'tis the season

To kick off the holiday season, I left Robert in Boston and traveled long and far to the great state of Michigan.  Poor Rob, I know.  But he had to work and this was the only way I'd be able to see all of my family for a long time.  So he brought me to the airport and kindly sent me on my way.

Michigan: 

My dad makes these cookies every year.  His mom made them when he was young.  And this year I learned the art of making Santa cookies. 

It's kind of intense.

... I am responsible for Santa #1 with the out-of-place raisin eyes.  It took me a few tries to learn their proper placement.

After a few days in Michigan, we traveled to Georgia to see Jacqueline, and meet up with the rest of the family (except Andrew, who is in Chile)!  

One day we hiked to the top of Stone Mountain, which was a fun challenge (physically, and because it started raining on our way down, making the granite "mountain" very slippery.

We also took a tour of the CNN headquarters building which was really cool and interesting.  

That white thing going into the globe is the longest free standing escalator in the world (like there's no beams holding it up... its only support is at he top and the bottom).

And then lil' Lily flew into town and we all had lots and lots of fun hanging out. 

The Lovell fun ended the Thursday before Christmas (so one week ago today), and from there I have met up with Rob for a Buhler Christmas.  More to come on that...

Hope you all had a wonderful and merry Christmas!

xoxo

our thanksgiving

We had a lovely Thanksgiving this year.  Rob's parents and younger sister, Katie, came in town, and we got to spend the week with them.

Thanksgiving morn, me, Katie, and Laura made some cute table settings.  Katie had seen them on pinterest, so we thought it'd be fun to make them.

This is what they were supposed to look like.

This is what ours turned out like. hah.  Seriously ugly.  Our biggest downfall was that we forgot to buy milk dud heads... but lets be real... I don't think we ever had a chance.  Nonetheless, it was fun and we had some good laughs.

Dinner was delish.  And mom, we used the crystal glasses.  ;) 

And after dinner, we went to burn some calories by taking a walk at Lake Waban.  It was so beautiful there.  

Last time I was there to take the dog on a walk, the car keys fell out of my pocket.  :o  I didn't realize it until we completed the walk and I was back at my car and ready to go home and eat some lunch.  I had to literally drag Chalmers around the Lake again and kept my head down the entire time, trying to locate the keys.  No luck.  My knight in shining armor had to leave work to come give me spare keys.  It stunk.  But my point is, whenever I go back there, I can't help but look for the keys.  No luck on Thanksgiving.  I have a glimmer of hope, but in reality, I'm sure they're under a pile of dead leaves, never to be found again.

During the rest of the week, we also visited the Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island.  It was cool because the mansion was decorated for Christmas and made me feel a little Christmas-ey.  

So I got a new camera bag, which is handy in life, but after getting it in the mail, we decided it looks like a diaper bag.  Dang.  

After touring the mansion, we hung around Newport and did a bit of shopping.

We also went to into Boston one day and just spent the day going through all different parts of the city.  

Back at Beacon Hill. 

And lastly, we were able to see Katie fulfill one of her life long dreams... performing in a street show.  :)  She was chosen out of the audience and then a couple of people jumped/did flips over the line of audience members.  It was pretty impressive.  They were good jumpers.  

birthday pup

Chalmers turned 6 years old this weekend.  

His weekend celebration consisted of

chewing on a new bone,

watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade,

and dressing up in his new, stylish sweater...

...that has flashing Christmas lights around the neck.  (A handmade gift from his Aunt Amy)

fall.

Thus far, Fall has been pretty nice (warm).  On the news I heard that we've had the most days in the 60s since 1996!  Than you, Mother Nature!

I had lunch with a friend in the Public Gardens a few days ago.  I wish I brought my camera, but this is essentially what it looked like + people walking along the paths or sitting on benches and a few musicians playing on the corners.  (I wonder if people were photoshopped out of this picture or something.  I feel it would pretty uncommon to have no one walking around here...)

I felt bad that Rob wasn't experiencing the great outdoors before it got too cold, so that night we went to Boston, had dinner, and then walked around.   We walked around the cobblestone roads of Beacon Hill first (rated 10 on the charming scale) and then around Boston Common (a park in the middle of the city).  

Not gonna lie... I miss warm fall, winter, spring, and summer back in CA.  But I'll take all the warm days I can get here on the East Coast.

what's red and pretty and holds the key to happiness?

(just joking about holding the key to happiness...)

For the few people that view my blog and aren't friends with Aaeran, and therefore aren't aware of her beautiful new website... this one's for you...

