit police...but that's pretty normal for our nights out.

I had a lovely night out with great friends at Ruth Chris Steakhouse and the Last Hurrah. Although I'm not really into steak houses Ruth Chris was really fun and I love the entrance.

I have come to realize that I have not tired of city life in any way. I feel so happy in the morning walking to my car. I look around and still can't believe this is my life!

Snowtober

It's October 30th and I'm sitting in my living room watching people clean off their cars and shovel the sidewalks after the Snowtober storm.

We started hearing about a possible snowstorm on Wednesday but I didn't think much of it. After all, it's October. I figured any snow we got would be of the "pretty" variety and not the "real" variety. I stopped listening to the weather on Thursday when their special weather map had predictions of up to 10 inches for some part of Massachusetts. After last year's winter of Snowpocolypse 1, 2, 3, and even more I really can't stand snow. I'm not alone. My fourth graders were not at all excited about the impending storm. That has to say something. I think they are still scarred from last year's six snow days.

That being said, I still didn't think the snow would be that bad. If you remember from my last post, I've been in a bit of a funk lately. I was hoping some city fun would change that. The weekend started off great. Chris van Allsburg, author of great books like Polar Express and Jumanji, was talking about the new book The Chronicles Of Harris Burdick based on his book The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. The talk was at one of my favorite Harvard Square places, The Brattle Theater. A few of my friends from work joined me and a couple of us went for dinner afterward. It was a really fun way to start the weekend and I loved the fact that if I lived back in the woods I would never have been able to go to something like this. Before the talk I stopped by EMS to check out their winter coat sale. I got a kick out of how crazy it was in there. People were ripping gloves, scarves, hats, boots, and jackets off the shelves like we were expecting a blizzard.

Saturday morning we got up early determined to carve a great pumpkin for the Inmanween pumpkin contest. We were really excited with our entry, even if we used a kit.


Unfortunately, by 4:00 it was clear the event would be canceled due to the ridiculous weather unfolding in our area. I was really disappointed since I love the neighborhood events thrown by the Inman Square Business Association. I burrowed under several blankets on the couch ready to succumb to Mother Nature.

Luckily, JO suggested we go to Top of the Hub to watch the snow fall down on the city. This was something we wanted to do last winter but last winter was just too ridiculous it made it really hard to embrace the snow. I threw on the Pufferator (my full length down jacket) and we headed out. Although it was foggy we really enjoyed ourselves. It was relatively empty so we had no problem finding seats at the bar. It was nice to turn the tables on Mother Nature for change and get my "City Mojo" back.

We woke up today to find out half the state doesn't have power and New Hampshire got close to two feet of snow. I'm really hoping this is not a sign of things to happen.

Stuck in the City

Eventually I will get back to that last day in Yellowstone. I mean...it involved Old Faithful after all.

The last few weeks have been crazy. In addition to all of the normal school crazies I got married and my best friend was in town for two weeks. I spent the next week catching up on some much needed sleep. Now that I am no longer sleep deprived it's time to get back to the city living lifestyle I love. Unfortunately I don't have much free time to work with since I'm pretty sure planning a wedding was far easier than trying to get 19 kids to pass MCAS. Throw in the holidays and I think I have one free weekend between now and January 15th. I think the stress of school and all of these meetings is really starting to mess with my city mojo. We went to the Regatta this weekend and it wasn't really fun at all.

So this weekend I am reclaiming my love for the city with Inmanween and The Great Pumpkin Festival at the CBC this weekend. I hear snow is in the forecast. It better stay away so I can enjoy these two fun Cambridge outings.

A Much Needed Night Out

I'll get back to the Yellowstone trip soon but in the meantime:

This past week seemed to drag on. I couldn't even tell you what happened on Monday...that's how far away it seems. The past weekend was so emotionally draining I just felt like giving up. The anniversary of my mother's death coupled with three financial disasters involving my father, and the 10th anniversary of 9/11 left me feeling in a funk before the week even began. Throw in the first full week of school and I was pretty much spent by the time Friday rolled around. JO and I had made plans to go to Alibi at the Liberty Hotel but after dinner I told him I just wanted to go home. He convinced me to go and I'm so glad he did.

