april, welcome.

aaaand it is may already. 

well after a few months of hanging out at all of boston's hot spots by myself i got a real job! 

being unemployed in the dead of winter was pretty awesome but i am very grateful and happy to be an adult again! kind of sad that I didn't time my unemployment better (i.e. i should have been unemployed in the summer rather than the winter..what was i thinking?) but everything happens for a reason so i'm excited for the opportunities this new job will bring. 

a celebration was definitely in order so roommate maren and i did some grocery shopping at target! i just really wanted a personal pan pizza.

the first weekend in april (i'm just a little behind on blogging) was so nice. john and i went on a little dinner date with grace and dave to a vietnamese restaurant. the food was great but the real highlight for me was this baby watching her ipad the whole time haha 

then we parted ways and headed to see charles strouse SING AND PERFORM ALL OF HIS BROADWAY HITS. i'm talking bye bye birdie and annie medleys people. it was awesome. 

this would be me meeting him afterwards and you can tell from my huge cheek that i was just as happy as he was. he told me i reminded him of his daughter! i appreciated that. 

i'm obsessed with cannoli's these days and want grace and dave to be obsessed too. we picked them up to go on what is becoming a pretty regular occurrence (late night cannoli runs in the north end at bova's, a 24 hour (!) bakery) and i think they liked it! at least baby alta liked it i'm sure. 

we had this great idea of being the easter bunny for my roommates so we went to the nearby grocery store, raided the easter aisle, and then came back to my house to put it all together. my roommates said we really did sound like parents just giggling in my room after telling them they all had to go to bed or the easter bunny wasn't going to come haha. i really loved it so much and wish i could be the easter bunny everyday. i was especially proud of my letter i wrote and the creepy easter bunny picture we found in the paper that definitely made my efforts go from mediocre to awesome. 

and there it is in all it's glory. sick peeps and chocolate bunnies even made their way in that basket!

church was so nice the next day.
this picture isn't very good and it looked way better in real life but i kept staring out that window to see those hot pink blossoms through church and it was so dreamy. everyone gave really thoughtful talks and everything was centered on Christ and the many things he has done for us. all three hours were perfect and i am so grateful for the preparation everyone made to make it such a lovely easter. 

all the pretty blossoms just added to the niceness of the day

i got to spend some quality time with my roommates which i always enjoy

we had a lovely spaghetti dinner

and the easter bunny thing was a big big hit! they loved feeling five again. 

and to top off the day i got this sweet picture of my grandpa (thank you aunt jeri!) about to blow out his candles because easter so happened to be his birthday! happy birthday grandpa! i sure do love you. 

so..the first week in april was a success. hopefully i can blog a little better this month so you can see all the other nice things that happened last month too

the week of nice visitors

two weeks ago i was a very lucky lady and had not one but TWO visitors. 

first visitor would be my brother, rob. we ate nice food. 

and enjoyed a pretty view from his hotel

and almost died from the crazy winds so we opted out of walking tourism and decided to do one of those trolley tours instead. I was a little skeptical at first but i actually think it was really nice! and fun to see so much in such a short amount of time. if i was going to boston for a few days and didn't know anything about it i would definitely do that to figure everything out because you can get on and off whenever you want and the pass is good for like three days!

anyway. after our delightful drive through the city i took rob to my little italian place that i like so much (casa razdora) and we actually got to sit down because i wasn't going five minutes before they closed like i usually do. 

tuesday i went to his hotel after my pretend job (temping) and since i was going to be picking up visitor #2 the next morning decided it would be smart to just sleep over so we had ourselves a slumber party. we had good intentions of going out and seeing a movie or getting dinner but it turns out rob was just being tired and didn't actually want to do anything (i guess that is what happens when you work a lot and have a family? weird). so instead we got take out pizza and watched tv until we both fell asleep. kiiiiind of reminded me of our childhood haha

the next morning we jumped in a taxi for five minutes (sometimes people have an aversion to public transportation and that is okay), said goodbye, and within minutes i was saying hello to this guy! ryan came to boston for an audiology convention so i got to take him around the town for a few days and show him why boston is so dang hip!

