Better brush up on my Indiana accent

Dear Carie, please forgive me for not posting about Indiana before Ecuador.

My next adventure really is to Indiana for Fall Break.  I can't even tell you how excited I am to go visit this girl...

Can't wait for scary stories in the cemetery, covered bridges, and some amazing people-watching!  Oh, and I'm sure we'll have a Johnny Friday...and I'll fall asleep...and Aaron will take a hideous picture of me with my mouth open. :)

Better brush up on my español

In case you haven't talked to me or haven't seen my cute turtle countdown on the top of my page, you may not know about my next adventure.

Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, here I come!

I'm going with the same friends I went with to Ireland.  I don't think it was until tonight that it finally hit that I'm going, and I got really excited.  I've been doing some research and thinking it would be fun, but now it's becoming a little more real as we book hotels and plan a few of the details.  I even thought it would be fun to read the Origin of Species by Darwin as a little preparatory reading.  I changed my mind.  It's not a fun book to read.  Though it does help put me to sleep at night...one paragraph does the trick!

We'll be spending most of our time in the Galapagos with giant turtles, cute penguins, and these funny looking guys they call blue footed boobies.

 Look how massive these turtles are!

I'm also excited to spend a little time exploring some culture and architecture in Quito, Ecuador.

And of course standing on the equator!

 South American has never been high on my destination list, but I'm getting excited for this adventure.

Did I really do that?

During the first week back to school, I always have my students tell me their favorite thing they did over the summer.  In my advisory class, one of the kids asked me what I did this past summer.  I told them about my trip to Arizona, my half marathon, and my family reunion.  When I started telling them about my trip to Thailand, I had one of those moments where I thought Did I really do that?  I did so many amazing things, and now it just seems so unreal.  Good thing I have somewhere around 1000 photos to remind me that it was real.

I hope your mango's ripe

First, bonus points to the person who can name the movie from the post subject...

On our first day in Thailand, we hadn't quite become accustom to the heat and humidity (let's be honest...we NEVER became accustom to the heat and humidity) and were thrilled when we discovered frozen fruit drinks from a street vendor on Khao San Road in Bangkok.  We got them almost every day while we were there.  I particularly loved the mango drinks.

Ingredients:

-mango

-ice

-water

That's it.  No sugar.  No fruit juice.  No yogurt or milk.  Just plain fruity, icy goodness.  So good!  The mangos are all so ripe and amazing!

I made one this morning.  My mango wasn't quite ripe, so I had to add a little sugar.

It was delicious, and I felt like I was back in Thailand...only my hair wasn't as frizzy and there isn't a weird smell.

My countdown has reached zero. Here comes an adventure!

Two things I haven't done in a long time...

Blog and sew (for fun, not for work)

Last week I attended a workshop that taught how to fit patterns.  My favorite class in college was patternmaking, so this was so much fun to me!  In spite of what you may think, it can be kind of tricky and make you think, but I needed that!  I haven't been making my brain work lately...not to say I don't have things on my mind...just not the knowledge/learning part. Sometimes I miss being in school and learning.  I know I could sit down at a computer or with a how-to book and learn something new, but until I sign up for a class, I don't REALLY try to understand it.

This was my little work station all week.  I finished 5 patterns and had fun chatting with the ladies around me.  I heard everything from birthing stories (yikes) to unsolicited love advice (hilarious, but still yikes) and sagging body parts (yikes)

After I got done with this class last week (and by after, I mean on my way home), I stopped by the fabric store.  I know myself all too well and knew that if I didn't finish creating what I had worked on for 4 straight days, it would never happen.

I got home and set up my sewing station and did something I haven't done in years...I sewed something for myself.  Two days, an entire season of The Amazing Race (in 24 hours), and a neglected to-do list later...

Now, I am morally opposed to all those stupid pictures people post of themselves in a mirror, but it's the only way I could get it.  It's actually not done.  I haven't hemmed it because I still need to fix the side seams, but I have to be honest...I kind of love it.  I was worried that the pattern on the fabric would be a little too much, but I love it.

And just a side note...I leave for Thailand in 2 weeks.  Freaking out!

She said I think I'll go to Boston

A few months ago, my roommate Annie and I were trying to figure out where to go for Spring Break.  We really wanted to see Les Miserables, so we looked up where it would be playing during the break.  Our choices were either London (which would have been AWESOME!) or Boston.  Boston it was!