Not only did we have a great time at Alibi, but we discovered that the Liberty Hotel has live music in their upstairs lobby bar on Friday nights. We'll definitely be going back to enjoy that again. We also decided to walk home. I'm not sure why but I'm so glad we did. We discovered a new, awesome bar called Firebred Saints. It had a an electronic etch a sketch projected on the wall and a cool display that mixed up the words from the closed captioning on the tv. We also discovered that Kendall Square has quite a few places on our "to-visit" list.

I feel like I'm constantly being told how horrible a place Cambridge is. Everywhere I go people say it's dirty, it's crowded, it's too hard to get around. Well you know what? It's my city and it's where I love to live! Tonight I was reminded why I love living here!

Marmot Pictures

As I mentioned in my last post, we had a lot of fun with all of the marmots in Mammoth Hot Springs. Apparently we only got one picture, and it's not the best. But, picture this little guy and 20 of his friends all hanging out together.

Yellowstone- Day 3

On the third day in Yellowstone we headed to the Mammoth Hot Springs area. I had seen one of the features in this area on a postcard and I couldn't wait to get there. We drove from Canyon Lodge and the drive was awesome. It left some of the more populated areas in favor of some of the more isolating areas. This led to plenty of wildlife sightings, including a couple of bears. Look closely, and you'll see the bear.




We weren't able to take the detour to Lamar Valley, which has been described as the Serengeti of the U.S. If we ever go back I definitely want to go there. I forget where this was, and the name of it, but this is the largest hot spring in the park.




Along the way we stopped to get this guy's picture. He was huge, and a bit too close.



Mammoth is the headquarters of the park and kind of feels like Disney World. It's very modern and there's real grass. There are also tons of marmots, that are perfectly willing to pose for pictures. After grabbing lunch we headed over to the hot spring area. Part of the trail is driveable but we decided to walk it since the traffic was a bit of a hassle.




The features in this part of the park were breathtaking. Not only were there hot springs and mud pots, but there were coral looking things that had been formed from the acidic erosion in the area.



It's weird that something so devoid of life can be so mesmerizing.


After several hours of touring, we headed out of the park for the night. We stayed in West Yellowstone which is literally ten minutes outside of the park boundaries. It's a really fun tourist town and we really had fun. We did a little shopping, sampled some local brews, and watched and IMAX movie about Yellowstone.



Our motel was super cute, and really comfy after "roughing" it at the Canyon Lodge for a few days.

Yellowstone- Day 2

Tuesday morning we had a quick breakfast before heading over to a few other viewing spots for the falls. We once again marveled at the power of the water rushing over the rocks.

We then headed out to do a short hike to the Natural Bridge. The hike was quite nice and bear
free.

We then headed back to the Lake Village area for a picnic next to Yellowstone Lake. It was quite windy but the views were spectacular!


Does everything seem normal in this picture?

Next, we drove over to the Noris Geyser Basin where we toured a bunch of the geysers, hot springs, mud pots, and steam vents. The landscape is just surreal with steam escaping everywhere. You realize you're in a really strange place. The mud pot was my favorite. It was going crazy and they had to close off a section of the boardwalk. The sign read, "Hot flying mud!" We saw a couple of small geysers. We also stopped at the Painters Pots.








Once again we had dinner at the Canyon Lodge before resting up for the next day's adventures!

Yellowstone- Day 1

We woke up early the next day to set off for Yellowstone, which is actually only about 20 minutes away from Grand Teton National Park. After sneaking one last long look at the Teton Mountain Range we were on our way.

Upon entering the park we stopped for pictures of the Yellowstone Park sign. We had done some pre-planning for the Yellowstone part of our trip but we still didn't know exactly what to expect. We drove along the road stopping at a bunch of sights. First up was a small waterfall. Yellowstone is full of waterfalls. These waterfalls are one tell tale sign that you are in an area formed by a volcano. As we continued we saw a giant elk (although it was sitting in the woods so you couldn't get a good picture), tons of bison, a gray fox, a couple of bear jams (gridlock caused by a bear sighting), and the West Thumb Geyser Basin. This is where our Yellowstone adventure truly started.










