September

Slowly but surely catching up...

We celebrated a cold, quiet, and rainy Labor Day weekend. I bought Patrick a roaster oven/smoker that he used to try to make some pulled pork on Labor Day. It turned out pretty good for a first try, although it took longer than expected! We had invited our friends the Lewises over to share it, but it turned into a progressive dinner as we ate hotdogs, then found that the corn on the cob was undercooked, so put it back in the pot and ate it 20 minutes later, then enjoyed pork sliders an hour later, with cookies somewhere in there too...thankful that Mark and Kimberly are good enough friends to forgive us for an extremely extended dinner, haha.

Our friends Alex and Emily stayed with us on that Tuesdsay night. I only thought to snap a photo of us on the bus on the way out the next morning.

The following weekend my dear friend Andrew from college came to stay with us. It was so good to see Andrew. Usually we're separated by an entire continent--Andrew lives in Davis, CA--but we've always tried to keep in touch and make time for visits when we can.

Mostly, we ate all weekend. We visited Ogawa Coffee to try some fancy drinks.

We took a sunset cruise in the inner harbor.

We visited the library and enjoyed the maps exhibit on Shakespeare.

And we toured the Taza Chocolate factory.

The next weekend my parents visited. We went up to New Hampshire into the White Mountains for the day.

The next weekend both my parents and Patrick's parents were in town that Friday night. We enjoyed chicken bog, biscuits, and collard greens together for dinner. The next day my parents flew back home, we enjoyed lunch with Patrick's parents, and dropped them off for their cruise to Canada.

That night we were knocked out! Four busy weekends in a row (and three more to come...ooh, foreshadowing to the next blog post, haha). And just like that, September was over. What a busy month.

Meanwhile, the weather had changed. After Labor Day, it really was like a lightswitch--warm and pleasant in August, then chilly in September. The short, short summer was over. Growing up in South Carolina I knew that the "official" beginning of summer was Memorial Day and the end of summer was Labor Day--but that was pretty meaningless because it was in the 80s from April to November! Here, those days truly seem to mark the beginning and ending of warmth. But September was a nice month to enjoy running outside and riding my bike around.

Otherwise, nothing new to report for September. Four more days in October then I'll post this month's updates!

August

August 3 marked one year since we moved to Boston. It was surreal to board that plane with two suitcases a piece, our car and household packed into a truck somewhere to be seen in a couple months, and to know that we were more or less starting over entirely. We knew pretty much no one. We had no idea where we would live beyond temporary housing. I think I would have been more nervous if not for the exhaustion of waiting from October 2014 to August 2015 in anticipation of the move.

But here we were, a year later. On August 4 last year, our first full day in Boston, we had no one but a hotel receptionist to take our picture.

On August 4 this year, our dear friends Jordan and Katie met us at the river to take our picture.

Along the riverside as we walked, we also ran into our pastor, Colin, on his way home from work, and our friend Netanya walking back from the swimming pool. So at least we've made some friends in a year :)

The first weekend in August we went to Connecticut on a little overnight trip for our anniversary. We visited Mystic, CT and went to the Mystic Aquarium. But honestly I think the best thing that happened that trip was we found this Peruvian/Bolivian restaurant in Providence called Julianna's Restaurant. Listen, that's probably the best thing I've eaten since we moved here. We might drive to Providence just to eat it again sometime.

I'm sure we took some pictures but I can't find them right now.

The rest of  August was mostly eaten up by Patrick's participation in the Red Bull Flugtag. I took some pictures but of course these are better :)

Other mid-August highlights included finding a quilting shop in Cambridge, meeting Al and Amanda's baby girl for the first time, working on my cooking technique for frying okra, as our okra plant finally started yielding. My okra cooking skill up until this point has been hit-or-miss, but my friend Lauren wants me to make her some sometime, so I wanted to get good at it before making it for company.

The last week of August we went to the Esplanade with some friends from church to listen to the Longwood Symphony Orchestra.

