Sunday, June 27, 2010

Cambridge

Yesterday, I traveled to Cambridge to visit with Molly and her boyfriend, George. In addition to seeing their lovely apartment, I got to visit the Harvard Museum of Natural History and walk around some of Harvard and Cambridge.


The Museum of Natural History was having a special exhibit of glass flowers. These flowers were created as teaching tools. There were many dozen display cases filled with the glass flowers.



There were glass cross sections of the plants for study of close-ups. In one case, there was a branch with fall oak leaves. The artisan who created the glass waited until fall to go out and mix his paint in order to mimic the colors in nature as precisely as possible.


The Museum also had a section with taxidermy animals and skeletons, such as the whale below which still has its baleen.


This ocelot is around the same size as Tom!


This large flying creature is called a flying fox.


This peacock reminded me of the one that they had at Clovernook Farms, where I used to to work in the summers.


After the Museum we walked around Harvard and then had a beverage at a local cafe. We did some shopping and finished up the afternoon at Molly's house with some nice home-made pizza. Lovely day in the city!

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Going to the Dogs

Today, Seth and I traveled to Connecticut to welcome my new nephew, Greg's 8-week-old Rottweiler puppy, Dozer.


He is currently very small. Here he's fitting in Seth's lap.


Dozer has huge feet that indicate how large he will be very soon. At present, Dozer is very tired from all the growing he's doing and spent a lot of time napping.



Aunt Geraldine and Uncle Jimmy's new baby girl, Sophie, is also getting to be quite the grown lady. Remember the last pictures I posted of her? Look how big she is now! Also, she and I have the same color hair, which makes me like her extra special. I got to see Sophie while I was in New Haven for the final fitting of my wedding dress. Fun times all around. The dress looks great and will be all set for the wedding, four weeks from today.



In closing, please enjoy this super cute video of Dozer playing with one of his toys. Aw!!! Cute like his cousin, Lily.

The Great Outdoors

On Thursday, my mother came up to help us plant a new garden. The results are lovely and a huge improvement over the mess of violets previously in the space (and the giant bush before that).


Here's a close-up of the garden on the left.



And here is the larger garden on the right. We have an azalea and some annuals. We'll plant some perennials in the fall.


Even Lily is enjoying the new outdoor space.


She's on the case for the chipmunk who's messing up the mulch so badly!

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Roller Derby

Last night, Seth, Patrick, and I journey to Holyoke to see our first Roller Derby bout. We went to see the Pioneer Valley Roller Derby teams, a (traditional) women's team and also a men's team (the first, according to the website).


I greatly enjoyed watching the team's compete. The two western Massachusetts teams were skating against teams from central Massachusetts. The western Massachusetts teams were much more experienced and it was clear right away that they were going to skate circles around the other teams. I took the time to just enjoy trying to figure out the details of the sport. Below is a video of the women. (The men were rather a bit more violent and scared me a little.)


All in all, it was a very interesting sport to watch. I like the skating aspect of it a lot (and further considering if I enjoy that it's full contact). Fun times -- perhaps we'll go back and see more and get a better idea of the sport next time.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Mohegan Sun Conan O'Brien Trip

Seth and I traveled to Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville yesterday to see Conan O'Brien perform. This was our first time visiting the casino. It reminded us of Vegas.

There was a giant indoor waterfall. There was actually a restaurant right outside/inside the waterfall. While it would have been super exciting to eat there with the huge waterfall, it was a bit pricey. We ate at a restaurant called Dubliners instead which was a faux Irish pub. The food was adequate but very affordable.


There was also an indoor "mountain." Very cool.


And this wacky glass sculpture.


We did a bit of shopping after dinner. They had a Lush store, which is basically my favorite store ever. I picked up some great bath items for myself, Mom, and my friends for gifts for their help with the wedding. Seth got me this awesome bath gift set!


Lily has been enjoying the bag from this purchase. Here's a cute video of her playing with Seth.


After dropping our purchases off in the car, we headed to the Arena to go and see Conan.



The show was from 9:00 - 11:30 p.m. Way past my bedtime, but I did well. The show was a riot. There were a lot of music bit with dancing and singing and band playing by the former Tonight Show band. Conan did some singing, which was quite entertaining (although not the best sounding). There were bit from his show that made an appearance like Triumph and the Walker Texas Ranger lever. Also, the bat from Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell tour made an appearance! It was random and odd, basically what one would expect from Conan. It was a great time!

I got a tour mug to join my Conan mug collection.


The new mug is oddly not dishwasher safe but is otherwise excellent.

Seth and I took today off from work because we didn't get in until 1:30 a.m. after our trip to Uncasville. We needed to sleep in, clean the house, and go to the market. Our day off also afforded us the opportunity to get Seth his newest gadget, an iPad.




As you can see, he's one happy guy! We're back to work tomorrow, but it was a most excellent weekend.