For those of you that don't know, Yellowstone sits on top of a huge volcano. Yes, you read that right. Hot lave flows 3-8 miles underground a majority of the park. The steam escapes in hot spring, mud pots, geysers, and steam vents. All of which were on display at the West Thumb Geyser basin. We had read about this basin in our tour book but nothing prepares you for the real thing. The colors are beautiful and it's so neat to see these pools of water bubbling. The neat thing about this geyser basin is that it is right next to Yellowstone Lake. If you look closely at the lake's shoreline you can see underground hot springs. This is one of the many reasons swimming in the lake is not encouraged. The cause of the beautiful colors is bacteria that can sustain life at extremely hot temperatures.







After touring the basin we continued driving along the Lake. We found a cool sandbar where you could walk out into the Lake. It was there that we really got the sense that we were on a volcano. The sand is black and there are lots of rocks that could only come from a volcano.







We continued on our travels, stopping at Lake Village for lunch. Along the way we saw lots of beautiful views. We drove all the way to Canyon Village, where we would be staying for two nights. The Village area is bustling and the Lodge itself is a blast from the past adding to it's charm. We were hungry but we decided to go to the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone while it was still light out. We hiked down about 600 feet on a switchback trail to the base of the Lower Falls. Wow is all I can say! The power of the water rushing over the falls was amazing. We stayed for a quite a while because we were both in awe.



After hiking back up we headed back to the Lodge to have dinner in the Lodge's dining room. We both ordered the bison ravioli...delicious! Then we headed back to our small, but very manageable, cabin. We woke up in the middle of the night freezing because we had left the windows open. Woops! It had gotten all the way down into the 30s.

Grand Teton National Park

We woke up pretty early on Monday morning to get to Grand Teton as early as possible to enjoy the park... unlike last year when we were trying to get to the parks early to avoid the heat.

The mountains looked pretty awesome entering the park, but I was still waiting for the "moment." About five minutes into the park we were greeted with this.

And it only got better from there.

Our big excursion for this park was a hike around Jenny Lake. This was a pretty big deal for me since it was a five mile round trip to the Hidden Falls. There is an option to take a boat across the river and cut the hike down to 1.5 miles but I was feeling up to the challenge. The weather was perfect for hiking, plus there was a lot of tree cover.

Along the hike we had gorgeous views of the lake,


a baby moose in a pond,


and ultimately the Hidden Falls.

After the hike we were both starving but ended up getting big ice cream bars at the general store instead. We continued driving through the park, stopping often to take pictures and take in the majestic mountains.

Our final destination for the day was the Jackson Lake Lodge in the park. The lodge is absolutely gorgeous. It's a bit of a "forced modernism" structure that has retained it's original look from the 50s. When you walk about the stairs in the lobby you are greeted with 60 foot, floor to ceiling windows with the ultimate view of the Teton Range. In my opinion, this is the best view in the park. You have the rolling meadows that open up to the Jackson Lake, and then the mountains in all of their glory. It really is stunning and I could have sit there all day staring at them.

After getting settled in our cabin we headed over to the Mural Room at the Lodge for dinner. The Mural Room has the same huge windows, and the same view. It was one of the nicest restaurants I have ever been to! We had fun deciding what to get for an appetizer. We finally decided to be adventurous and ordered the hazelnut and ginger bison carpaccio. I was a little nervous about eating raw bison but it was delicious. We also had an amuse-bouche of tuna tartar which was quite yummy! Our dinners were delicious and dessert was as well. We had such a great time staring out the windows at the mountains. A fox even ran by the window.

After dinner we headed to one of the Lodge bars to have drinks outside and watch the sunset over the mountains. Unfortunately, the mousquitoes were really bad so we watched from inside the lobby darting outside every few minutes to take pictures. As the sun was setting deer and elk came out in the meadows. It was truly beautiful. I still cannot get over how amazing the mountains were. Grand Teton National Park definitely surpassed our expectations.