What a great weekend!

My mom and Brian came to visit this weekend. It was a whirlwind trip - they arrived after our Cross Country race on Saturday afternoon and left early this morning. In that time, we walked around Brookline, watched countless episodes of The Office, caught up on all the gossip, spent the morning at the beach, walked about 10-12 miles, ate fabulous meals, and managed a quick cat nap during the day on Sunday. These pics are from our time together - it was a blast!

I learned how to video conference with my brother, Luke. It was amazing - I was talking to him, writing to him, and looking at him all at once - he was even playing xbox while we were doing this... I can't believe technology!

Martha's Vineyard

In a desperate attempt to hold on to any last reminders of summer, I've attached some pictures from our August day trip to Martha's Vineyard. Rod took care of this little butterfly - it had a broken leg and damaged wing - by "taking care of it", I mean he walked with it on his finger for about a mile and then found a nice bright flower on which the butterfly could slowly die...

The other pictures are of Kit and me on the ferry from the Cape to the Vineyard, Katie and me at the beach, and Rod and me at the Vineyard. Brad was there - he escaped all picture taking though!

Thats what she said!

Likely the most frequently heard 4 words of the weekend! Our friends have "The Office" fever right now... well, I do too... we just finished watching Season 3 and we can't wait for the Season 4 premier on September 27th!

On Friday & Saturday, Brad ran Reach the Beach, a 200 mile 12 leg relay starting in Bretton Woods and ending in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. He ran it with a bunch of Brookline High School teachers and had a blast. When he came back to Boston on Saturday night, he was smelly, hairy, and sleep deprived. Awesome.

We went over to Katie's place on Saturday night and played The New Yorker Cartoon Caption board game. As a connoisseur of board games, I would rank this among my top 10 favorites. Mark and Luke - we'll definitely have to add this to our holiday board games!

I'm a published writer! My article on counselors use of technology was accepted into an academic journal. Not the most prestigious journal, but it is still something. More details to come on that one!

Brad and I had a date last night. Brad picked me up with flowers (he literally left our place, bought flowers, came over, rang the doorbell, etc...) and then took me to Fugakyu, a fab sushi place around the corner. The last time we were there was when we took Brad's mom when she visited in June. It was really nice to have a date night, especially since we haven't really spent any time together over the past 2 weeks. Our schedules are not at all compatible and I'm out of the house about 13 hours each day - many of those hours being when Brad is at home!

Go Blue!

Life is getting crazy...

... no joke. It is the Tuesday of our 2nd week of craziness. Last week was Brad's first week with students and my first week back at good ol' BU! By the end of the week, both of us were ready to sleep away the weekend. But - one of Boston's premier road races was held on Saturday (www.ollieroadrace.org). It is a 5 mile road race through some of the most unattractive streets of South Boston...but, it attracts lots of the area's best runners. Our women's team ran amazingly well, winning the team event with 8 of our runners rounding out the top 20 women racers. I placed 4th for the team, which I was pretty happy with given the slow journey back into shape. I ran my slowest time EVER at this race, but I placed the highest I have EVER placed (I even won some prize money - enough to cover my registration fee and a Pumpkin Spice latte). I think the 95 degree heat and the lovely smoldering humidity contributed to the slower times. Brad ran well too - he was able to race with some guys he hasn't been fast enough to compete with until now. These pictures show how gross the weather was - Brad looks like he just took a shower and I just look plain awful (photos by Ted Tyler from www.coolrunning.com).

Besides that, all is the same in the world. We've been spending our free time watching The Office: Season 3, which is incredibly more painful than its previous 2 seasons. It is pouring down outside and I'm trying to decide between reading about Qualitative Research or Plato's Republic... I wish Harry Potter was an option...

Luke's Lloyd

Oh no! Little Lloyd, my brother Luke's cat, is at the emergency vet now. He had a blockage that was disallowing him to pee. It was so severe that if my mom hadn't taken him to the emergency vet this morning, he would have likely died by the end of the day. He just underwent surgery and is expected to make a full recovery. The top picture is of Luke's cat, Lloyd, and my mom's cat, Abbey. Lloyd is the sandy colored cat. He is always getting into mischief...his favorite pasttime is swatting small objects off the coffee table and hording them underneath the living room sofa. I've found chapstick, money, chocolate kisses, pencils, monopoly pieces, and loads more 'lost' goodies by reaching under the sofa.

The other 2 pictures are of my cats, Joey and Samantha. Hearing about Lloyd made me give both my cats big hugs (Joey was not happy about this), feed them each an extra Fancy Feast, and look through old pictures of them. These pictures are from last December after a Christmas party we had at our old apartment. Joey, the considerably larger one of the two, is in rare form, allowing Samantha to share his seat on the red chair. Quite unusual!

Buchholz blazin' ball game

Red Sox rookie, Clay Buchholz, pitched a no-hitter in Boston last night... The Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles 10-0... It was the 17th no-hitter in Red Sox history... And Famous and I were there to watch it!!!!

Kettle corn in hand, we pushed our way through the already drunk group to our grand stand seats at 7 PM for 3 hours of wicked excitement! The game was incredible. The pictures were taken throughout the game, with the last couple taken during the final inning. Nobody was sitting down. The crowd was at such a definite roar that Famous and I didn't talk the whole last inning. Our throats were scratched from screaming by 10 PM.

On the way home, Famous had to stop to buy yet another Sox shirt, this one of Mike Lowell. When I got home, I sat with Brad to look at the highlights and we came upon the player's salaries. We poked around a bit and hooked up with the NY Yankee's website where we figured out that Alex Rodriguez makes 88 cents per second of living each year. Not per second of playing or even time awake...no, simply per second of being alive. Incredible.

Besides enjoying the game, we've had a great weekend so far. A good friend, John, is in town from Vermont where he is in medical school, so we had sushi with him on Friday night and watched "Goal! The Dream Begins", a marginally entertaining movie with incredible soccer scenes. After a 14 mile run on Saturday morning with a few friends, Famous and I visited the local bakery to pick up some breakfast while Brad and John made eggs and bacon at home. The 4 of us enjoyed a peaceful long breakfast until about noon.

Our lives become pretty busy again this upcoming week. I start classes and Brad starts teaching. No more leisurely beach or park days reading book after book. Cross Country season picks up in the next couple of weeks so we'll be running a lot more races than we've run over the summer! Ah well... the summer had to end sometime! I'm really excited to get back into the swing of school and I'm really REALLY excited that my BU gym membership begins on Tuesday so I can start swimming and lifting a lot again!

All is well with Brad. He just got a new laptop and ipod last week so all his attention has been swallowed by his new gadgets. He claims he needs these for work. Hmm...