happy thanksgiving- seven things i'm thankful for.

for him. for his sweet words. for tickling my back whenever i ask. for doing the dishes after every meal i cook. for letting me sleep in the middle of the bed snuggled up so close to him. mostly for loving me, even when i'm not the best.

for nursing school. i took my last test yesterday (besides the final), phew! i feel so blessed to be in school, in such a great program, with such wonderful people. i love my new school friends & i have some of the best teachers i've ever had. and somehow i've managed to do well, i'm especially thankful for that.

for my family. immediate, in-laws, extended, new members i haven't met, those living and the special ones in heaven. i love them all dearly.

for our corky home. slowest-ever draining sink, unreliable heat and all. it's ours and i'm so grateful to have a place to call home.

for what i believe and know. for my church and the gospel. it makes me happy, it buoys me up, brings tears of joy to my eyes, makes my heart swell and grounds me in something that is so good.

for the beautiful temple and to have been married inside of it.

for christmas lights that make me feel happy & so excited to be spending christmas in utah this year.

crazy times square this thanksgiving

Boston is for lovers.

On Thursday Mckay called me from work and told me that there were open casting calls in Boston for The Amazing Race over the weekend and asked if I'd want to go.  It is our dream (especially his) to make it onto that show.  So we went!  Luckily, our wonderful friends Ashley and Scott recently moved to Boston -all the more reason to make the trek! They only live 2.5 hours away from us. Love!  We arrived at their house at 10pm on Friday night and chatted and laughed until 1am.

 On Saturday morning we stood in line with approximately 2,000 other people.  We got there early (7:45am) and there were already 500 or so teams lined up.  We stood out in the autumn chill for three hours chatting with two funny guys.  This picture is the crazy line. The right side is people almost into the interview area, the left side is the last of the line, after it wrapped around the entirety of a massive furniture warehouse.  We had 1 minute to impress the judges!  Pressure!

I also have to mention that Mckay tried to convince me to go CAMP OUT at the warehouse with him that night.  When I flatly refused he tried to convince me that he would just go and "scout it out".  Ridiculous?  Yes.  He was trying to convince me at 1:30am that it was a good idea.  He lost big time on that one.

We went back to Ashley and Scott's and the four of us drove to Lexington & Concord.  We learned all about the first shots of the revolution and Paul Revere.  It was really cool.  I love having access to so many amazing places as a result of living in the East.  The battles of Lexington and Concord marked the first armed outbreak of the colonists against their King.  And this lovely little house we're standing in front of is the Orchard House of Louisa May Alcott, it's where she wrote one of my favorite books, Little Women.

"The shot heard 'round the world"

This nice man was dressed up as part of the colonist militia and taught us all about what happened and guns and officers and bayonets and other intense things (see Ashley's and my face).  Behind us is the North Bridge where 500 militiamen fought and defeated the King's soldiers.

After Lexington & Concord we went to downtown Boston for dinner in Little Italy. 

And you can't go to Boston without a stop (or two) at Mike's Pastry for some to-die-for cannoli's! 

Back home to devour our cannolis and play a game of Life.  The boys were mad because we were "cheating" but that is a subjective statement I think.   

Sunday best!  Went to church on Sunday afternoon before saying goodbye.  It's so great having them "close", it makes being so far away from family seem not very far at all.  Thanks for a super fun weekend Ashlot!!!

*Have to put a plug in- while we were together in Boston we were missing our dearest Rachael's baby shower.  We missed her & our other friends who got to be there (jealous is right!!!) desperately.  Hopefully one day we can all be together again. 113!

Broomsticks are for sweeping.

Friday night we went to the city for a fancy-schmancy dinner at a chic, french restaurant -thank you Groupon! It was so fun. I love to eat out at new places... little did we know the night would take a turn for the interesting, in an assault and battery type of way.

So we're on our way to the restaurant and mistakenly got too close to Times Square which means we were slowed down by traffic and a million pedestrians swarming all over. We ended up on 40th, stopped at a red light with 15 or so other cars. It was a one-way street and there were two lanes of cars, we were on the right side of the street. I looked over to the other side and saw a scary looking man wielding a broom stick. I thought to myself how funny it was that he was just carrying a broom stick that he obviously picked up out of someones garbage pile on the sidewalk. He was walking with arms flailing, in the street, looking all around icky in appearance. I pointed him out to Mckay when two seconds later,
WHAM.
Psycho man starts assaulting cars. Literally, taking huge swings at the sides of people's cars. It was insane, wish I had a video for everyone to see. Imagine a baseball player, dressed as a bum, swinging with all his might into innocent, stuck-in-traffic cars, causing the loudest commotion and crunching sounds heard over the city noise. It was so scary. The light would not turn green. He got 4 or 5 cars before things started to move.

We were so nervous that he would cross the alley for us.
What do you even do in that situation!?!? I kept asking Mckay, "What would you have done?!!" and he just kept repeating, "You don't mess with crazies." and telling me that his adrenaline was pumping.

Thank heavens (seriously) we weren't one lane over, or our lovely Subaru would have a nasty wound and I would have peed my pants on the semi-new seats.
Uhg. That poor soul.

Weekend got less exciting from that point on.
Dinner was fabulous and we left the restaurant stuffed to the brim. We went to bed at 2am that night, I really hate doing that because the next day is painful, but he is a night owl so on the weekends I humor him.

Saturday we cleaned the apartment together. Mckay cleaned the tub for me! He even wore my purple cleaning gloves. It was the best.
Then we both studied for hours.
Watched a football game with friends.
Went grocery shopping at 1am. Seriously. Again, the worst. That was a case of bad time management, not Mckay wanting to stay up late and grocery shop with me :)

Sunday we went to the city for a few hours to cheer on a friend as he ran the NYC marathon, which was super cool. Initially, I had a bad attitude about going (too cold, traffic, Sunday, studying, blah...) but it was awesome. We were lucky and spotted our runner and cheered our little hearts out and then got back in the car and had a nice drive home together.
Sunday dinner with friends, always so enjoyable.
Study time.
Relax time.
Foot massage time.
Football time (those coincide).
Sleepy time.

A wonderful & eventful weekend.
Hello, Monday!