bye may! hi june.

herrroooo!

let's first discuss how much boston loves memorial day. 

they had 33,000 flags placed in the commons all weekend to represent every fallen service member from the civil war to the present. 

is this blowing your mind? this isn't even all of them. it's crazy to think how many people gave their life so that we can be free. 

i need you to know two things. 

1. i LOVE that little white house with that huge tree and pink flowers and i feel happy i get to walk past it everyday. 

2. i ate swordfish for the first time in my life and didn't hate it! not even a little bit. 

swordfish w/ banana rum chutney, avocado and tomato salad, and mashed sweet potatoes = a meal i still think about and it was like three weeks ago. 

okay i guess three things. 

3. natalie and i finally (after probably three months of trying) got our volunteer badges for the VA. 

we not only get to hang out with elderly vets but also get to feel like we are on alias. 

the last week of may consisted of lots of outside friend time, toscanini's ice cream, and this gal below:

but my face is sad because she moved back home to arizona which makes me SO sad. 

mel, come back!

can we talk about this guy for a second? 

i was cutting through harvard business school to go home around 10pm one night when the man above came up to me asking about where something was. he then somehow started talking about some app which then brought up something else which then brought up the fact that i am mormon which then led to us sitting at some outdoor table discussing it for over an hour.  he was kind of crazy and somewhat inappropriate in the types of questions he was asking but it felt nice to defend my faith and hopefully he listened to at least some of what i said. 

anyway.
the last week of may was graduation fest 2013 and there were SO many moms and dads and chairs everywhere. 

here is a story. 

so maybe one time i was trying on my one-piece swimsuit (trying to debate if it would make it's debute this year or not) when it started rain storming outside. i was so thrilled with this that i forgot i was in my swimsuit, immediately turned off my lights, turned on bon iver, laid on my bed, and just listened while i watched the lightening and pouring rain out my window. a few minutes later i looked down and thought it was the funniest that i was still in my swimsuit so i took these photos and awkwardly sent them to friend christine and am now posting them on this blog. the end. 

the temple is the greenest right now and it is the best. 

these houses are also the best. 

i was walking to my friend carly's catholic school kids pop recital and accidentally turned down the wrong street. i was way happy this happened because it was the most beautiful and lovely detour (and the best time of day i might add!). it was nice to discover somewhere new, it is one of my favorite things to do. 

one night i came home to find this. maybe i'm not good at those little sticky hangy things because they hate holding up this strand of lights. 

i walked into my boss' office to find three of our executives being match teams. so cute.  

one of my more favorite parts of spring = our parkway boyfriend is back! i need to not be in a car when i pass him one time so i can actually sit and talk with him. i just love him. 

can you spot the random spanish man asleep on our lawn? re-roofing our house is tiring i guess. 

the last night of may was spent with kristin, boston, and our bikes. 

if that is what my nights are like for the rest of the summer i definitely won't be mad about it. 

(and i don't know how many more times i can say it without sounding trite, I LIVE IN A DREAMLAND)

the next morning a few of us drove up to portsmouth new hampshire for lunch on harbor

then we drove a few more miles and BLAM! we were in kittery, maine. 

i think maine was born to be foggy and rainy, it was perfect. 

(if you look closely you can see a very iconic lighthouse on the tip of that land - there was another one too but i wasn't very good at taking pictures of them)

 

we only explored for a few hours but it was delightful. 

there is just so much to experience and see on the east coast! i'm glad i have friends who love to go and see new places just as much as i do because let's be honest, i've become an adventure addict. 

i thought i blogged these guys already!

..so that was disappointing when i found them in a draft, wordless.

may loves to rain. most of the time i'm thrilled it isn't freezing anymore so i'm okay with it. i was especially okay with it when i walked out of the temple and it looked like this. it was perfect.

boston got it's very own shake shack recently and people are pumped about it.  

i think it is nice and all but i don't know if i will ever understand all of the hype! or why it is fine for a small hamburger and baby shake to come to $12

chelsea introduced a few of us to an app ellen degeneres made called "heads up". you just hold it up to your  head and then guess what it says from the clues people give you. considering how much we all love headbanz it is great and everyone should probably install it on their phone asap. 

so here are some fun things that have happened at work recently:

1. i have become a hand/arm/shoulder model and feel pretty famous when i see large posters of said extremities around the office

2. after you've worked at vecna six months your security allowance goes up so you need a new badge with a green background instead of a blue one. since i'm way overdue for my new photo i tried to do it the other day but for some reason meg (my trusty co-worker who i share an office with) didn't like any of them. i can't imagine why?

3. one time my blouse matched my ninja star! like, perfectly. it was awesome.

4. a guy at work so kindly made a replica of my face out of clay. ...i thought it looked more like that monkey.

when it's not raining the weather has been the dreamiest. the other day i decided to hang out at harvard yard while waiting to go to dinner with some friends and thoroughly enjoyed it. 

(like, really. i couldn't have been happier than to just sit and watch the foreign friends in front of me video tape themselves and cry laugh tears as they watched what they had just recorded)

i finally took some time to go into the curious george store (the only one in the world mind you!) and also noticed my favorite tree is all leafy again. yay!

nice weather also means more street performers which makes me happy

and i just wish i could describe to you how perfect the weather was that day because it almost felt magical it was so good. 

and to end this random post i just have to say that boston is beautiful and i feel very blessed to live here. k that's all. 

work and new caanan and conference and stuff

work: 

last week (darn it, this is now two weeks ago) was pretty eventful. gave blood, organized my heart out, and threw a birthday party for all of our fake test patients since their pretend birthday is april 4, 1944. 

(this also happened to be my one year vecnaversary!! ..so i just pretended the party was for myself)

(and also the company truck was being used so my dear work friend tim offered to take me to the store to get everything. he does all the facility work for our company and dresses like my dad and poses for the camera like my dad too so i rather enjoy him)

last week awarded some nice temple time which i appreciated. i love driving up route 2 and seeing the temple majestically placed in front of the sunset. it is always my favorite. 

new caanan: a few girls headed south to natalie's home in connecticut for conference weekend and were met by this handsome devil...just like this haha

in between conference sessions on saturday we went to do a little window shopping in the very quaint downtown new caanan. every time we walked by the sign below our eyes did tricks on us and we all thought britches was a different word and thought it was a bit weird to have a name like that in such a classy place haha. 

"this better be the only wedding card i ever give you" = so funny to me.

crepes!

that night we headed to stew leonard's (do we all remember stew leonard's?) and everyone was really excited to experience the world's largest dairy store. 

sunday was lovely. 

it was nice to be in a real home for conference but probably wasn't the best idea for us to sit on comfortable couches and chairs while watching..

because this had a tendency of happening

i wasn't exempt.

just another reason to re-read/watch the talks later i guess!

the next day my cute grandpa turned 90 years old! he doesn't hear very well and doesn't have the internet or a cell phone so i sent my aunt a screenshot of an instagram shout out for him to see.  hopefully it wasn't too confusing for him. (and the picture to the right was sent to me over the weekend, they were loving life so much!)

instead of being with my grandpa for his birthday i got to hang out with natalie and these fun after school friends. we tried to get them to make paper robots and these pictures might make it seem like they enjoyed it but that would be a facade. it was more like:

- "this is too hard I HATE THIS"

- "all my pieces are blowing away (proceeds to shove the rest on the ground), i'm outta here i'm goin home this is stupid"

- "why you guys makin us cut out these stupid robots at this park where all of our friends are playing basketball? WHY DO YOU LIKE TORTURING US? "

ah, the joys of service.