Peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches (and the Berkshires)

The fun keeps coming. The Broweleits are in town for Katie's sister's wedding, and we got a little bit of hang out time last week, looking forward to one more night this week. I met the fam at the New England Aquarium, and we ate imaginary peanut butter and jellyfish sandwiches with the kids in the jellyfish exhibit. We saw a giant sea turtle that was awesome.

Then Tim and I headed out in our Scion zipcar to camp in the Berkshire mountains of Western Mass. Four hours later, we arrived in the dark:) Traffic wasn't the greatest but we made it. Luckily it didn't start pouring until we were already sleeping inside the tent (meanwhile it was nice and sunny in Boston...) and it didn't stop raining at all! Actually that's not true, Saturday it stopped for about 3 hours just in time for us to go hiking.

North Adams, MA

Saturday morning in our tent playing Scrabble, we were waiting for the rain to stop to go hiking. We decided it may never, so we got in the car and drove to the Greylock Community Club in North Adams where we could park. We had to sign in, so we walked in, and it was like a movie: A dark bar (this was before noon) filled with people drinking beer all turned their heads toward us obvious out-of-towners at once, and stared. It was funny. So we meandered across the railroad tracks toward where we were told the AT (Appalachian Trail) picked up north toward Vermont. But we were just walking on a sidewalk along the road following the signs and could tell we were lost.

Perfect for Abby and Tim to go hiking on the AT!!! It was meant to be!

The start of the trail

Several people figured out the same thing and finally someone came out of a house, which was having a 'Tag Sale" (yard sale), and directed us up through someone's yard to the trail. We never would have found it! And that's when it stopped raining. About a mile in, the sun came out. It ended up being a nice smooth hike.

already changing...

We cut it short though with the hopes of the weather holding out and our being able to return to the campsite to swim at the lake. Turns out the beach was closed and under construction - probably the reason this campsite still had room to make a reservation last week, unlike almost every other one which was booked! Oh well. We wandered around a trail that led us to a clearing on the lake, which was covered in lillypads and would have been hard to swim in anyway. We enjoyed resting and reading there until the clouds rolled in again. They never left.

We ended up going into town for dinner since it was pouring so hard! We got more games of Scrabble in and tested the waterproof nature of our tent. All was well in the end - good down time, time to escape from worklife in the city - our first NE camping experience! Hopefully there are more to come.

view of MA/VT from the Mohawk Trail

Next stop, Rhode Island with Dinah on Friday before flying to Tacoma on Sunday!!

hot cha cha and thril hill hill

Well, summer has arrived. After a month of rain, and a nice and mild July, August is HOT. Nothing like it could be, and mostly enjoyable, unless there's no wind coming through the window at night.

The Eyes update is I have a month off of classes until Fall starts, and I ALMOST won (according to Tim) the practicum presentation contest on my nutrition work with middle school students and corner stores this Spring. He even helped me velcro corner store 'products' to 'shelves' on the poster. WE thought it was cool.
my poster

In addition to our veggie share, I tried my own window garden. It's not going so well. With the crazy rain in June, then this heat, not sure what I'm supposed to do to help these guys!
Not-so-bad-basil

hot house tomatoes (most of these have rotted on the bottom 1/5 ONLY, so weird and annoying, I've given up.
These are ripening off the vine.
the vine isn't doing so hot. Or it is.

I will eat this cuke?

We continue to be adventuring as much as we can, and this past weekend amid 95 degree heat we headed to the islands - the Boston Harbor islands, that is. 'Spectacle' Island was a garbage dump for 50 years, now a capped landfill covered with dirt from the Big Dig. wow. I was pretty hesitant to swim in the water at this beach, but I had to. The Atlantic! It was a battle between my environmental health class and the heat, basically. There was a cool view of Boston though!

Then we ferried to Georges Island (George Washington??) where there's an old civil war fort, tons of green space, cool views and SHADE. Much better in our opinion.
Little Brewster Island, one of the oldest lighthouses in the US

This weekend, off to camp in the North Berkshires in Western Massachusetts. We have to idea what to expect of NE camping, so we'll just have to see!

On other exciting notes, the Broweleits are here to visit for a week, Dinah Frey is moving here next week (to VT), and....

HILLARY (Thrill) HAD A BIRTHDAY!!!
Happy birthday festival week, Hills. We love you. See you soon!

it's about time...

Hello, August. You snuck up on us! We've pretty much hit our 1 year mark in Boston (at least paying rent out here!). We are completely enjoying ourselves and completely thankful for this opportunity and completely missing friends and family at the same time. It's especially strange that all of June was total rain, and summer weather sort of arrived in July but with only a few days of humidity so far, while Tacoma has been sooooo hot and gorgeous we hear. But we'll get to experience it ourselves in a few weeks when we VISIT!! yahoo!

Since Meag's visit, we've been working, I finished 2 more summer classes (Nutrition and Aging and Epi of HIV/AIDS, both taught by incredibly brilliant and innovative hippy profs who said we could do the homework 'if we wanted'), we visited Burlington VT and Montreal, Quebec for the first time, Clay and Juel came to visit, and Isabella started walking (video keeps us updated). The fun just keeps on comin! And my list of things to do out here only seems to be growing.

Here are some highlights from the past month:

Lake Champlain, Burlington, VT. I loved this town!
Tim thought it was the Everett of Vermont though (boo)

Street performers were sort of a theme of the weekend;
there were some awesome new orleans musicians that blew us away.
This guy was just funny.

Montreal! I love this guy.

Old city cathedral

our B&B had a SECRET PASSAGEWAY!

sad, sad...

Way cool botanical gardens, with tons of bonsai trees and themed gardens

awesome church building downtown

stretch break wandering through Beacon Hill

cooling off in the fountain

freeeeaky lights on my campus! yikes!

And I can't end without sharing the latest food share colorful compilations.
homemade pesto with potatoes and shell peas (thanks Kira!)

Roasted beet salad with balsamic/red wine vinegar and goat cheese
(highly faddish and highly overpriced in Boston restaurants)

Voila!