Aaeran, one of my beautiful and talented old roommates from BYU-H, has started a new style blog called the 

For the month of November she is doing ThanksGIVEAWAYS.  This week's giveaway is a stylin' Hobo wallet.  You probably want to own it, so instead of buying it, maybe you should just try to win it.  

Just sayin'.

Enter to win here.

On a different frontier... not much is new here.  We lost power for 2 days during the "snow storm" in the East Coast.  It kinda sucked, but we are fortunate enough to have nice friends who invited us over for food and movies, and a gym membership that includes hot shower, steam rooms, and working electrical outlets.   Mr. Rob and I are attempting to plan a vacation for January/February, so that is something fun.  If anyone has any ideas, let me know.  We're thinking warm/hot location.  Other than that, it's been low key.  I'll make a point to take some pictures this week and post.  Have a joyous Sunday night.

cranberry harvest celebration

On Saturday, we headed north and went to the 8th Annual Cranberry Harvest Celebration.  

It was held on the A.D. Makepeace  Company land, aka where Ocean Spray is made.

I did my best to dress festively.

It was a pretty unique sight to see the bogs all full of water, and then the cranberries gathered in and pumped into an super long truck.  These cranberries will be used to make juice. 

In this truck somewhere is a little turtle.  It was sucked up with all of the cranberries, and the "crowd" was seriously going wild.  Poor little guy.  Hopefully he gets taken out before.. it's too late. 

Even though all of the cranberry festivities were pretty cool, I think the highlight may have been watching the owl presentation given by cool-owl-vest man... and taking this picture.

my favorite part of the day

i'm so glad that the warm weather is still holding out.

and that the cool fall weather hasn't killed my garden yet.

i am also glad that i was able to pick a few tomatoes before those sneaky chipmunks got them. i seriously have gotten like 10% of my yield.  maybe less. hate those little critters.

and this is what i did this morning...

picked veggies, made breakfast, and ate it on the deck with chalms. 

love, love, love quite and relaxing breakfasts- which i will enjoy now while i have no kids...

just a crazy dog.

we had a visitor

This past week, my sister Jacqueline came in for a visit!  She lives in GA now, so it was fun to show her around my new (albeit temporary) stomping grounds.

Day 1:  Freedom Trail all around Boston

 Jax @ Paul Revere's home :: We got an Oreo cannoli at the famous Mike's Pastry.  It wasn't until after eating it that I decided I actually don't like cannoli very much.  Probably would have been a good thing to decide before completing my half, but, you win some, you lose some.

Cute Jax at cute Faneuil Hall Market place :: Kat at an invigorating lecture at a historic church

(Side note about the shirt Jax is wearing.. it's mine... and I was wearing it a few weeks ago when Rob & I were out running errands.  We ended up stopping at a high school girl's rugby bake sale.  So we go up, I feel like I'm only slightly older than these girls, and then one girl says, "My mom has that shirt". haha.  

Shot down.)

Day 2: Walden Pond and Concord.  

I guess we have no pictures from Concord, but this is a picture of us in a replica of the structure that Henry David Thoreau lived in at Walden Pond during the 1840s.  It was teenie, aka 1 room with a bed, desk, stove, and chair.  And he lived in it for 2 years.  By himself.  In the woods.  To each his own, I suppose.

Day 3: Lake walk in the morning, Harvard during the day.  

We caused a bit of ruckus, pumping water from a well (I seriously have no clue why this was there) and sliding down rail ways at Harvard.  Bad to the bone.

Jax in front of  the Charles River

Day 4: Salem & Rockport

Rob didn't have work on Day 4, so it was fun to all hang out together.  

Some of our adventures in Salem:

In Rockport, we got crab cakes for lunch at the same place that Rob and I ate at a few weeks ago when we were up there.  There were some cute tourists from Asia sitting at a table next to us, and they all had on bibs with giant lobsters on it.  It was really funny/cute.

We also took Jax back to Halibut Point State Park, which was puh-retty.

I struggled a bit climbing back up to Jax from our place in the previous pic.  

Slippery rocks + low-traction sandals + already having fallen 2x on my way down = a new, 4-legged approach to rock climbing.  Once I reached the end, Rob jumped up right behind me, like a little monkey, quickly and easily moving with each step.  That boy, he's good at making me look bad sometimes.

To end the night, we went to a local, old-fashioned diner called Cabot's.  Jax and I split the Dentist Disaster.  We should've known...  

Before:

After:

Lesson learned.  Until next time.

As always, a pleasure to have a sister in town.  Wish we lived closer.

this might be getting ridiculous

Baby Chalmers now has his own bed.  Queen sized, of course.  

The cage thing just wasn't working for him.

He even has a bench to help him get in and out with greater ease.

Before we know it, he'll have a place setting at the kitchen table.