Mother Nature is Kicking our Ass!!

So, this is how my Christmas started...we had family gathered, and presents piled. Santa was very good to us, and at both my mom's side and my dad's side it was great to see everyone, most of whom I hadn't seen since last Christmas.

...However, that's as far as the gaiety could take us...because then mother Nature kicked into high gear and dumped about 3 feet of snow on the streets and all over us. I haven't seen a plow since there was only a half inch on the ground and they couldn't help yet, and it's been 3 days. There are 15 of us staying at my grandparents' house, and as you can imagine, after 3 days of being literally stuck inside the house together...it gets a little difficult.

This is the first year in 25 Christmases that I haven't seen the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, and I'm not happy about it. Manhattan is going without a lot of my hard earned dollars because I can't get to stores. But the only silver lining I could find was ...I did get some good pictures.....

It's That Time of Year!

Ok, so I know that the holiday season is busy every year, but I think that this year has topped all of my previous ones on the busy-meter.

Last week:

Tuesday night: Food shopping for 2 hours to supply my house for a party planned for Friday.

Wednesday: drove 45 minutes north to have dinner with a friend in Billerica MA. A dinner might I mention, that lasted 4 hours through chatting and pictures and occasionally a bite of food, and that didn't get me home until 11 that night.

Thursday: The Company Holiday party at Smith & Wollensky's in Boston! The steak at this shindig was worth the traffic to get there, and the camaraderie was priceless, but it was nonetheless another late night out.

Friday: The day of previously mentioned party. Bryan and I spent the early evening preparing everything and cleaning the house and the fun didn't stop until 1am!

Saturday morning: Into Boston to see the Rockettes!!! (Which was amazing by the way) and then home to pack up half of our lives and head to the cape for Christmas!

Sunday morning!: Presents and then all day playing with those presents and Watching the Jets game! Then inevitably Sunday night held a drive back to Boston in the snow.

Monday: Unpack/straighten/laundry/re-pack night, because...

Tuesday: Go to work, stay late for our company Yankee swap, and then drive 4 hours to Brooklyn NY for more Holiday fun!!

You know what the craziest part of this whole scenario is...?

I wouldn't change a thing!! :)

I Love Discounts

When I moved to Boston, my goal was to get my hotmail email address onto as many mailing lists as I could so that I would find out about as many goings-on as possible. Well, in the 3 years that I have lived here, I'm sure that there are many things that have gone on without my knowing about them, and certainly without me being able to afford them, however, some of those email lists have bared great fruits for me.

The favorite of my emailing lists are the Daily discount emails that I receive. Bostonians are known for being very Internet inclined when it comes to things like Craigslist for shopping and Apartment hunting, so it is no Surprise that daily Internet deals are a huge part of Boston Culture. I am a member of Living Social, Buy With Me, and Groupon.com.
Let me start by saying that I do not understand how these sites can make any money, but they have huge discounts on both Boston & non-Boston things, and they offer a different discount Every Day! One of the best things about these sites is that sometimes they will offer a coupon to a restaurant that you've never been to, or a show that you didn't know was in town, and it broadens the horizons a bit.

Groupon.com has been my friend this past year, and I'm pretty sure that a good percentage of my Monthly Paychecks have gone to that site this year. I've gotten discounts on everything from $40 to my favorite restaurant up the street for $20, to a $125 massage for $50, to $30 for a $60 One Hour Segway tour of Boston's Harbor Walk, to a $30 sail around Boston Harbor for $15.

Today's deal may be my favorite yet, and this one came from LivingSocial.com.
Because of this great discount site I am now the proud owner of Tickets to see The Rockettes, in Boston! on Saturday! and I got them for just $34/person!! These are 50% off, and I didn't have to pay any of those obnoxious "convenience charges" that normally double the price of tickets that are purchased online.

At 11am Saturday, Bryan, Myself, and a friend will be sitting down to watch the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular, and I could not possibly be more excited!! I haven't seen the show in years, and Bryan and his friend have Never seen it. It's going to be a great weekend folks.

Photo Courtesy of jahikim.com

And it Begins...

This was the first of our Christmas parties for the season...and it was a great start.
We had a great time with all of the Nauset Crew. Good food, lots of drinks, and a good old fashion Yankee Swap, what more can a girl ask for?

In case you were wondering, the 4 of us, Suck at couples pool games!

The girls got a little silly while the boys weren't around.

We made sure to grab a quiet moment for our pic though :)

Reality Check

There are quite a few times in everyone's lives where I think a Reality Check comes into play. After a vacation is definitely one of those times for me, especially a tropical relaxing vacation.

First let me start by saying that Cancun was Awesome!! Bryan and I had a great time laying in the sun, drinking from our personal insulated mugs, and playing in the ocean waves. We took time out of our busy relaxing schedule on Saturday to take a ride on ATVs and go Jet Skiing! And as part of my totally planned and perfectly executed plan **cough cough** to leave my mark on Cancun, I made sure to crash really hard into a tree with my ATV! So there Cancun!
Although this little project of mine did cause Bryan to have a small heart attack when he realized that I was no longer behind him riding, I am fine, and that tree will forever remember me, so mission accomplished! :)
We had perfect weather of clear skies and 80 degrees for both Saturday and Sunday, and enjoyed every minute of it.

Ok, so that will bring me to the reality check part, which usually hits hard when you return home! We were in such a state of bliss all weekend, that coming back to the land of time and airports and finding that our connecting flight in Baltimore was Delayed over an hour was the first wake-up call. The second was when we realized that even though we are now getting home an hour and a half later than planned, we still have to go to work the next day at the same time. But the real kicker came when we stepped off that plane and Boston was at a clear and crisp 28 DEGREES at 11:45pm that night!

The moral of the story here is that our vacation was awesome, and even though coming back to a shell-shocking temperature was not the optimal finish to the weekend, it was totally worth it.

Now that we have this amazing memory in our banks, it is time to look forward to the holiday season of parties and Yankee swaps and exchanging presents. I can't believe it's that time of year already, but I'm excited nonetheless.

Vacations

Bryan has never been on vacation!!
Can we all just take a minute to let that sink in. It's still somewhat unbelievable for me, and I've known this fact for years.

Well, after this weekend, this fact will become a thing of the past!

Tomorrow morning, at 4am (Thanks David) we will be headed to the airport on our way to sunny Cancun Mexico for a temporary hiatus from the real world. We will spend 4 glorious days sipping our all inclusive daiquiris by the ocean, eating a ridiculous amount of gourmet food in fancy restaurants, and not drinking the water!

I have never been to the hotel we're staying at, so I can't vouch for how wonderful it will be, but I can vouch for how excited I am and how much I am looking forward to being able to share Bryan's first vacation. He even got a passport just for the trip :)