The whole trip was so fun, and Boston was so beautiful!  There's so much history and amazing architecture there.  And the bricks...holy moly, I wish someone would count how many bricks are in that city.  They're everywhere! :)

I'm just going to throw out some pictures in no particular order :)

This was when we first arrived in the city.  We were in our pajamas all day and going off about an hour of sleep after our red-eye flight.  This was the start of the Freedom Trail.  We only walked on part of it this day, but it was so fun!

 We took a Duck Tour of the city.  It's this bus that can also be a boat.  We drove around the city with Captain Groovy and took a little float in the Charles River.  It was a fun way to get acquainted with the city on our first day.

 I make a pretty good T-Rex :)

 I loved all the old cemeteries.  We saw grave markers of people like Paul Revere and John Hancock (or Herby Hancock if you love Tommy Boy) :)

 I told Annie I wanted to have a Boston Tea Party while we were there. :)  While walking on the Freedom Trail we stopped by Quincy Market, a really fun outdoor shopping area.  There was this huge Christmas store that was full of ornaments and decorations.  We found these tea set ornaments, so we sat on the floor and had our tea party! :)

 I loved the old architecture.  It was fun to see it mixed in with modern skyscrapers.  It reminded me of Dublin.  This is the Old State House.  This is where the Declaration of Independence was first read to Bostonians.

 Paul Revere statue.  In the background is the Old North Church (home of the "One if by land, and two if by sea" signal).  Right down the street is Paul Revere's house.  We got to go on a tour of the inside.

Little door.  We just thought it was funny :)

The Freedom Trail is a 2.5 mile trail that goes through the city.  It's marked by these metal plates and a red brick trail you follow.

 We liked to do balancing acts on the trail :)

 Bunker Hill Monument.  We loved this area of the city!

 This was where they said, "Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes." So we found the whites of Annie's eyes.

 Bunker Hill was the end of the Freedom Trail.  We were so excited to sit after walking all day :)

 My friend Kelsey (from Montana) went to Harvard, so she had given me some great pointers on where to go and where to eat.  She told us we had to go to this Thai place and eat the pad thai and assured us it was the best in the country.  I think she might be right!  It was so amazing!

 We walked around Harvard.

 We went to the Natural History Museum at Harvard.  We loved the sweet rocks they had!

 We went to the Boston City Library.  Annie loves libraries.  We stopped there for a while to take a break and read (meaning Annie read while I fell asleep.  I felt like I was back at BYU in the Harold B. Lee Library.  I could never stay awake in there!)

Outside of the library

 Cheers!

 When I asked people what I should do in Boston, every single person said I had to go to Mike's Pastry to get a cannoli.  The whole time we were in the city, we saw people with these boxes from Mike's.  We figured while we were there that we should get some Boston Cream Pie.  It was pretty delicious, but those cannolis were so good!

 We took pictures of everything we ate.  We had such good food luck!  We kept using Annie's Yelp app on her phone to look up local places, and we weren't really disappointed by anything.  This was Annie's butternut squash ravioli.  It was quite possibly the most amazing thing I've ever had!

 I'm not even joking when I say there is a Dunkin' Donuts on every street corner.  Sometimes you'd see two right next to each other.  It was so crazy!  We couldn't resist having breakfast there one day.

It was pretty cold while we were there...especially our last day in the city, so we decided to do indoor activities.  We had heard good things about the aquarium, so we went there.  We were not disappointed!  If you ever go to Boston, go to the aquarium.  Even though it was under construction and some of the exhibits were gone, it was still so fun!  We got to touch rays...

 play dress-up...

 and go to a 3D movie in an IMAX theater.

 On our last day, we rented a car to head out to Worcester for Les Miserables.  We really wanted to go to the temple, and I'm so glad we did.  It was so beautiful, and is probably in my top 5 favorites!

 We went to Waldon Pond.  I loved it there!  I would have loved it more if there weren't so many bugs. :)

 We wanted to say we touched the water.  It was freezing :)

 We also took a tour of Louisa May Alcott's house.  Even though the tour guide was super awkward, it was a pretty sweet house with a lot of fun things to see!  It made me want to watch Little Women again :)

 This is random, but these are the most delicious enchiladas I've ever had! :)

That night we went to Les Miserables, and we definitely weren't disappointed.  I love the story and the music.  I've had songs from it in my head ever since then. :)

Such a fun trip!  I highly recommend Boston. :)