woooah oh oh it's always a good time!

(have i been listening to that song over and over again? am i 13? the answer to both questions is yes)

waterfire : providence, rhode island:

basically providence has this nice river (?) running through it and a couple times a month they light fires all the way down it, play music, and even have little gondola rides you can go on while holding your wine and looking fancy. this seemed like a nice thing to do and our favorite outlets would be on the way so we decided to hit up both. 

so it turns out that all the kids in providence love denim and toms. sadly these were not the only two teenagers we saw wearing this outfit that day. 

i added this to show that sometimes we hang out with friends. it is rare but it is always nice! we had the best mushroom pizza and thinking about it has reminded me that i haven't eaten for hours and should probably fix that. it is at this dinner that john found out you can go hunting for mushrooms and his obsession with them began. this is foreshadowing.

lucky for us a little latin dance party was going on in the streets so we enjoyed that for a bit until my shoes were annoying me and i went from loving latin time to hating it. 

(i loved that older couple on the right..they were probably 30 years older than everyone else it was awesome)

after my shoes gave me the sads we left and walked back to the water and even sat by it for awhile and felt uncomfortable as everyone around us made out. 

in conclusion firewater was a little bit weird, especially the opening ceremonies when a man who looked like jack sparrow dressed up as Jesus gave random roses to people and the music got real creepy, but we enjoyed ourselves. i especially enjoyed the old chandeliers they put up under the bridges for the occasion. i will never hate feeling like i'm in the phantom of the opera. 

oh so tall fellow mhs graduate melinda brown popped up at church one day and was visiting from maine where she is doing a PA program. turns out we never knew each other in high school and i don't even think she remembered me but i took it upon myself to show her a good time and made her be my friend the rest of that sunday.  we toured longfellow's house (which was AWESOME) and then we went for a walk in the boston public garden with some church friends. 

the public gardens are ALWAYS a delight, as you can imagine and/or see above

i discovered my hidden talent at fhe

so every day i left work a little later this summer i always enjoyed coming out of the subway station at harvard square because i loved walking up the stairs and not being able to see because it was so bright. i already miss this happening, considering it is now mid-october and dark when i leave work :( 

i went on a date with myself one night over to the esplanade to check out a free symphony concert. it was delightful and i have decided it is going to happen more often next summer since the city of boston is nice and let's free symphonies happen every wednesday 

to the left : lunch with the visiting teaching friends

to the right : the snuggie john bought me because i complain how cold i am at work every day. do not be mistaken though, the boy in the picture is NOT john but rather one of my many intern babies i was over for the summer. everyone loves the superman snuggie.

one time my company put our ads in the subway

Cape Cod: beach day!

working full time kind of ruined most swimming plans i made for the summer so i was happy to have one saturday left of the summer that was hot enough to hit the beach

it was great to be there and not be freezing. if you forgot how the last time i was in cape cod was i will give you a brief recap:

..it was no no bueno. seriously never felt colder in my whole life it was beyond freezing!

(except that i was with my sisters. i liked that part)

so just sitting in my big girl swimsuit, relaxing with some friends on the beach playing cheez-it scrabble and drinking capri sun (pacific cooler of course) ..felt pretty dang nice.

i wasn't satisfied though (of course. am i ever?) so i talked maren into going further into the cape to try and see more of it. i didn't really know where we were going or what there was to see but i had heard good things about a certain town named chatham. sadly - i couldn't remember any of the good things i had heard and started to panic so i quickly looked up if we were near anything and by some miracle we were within a mile and a half of the nickerson house. i had no idea but i surprised everyone by taking them there and it did not disappoint! well, it didn't disappoint 75% which in situations like this are pretty good odds. did you know that one of the posterity of the nickersons invented the gillette razor? YEAH. they did.  

sad news bears three of my four roommates left me in august. we are not happy about this - still. 

i don't know why my family can't get with the times but facetiming moments are far and few between so we celebrate them and take lots of screenshots every time. 

this was the first day it started to cool off and so the flannel came out. sadly, flannel has came out way more than i would like and i feel more and more nervous for winter as the days go on. 

hit up the esplanade for another concert. night or day that place is so pretty. 

thank you house of boys who always have parties for fulfilling my summer dream of roasting a marshmallow by a fire. yes. just one - those things make me sick!

i miss that girl in the middle and never feel happy that she moved back to utah. it makes john being in new york during the week feel like torture - i guess mare was my distraction! 

that night was not only a full moon but a BLUE moon. yes that is right. they are quite rare the internet told me so i decided we needed to make it count. so we headed to the weeks foot bridge by my house and salsa danced with strangers. 

and then i got annoyed at my shoes again so we stopped salsa dancing and started doing our own thing off to the side which included but was not limited to the poses above, lifts, and a lot of really technical shoulder shrugs.

and that is the end of this post. 

minus this picture which is and will only be my real life claim to (boston) fame. 

martha and her vineyard

once upon a time i had a dream of attending "illumination night" in martha's vineyard. 

there is a cute town called oak bluffs that is full of the best looking cottages and once a year they pull out paper lanterns (some are even 100 years old!) and light them all up at once. they keep them on for a magical few hours and then turn them off and put them away for another year. 

guys. this is a big deal. 

lanterns. cottages. once a year. magic. 

so this was pretty much number one on my summer bucket list and i looked forward to it for months. sadly even up to the day before i didn't think i was going to be able to go because no one could get off work and you have to drive two hours to get to the ferry (which would have been difficult since i'm a public transportation girl) BUT at the last second maren pulled through and got off work so she could embark on this magical day with me.  

wednesday morning (i would like to interject here and say that i think the locals really like to keep this to themselves because who does something like this on a wednesday?) we woke up bright and early (then went back to sleep for an hour because it wasn't all that bright but really was much too early) and drove the two hours down south to the ferry. well. to the parking lot of the shuttle that takes you to the ferry. and thennn we were off!