That was so nice that we decided to head out to Tanglewood the following weekend  with some friends to enjoy a rehearsal of Beethoven's 9th. (I probably took pictures then too but can't find them either.) But what was nicest about that trip was the night before. We stayed at a hotel a couple towns over. When we got out of the car...it was quiet. It was dark. You could see stars and hear crickets chirping. I could just feel my heart rate dropping from its usual frenzy into a state of relaxation. We sat outside in the pitch black just enjoying the quiet and dark, and we slept so hard that night. 

Living close to a city means never quiet, never dark, and never alone. I suppose if you've always lived in a city you don't know anything different. But I still wake up with traffic noise, I miss hearing crickets and seeing stars, and sometimes I wish I could sit on my front porch for a couple hours without seeing another soul.

Another year of marriage and a full year of work made both of us reflect on the way life is going. I think overall, we came to the conclusion that things are okay. Our jobs are hard. But work is always hard, in one dimension or another. 

We both miss the friendships that we built over months and years, the kind of friends you can pick up the phone and talk to, and they're aware of years of context about you, your family, and your worldview. But each of those friendships had a day one many years ago, and I have confidence that we're building those kinds of friendships now. (Plus, our decades-long friends are only a phone call away :) )

Boston isn't home. But if even if we returned to Clemson, or to Rock Hill, or to Fort Mill, or to Blythewood, it wouldn't be the home we remember, in a lot of ways. Even so, our minds haven't yet changed--we'd like to make it back closer to home within the next four years or so. This has been a great adventure but we'd really love to be within driving distance to our families. But we've signed a lease until next July, so in all likelihood we'll be here for at least another year, and we're okay with that.

We miss you all. Until next time!

July

This blog is destined to be perpetually behind by a couple months. (Which is no surprise, since most of the time, I feel behind by a couple months. October? Already? Really? What happened to summer?)

July started off with a trip to South Carolina. We had wanted to spend some time with our families and then found out that our dear friend Matt Pepper was getting married and that it was sure to be the reunion of the century, with the revolving-door that was our small group for the three years we spent in Clemson before we got married. So we took the whole week off and flew south.

I neglected to take a single picture this week...so you'll just have to imagine with me.

We got to spend the 4th of July evening with my Dad's sisters and my cousins on that side. We caught nothing on fire, although a stray firework did hit a random pedestrian walking down the street by pure chance. (No damage, but poor guy.)

Briana was home, so on the 4th we visited the Carolina Raptor Center, which was pretty cool.

We went to see Patrick's family for a couple days too. We went to the zoo with Patrick's parents. We ate much more barbeque than we should have at The Palmetto Pig.

Then we went to Clemson. It was amazing to see so many of our dear friends at the same place and the same time. Matt led a young adult small group for at least the six years I was in Clemson, and probably before that, so it's really hard to overestimate the impact he's had on so many of us, and the depth of love all of us have for each other after so many years of shared meals, laughter, tears, prayer, and growth. As we sat at the rehearsal dinner together, the best words I can think of to describe it was just observing, celebrating, and enjoying the work of God in each other. Of course, the celebration was centered around Matt and Teresa, but I remember looking around the room and just thinking of how much I loved the people there and how I could just see how we are all growing and changing, but only learning to love one another more and more despite distance and separation. Praise God for the beautiful community he has knit together in our hearts.

We got on the plane to SC with many tears, missing our dear friends and families already, and sad to leave the quiet of rural life and return to our home on a busy street in Watertown. It's not until we get out of the city that we realize how much the constant noise and busyness wears us down.

A couple weeks later, my sister Briana came to stay for a week. We had so much fun. She explored museums during the day and in the evening we ate at our favorite places--Ariana, Otto Pizza, Toscanini's, Cuchi Cuchi for her birthday celebration, Legal Sea Foods. We went to the Revere Beach Sand Sculpture competition. About when we were done, it started to drizzle. We made it to the parking deck just in time--a terrible hailstorm came! What a sad end to such cool art.

We missed our sister Victoria. We had hoped she'd be able to make it too but no luck. Hopefully next time.

Otherwise we spent the month enjoying the warmth and waiting for our plants to grow :)