Exploring the east coast--our trip to Boston

As I mentioned, Shawn and I were recently in Boston. Here is a brief recap and some pictures from our time there.

I was there for about 4 days before Shawn arrived, rooming with a friend who was also attending the conference. The conference I was at was a communication conference of the International Communication Association. A paper I had written had been accepted to be presented. I was in what is called a "high density panel," which means I had three minutes to present and then I would stand by a poster to discuss my work with interested people. I didn't present until Sunday, which was toward the end of the conference, but our session had a pretty good turnout. Here is a pic of me next to my poster (that my awesome office-mate Laura helped me create).

Shawn then came to Boston on Monday, and we did a lot of sightseeing in only a few days. The first day we went downtown by our primary mode of transportation for the trip.

Then we went to the Boston Aquarium. I really enjoyed the penguins, but overall, I think the guidebooks over-hyped the aquarium. After that, we walked to Quincy Market and viewed a variety of interesting buildings along the way. We then made our way down to the Boston Common and walked around the theater district.

We got dinner at this great little pub that we had just found but I later realized was listed in some of the guidebooks as a great place to go. After dinner, we went back to the Common and listened to some live music before we went on a Haunted Boston walking tour and learned about a number of ghosts on the Common (and a lot of fun history!)

Day Two started off with an early whale watching trip. We only saw one whale on our way back, so that part wasn't amazing, but the view of the various parts of Boston from the Harbor were pretty cool.

We then went and walked the Freedom Trial. We particularly enjoyed Old North Church. After that, it was time for some lunch. We made sure to get some Italian food in the North End. It was delicious! We ate at a place called Bella Vista. My Chicken Parmesan has to be one of the best I have ever had.

Although we were completely full from the delicious food, we wanted to go to a place called Mike's Pastry. As we had been walking around the city, we had seen a number of white boxes with blue writing that came from Mike's Pastry so we knew it had to be good. We found it without too much trouble, and got ourselves two cannoli--one amaretto and one chocolate Florentine--and some Italian cookies. We were too full to eat it yet though so we headed back to the Theater District because we wanted to get tickets for Blue Man Group.

We were able to get student rush tickets for that night, which saved us about 40 bucks, and went to sit outside and eat our cannoli. It was good, but cannoli is not my favorite dessert. After that, we headed in to watch Blue Man Group. We enjoyed the performance, and since we stuck around for the crowds to clear out, we even got to meet the members. One of them  came and sat on Shawn's lap.

After that it was time to hit the hotel and the next day we headed home. Overall, we enjoyed Boston. We saw a lot of sites, did a lot of walking, and ate a ton of great food!

Visiting Boston

Last week I attended an academic conference. I was presenting a poster at the International Communication Association conference, which was held in Boston. I headed up to the conference early Thursday morning and attended various presentations through Monday morning. I had a lot of fun with the people from my department, but the conference kept me somewhat confined to the area of Boston the conference was in. Luckily, I had already made plans so that I could explore Boston a bit more.

Shawn headed up Monday morning to meet me. We were only there for two fulls days, but we saw a number of the sites. I will put more information and pictures up this weekend, but I thought I would start with just this bit of information and a picture of us sitting in the Boston Common. Check back for some of our Boston adventures!

A backyard with a view

I can't believe it has been over a month since I last blogged--I better get back to work. Today's post will be rather short, but it will help get me back in the habit of blogging and hopefully some of you back in the habit of reading.

The other day while I was upstairs, Bella started barking downstairs. She has taken to barking when she sees people walking through our yard or even out front through a window. Of course the second you let her near the people, she wants to play and lick them, but she sure sounds intimidating. :-)

Anyway, Bella was barking, and I just assumed someone was walking by the water or using our backyard as a walk-through, the usual. However, when I went downstairs to look, it was two guys from the lawn crew that keep the little patch of land along the water looking nice. They had taken a weed whackers and hacked down the bush that sat along our property line. At first I was a bit confused--why were they there? How would this look? Shawn and I had talked about hiring someone to remove it awhile ago. Apparently there had been brush like that all along the property lines but some residents had previously gotten together and paid to have most of it removed. Only the portion by our house had remained.

I had to head out to a dentist appointment, so I didn't have time to wait and see the finished result, but here it is:

At first I was a bit upset, feeling that it now just looked like we had a big hole in the back yard. But as Shawn pointed out, once it starts to green over, it will look like the rest of the area by the water. And we now have a water view from the kitchen sink and a few places we previously couldn't see the water from!

I don't know why the homeowners association decided to remove it, but I am sure glad we didn't have to make the decision, and even more glad we didn't have to hire and pay someone to remove it.

Upstream's new blog

I have some posts I have been meaning to write. We found a new hiking spot we are very fond of. Unfortunately, it will have to wait until after this week. School has just been incredibly busy. As I write this I can feel the guilt starting to build over the fact that these minutes aren't going to writing my history paper. Guess that is where I am off to next.

In the mean time, I wanted to invite you all to take a look at the new Upstream blog and let me know what you think. Upsteam is the health communication blog that I write for and help run. We recently revamped the site (meaning the new look went live yesterday!). Let me know your thoughts. It should look something like the screen shot below. Check it out here: upstreamdownstream.org. 

Planting a pizza garden...in a container...

Shawn and I decided to spend last weekend doing a few outdoor projects. We started off by visiting the Home and Garden Expo at the convention center in Raleigh.  We had a great time exploring the backyard vendors' booths. There were full backyards set up to look at that included giant pools with beautiful stonework. I should have gotten a picture of those. It all just made my desire to have a hot tub that much stronger. Parties on the patio and hanging out in the hot tub in the evening, yes please!

With all that inspiration, we headed to Lowe's. Shawn wanted to work on the lawn a bit, and I wanted to plant some strawberries. We started out purchasing just some items for the lawn, a strawberry pot, and some items necessary to plant strawberries. While there we picked up a Lowe's catalog, and from that we of course got some more ideas.

There was an article on creating a pizza container garden. Shawn and I enjoy making our own pizza, so I decided we should certainly have a pizza garden. We headed back to Lowe's for the necessary items. (Thank goodness Lowe's is only a mile away).

We now have three nice containers on our back patio.

One is growing strawberries, and the other two are our pizza garden. We have red and green peppers in one, and tomatoes and a variety of herbs in the other.

Here's hoping that in a few months time we are making pizza with our own toppings as well!