 the forecast was a little worrisome but we tried to look at the scary clouds as photo opp rather than freak out about them. (maren is a little photog too! so if you see me in a picture it probably came from her camera)

 i thought this scene was so inspiring. not only did it look awesome but it felt so symbolic to me of coming out of a hard time (whatever it may be) and just turning away from darkness and heading towards light. definitely not trying to get all sister missionary on ya'll but i just loved it and felt like sharing in the case that you might find it inspiring too.

then i looked over and i think i caught maren having lots of thoughts too

and then i had to put the camera away because it started raining REALLY hard and the wind was crazy and kept ruining my umbrella. i really wish i had pictures of maren and i out there by ourselves - even the captain man commented on how funny it was to see just the two of us in the storm while everyone else went inside. the storm was so awesome and i didn't even care that half my body was soaked by the time we got to the island. 

 about thirty minutes after we arrived the rain stopped and the sun came back out and it was like it never happened! 

so we tucked our umbrellas away and walked across this pretty beach/harbor with the best sand, perfect temperature water, and great houses. 

 then we went to martha's bike shop so i could rent a bike from the nicest man in the world and then were off on our adventure!! 

 i felt SO happy to be biking on an island again. the humid air, bike basket, pretty everything, and a companion/girl biking alongside me felt all too familiar. i just kept having mission/taiwan memories flood my mind all day and it was wonderful.

 after taking the scenic route to oak bluffs (thanks for that tip nicest bike shop man) we finally arrived and died over every last house in that place. 

it was just all so cute and i was beyond thrilled that my bucket list dream was coming true! 

 as we biked around we made the nicest friends 

(since this is real life and everyone was just sitting on their porches chatting the entire day)

this woman was just biking all day and i loved her

and then if the houses weren't cute enough the lanterns started to come out!!!

 and we got to witness this random wedding in the park 

(with the dog as the ring bearer)

(and i almost wrote pallbearer and then thought better of it - too bad brother in law scott doesn't read this or he could add that to his list of moon-isms!)

 are you dying yet? did you even know such a place existed? 

this cutest lady stood in front of one of the houses for hours and drew the entire thing. 

this is where everyone comes for the community sing-a-long before the lanterns are lit

(if that isn't the cutest thing you've ever heard i don't know what is)

and of course they had a little lemonade stand 

(just sipping lemonade with that bride and groom!)

there are like five hundred more pictures of those houses on my computer if you are interested in seeing more. they are seriously the best. 

since there were still a few hours before the festivities began we decided to take some self-timed photos and rest at this quaint oceanside park for a bit

and we were way happy when we realized we were on ocean avenue. 

who doesn't love some yellowcard lyrics and high school flashbacks on the vineyard?!

next up we decided to go exploring and found this great little bike trail.

 and found all the best sites with the greatest greens on our right and the nicest blue ocean (not pictured) on our left. i stared at the scene above for so long. for some reason everything about it reminded me so much of taiwan and i just felt so homesick for that place.

after exploring we ate dinner and then got ice cream at this cute place

and then we rushed on over to the festivities and felt really confused when all the lanterns that had been put up earlier were taken down. we kept biking and looking around and just didn't understand what was going on. we ran into one of our porch friends and it turns out they decided to postpone everything till the next day because they were worried it might start raining again like it had that morning. 

guys. I WAS DEVASTATED. they even said it hadn't been postponed in like 100 years - don't really know if that was supposed to make me feel better but it definitely made it worse. i felt so so sad because now that i was there and had a small taste of it i KNEW it was going to be the best thing probably ever. 

after biking through the small little roads of this town in disbelief we saw some lights in the distance and found ourselves at this cottage. bless these sweet people's hearts they kept theirs up and turned them on for a little bit. tons of people just like myself (who wouldn't be able to stay to see it the next day) stood outside and thanked them for turning them on because for us - this was all we were going to see. isn't it beautiful?

sigh. 

i still feel so sad but i'm grateful we went early and got to see people putting them up and got a small glimpse of what the illumination night would be like. i felt sad for the people who showed up right at seven and didn't get to see anything but this house. 

we decided we might as well get on an earlier ferry back so we didn't get back to boston too late so we biked the few miles back to where the ferry would be leaving from in silence. as i looked around i had even more flashbacks of my mission and again, it felt all too familiar - the late night bike ride back with my companion, defeated after trying so hard to make something happen that day that didn't because it was out of our control. it was a really nice, dramatic moment for me haha. 

we had a few minutes to spare so we went back to walk in that nicest sand/water again and just reflected on what a lovely day we had - despite the reason we came being ruined. 

no one cared to go back on the 8:30 ferry so to make the most of our change of plans we had an iphone pandora dance party with ourselves, enjoyed reenacting titanic along the side, and liked staring at the ocean while discussing how absolutely creepy it is in the dark.  

and basically i just loved spending time with this girl who never once got upset when i would stop and take a picture (heck, she would just take a picture too!), loved/appreciated everything as much as i did, and sacrificed a day off/of work (without pay) to help fulfill my martha's vineyard dream. she just moved back to utah so i'm grateful i got to spend this whole day with her before she left!

 just so you all know - i will definitely be going back and i will see that grand illumination night - i don't know when or how but it will happen!

and on this very special martha's vineyard day the sweetest baby stella jane was born! 

i love her and i'm so excited to meet that little gal 

(and i still need to meet lyndsey, whom i also love, so rob and steph get her out here!)
(and it was also niece mickayla's 18th birthday - so it was kind of a big day for everyone)

and that, my friends, is the wonderful and terrible (bust still wonderful) story of martha and her vineyard.

el fin.