we had a few hours to kill before his convention started and it actually wasn't too cold outside (for some reason every day my brother was here it was freezing) so we got to cram a lot of nice things in to that afternoon. we went to MIT's science museum (so happy those trolley tour passes were good all week and had free admission to various things around boston! so thanks to rob for funding some of these good times :), stopped at toscanini's and got the best combo ever (grapenut and strawberry ice-cream), walked around MIT campus (definitely hit up the stata center), and then had time to walk across the longfellow bridge. i had never walked the bridge before and always wanted to so i really liked that part and want to walk across that bridge every single day!

the world trade center in boston is a little confusing to get to so i accompanied ryan until he was at his convention safe and sound and then i decided to explore this part of the harbor since i'd never really been over there much.

it was delightful (oh hey there boston tea party site on the left!) and i ended up getting all the way over to back bay to meet up with my roommate to peruse the shops on newbury street.

when ryan could meet back up with me i had a night full of action packed fun planned. we went to the boston public library, the prudential center (and the one paradise bakery on the east coast! this part was more for me than him), we saw a bunch of cool churches, the boston marathon finish line, the nice lacrosse game above, and the Museum of Fine Arts. 

it was a very successful first day i would say!

the second day i met up with him downtown and we decided to do the freedom trail. at one point we found ourselves listening to a senator's resignation speech which was cool/weird. 

we then continued with the freedom trail, the holocaust memorial, and ended with dinner in china town. can i just mention that ryan was the best type of visitor because we like all the same things and i never felt stressed that he would hate the things i showed him or places i took him! so i knew that he would love everything i showed him because i loved those things and it was really fun to see someone get as excited as i do about nice buildings or how dirty china town is or other various things. (but i loved all my other visitors too! so don't feel bad)

anyway. that night we went back to my house (after stopping in harvard square and getting a snack of course) and ryan learned how to zumba from my zumba instructing master roommate, carrie. everyone liked that this happened. 

friday was actually pretty sunny and nice! so we walked through harvard's campus and decided to hit up the duck splash, compliments of rob of course. 

(oh and see this cute asian man play in the subway!)

duck splash was..interesting. fun to be on the water and very amusing to have that guy above be so crazy the whole time haha

then we hit up the USS constitution tour and got to go below deck which was really cool and fascinating. 

ryan was definitely in boy heaven!

we then walked to bunker hill

 (can you see it in the picture above? because it is definitely there)

and climbed those 294 steps to see the best views

(remember how ryan sprained his ankly not too long ago? he was being such a trooper with all this walking and climbing going on)

we took a break to lay on the grass, enjoy the sunshine (thank you mother nature for letting at least one day be really nice!), and listen to the carpenters

then walked to this yelp surprise and had a delicious steak sub while watching ellen

then we jumped on a bus to go over to the north end/little italy so ryan could have his very first cannoli! spell check is trying to tell me that cannoli isn't a word but that is a lie because it is real and it is the most delicious thing that has ever happened to me. seriously i think about those plain ricotta cannoli's and instantly start drooling. (ps he loved them too! success.)

we continued to walk around little italy/finish the freedom trail and then ate the most delicious italian food. eggplant and sundried tomato ravioli in vodka sauce? yes please.

theeeeeen maybe we wanted another cannoli so we went back to mike's and got one. i have no self control with those things!

the next morning i went to carrie's zumba class and ryan had his last day at the convention (did you guys even remember he had one? because half the time i forgot).

..but not before that guy got DOWN. 

that night we joined up again to finish his megan made boston tour with walking around beacon hill, boston public gardens, newbury street, and...

eating some boston clam chowda! atlantic fish did not disappoint it was so so good.

by this point in the trip we were both so tired (because lets face it, we hit boston so hard in just a few days) so we decided to call it a night pretty early. this idea seemed like a good one until we got into the subway and saw this cute little band playing above. i wonder if you can tell from this screen shot how much we/i loved them? we probably stood and listened to them for over an hour (until their set started over and they began singing the same songs) and just sang along and watched everyone else in the subway be so happy about it too. it was a perfect way to end a really perfect week.

and this girl pretty much sums up how i felt about everything that happened in this post. it was much needed and i'm so happy i was able to have such a fun week of visitors and show them (more ryan than my brother of course) this amazing city and help them see why i love it so much! and amongst all those nice times i hope i helped them create a little place in their own heart for boston too.