The Orchard and Some Witches

Yesterday we visited Russell Orchards in Ipswitch, Mass. I'd heard amazing things about this place and we were absolutely not let down!

We watched them make apple cider donuts...And then we ate some. Well, if by 'some' you mean 'a whole lot' then yes, I guess we did eat some.We also watched them press the apples to make cider...

And then we drank 'some' of that as well.

Once our bellies were full of apple we walked out to the orchard to pick a few of our own!

And Bryan's parents are in town this weekend so they got to have fun at the orchard too!

After our fun adventure to Ipswitch, we drove down to Salem, Mass where there are all kinds of fun halloweeny things going on (did I mention we heard a Christmas song in the car on the way there?) We saw a witch trial reenactment which was really interesting at the Witch Dungeon Museum.

We were also told the tales of the trials which I didn't know very much about before yesterday.

This is the grave of the trial judge, John Hathorne. He hung 19 people and 2 dogs before the governor put an end to the trials.
And here is his house.

We also found this: the grave of a Mayflower Pilgrim, Captain Richard More.

One of These is Not Like the Other One

We carved another pumpkin today! See:

Bryan wanted to know why I put 'little bags' over her hands. Just for the record, they aren't little bags... they're mittens.

What Month is it Again?

It snowed here last Sunday... SNOW. In October.I made Bryan go outside with me to touch it. This picture shows how surprised we really were.Please don't let this be a sign of things to come. Please don't let this be a sign of things to come. Please don't let this be a sign of things to come.

Thaaaats Riiiiight

Crawfish. In Boston.

Laura works with a girl who's boyfriend is a chef and he ordered a bunch of crawfish from his fish guy so that we could have a crawfish boil. We only knew Laura, but met a bunch of people she works with.

And because it was outside in the 40 degree weather, we all huddled close to the cooking fire like hobos in a back alley.

(Who else loves Bryan's new glasses?!)
We also walked over to the Charles River yesterday for the "Head of the Charles" boat races. It was neat to see all the teams working together.

Pumpkinhead

We attempted to carve the pumpkin today.

I explained everything to Georgie before we got started and she helped me decide how the

pumpkin's face should look and she was really excited (believe me, I could tell.)

Then Hershee came in the kitchen to see what was going on and Georgie tried to explain it all to her so that we would all be on the same page but I think she was a little skeptical.But then I started pulling all the guts out of the pumpkin and Georgie had to re-consider all that was happening around her.And we had to have another pep talk about what "pumpkin carving" actually meant.In the end, Georgie got on board with the whole effort and now there's a toothy pumpkin in her kitchen!

Pumpkins and Papelbon

I took Georgie to Allandale Farm last Friday to get a pumpkin! We talked all about pumpkins and carving them before we went so I think she was pretty excited about getting one, can't you see it in her face?Then we brought Hershee into the picture... And she was just as excited:
And then Georgie realized that Hershee was close enough to touch, and well, Hershee didn't really appreciate that so she was gone in a flash:Next week we'll carve the big one and see how that goes. I think since Georgie is sitting up pretty well in her Bumbo that she might be slightly interested in the whole process. If not, then I'll have lots of fun carving the pumpkin during nap time!

Katie was nice enough to give Bryan and me tickets to today's Red Sox game! They were excellent seats and it was Bryan's first time in Fenway which was a lot of fun. We took Georgie but Katie ended up keeping her during the game. I've been practicing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with G so hopefully she was able to sing along with at least one song!

And even though we didn't bring Papelbon any good luck (he was a MS State grad too) and even though the Sox lost, it was a beautiful day at Fenway and as always the fans were crazy!

Craigie on Main

Mike and Angel Stoddard are in Boston this week and I was lucky enough to hang out with Angel most of Monday afternoon! And Bryan and I were also absolutely honored to be invited to a very very nice dinner with them last night at Craigie on Main here in Cambridge. Angel did extensive research before she got here and found some really incredible places that I'd never even heard of.

Because I was totally lame and didn't take one picture of them, or all of us, or the food, I'll just leave you with the menu from our six course meal:

Course One:

Squid Noodles with radish and vinegarette

fried Cod with Squid Ink

something else I can't remember with a rice wafer

Course Two:

Sashimi Red Snapper

Course Three:

Gulf Jumbo Shrimp with heads on, bean puree, soy beans and tulip bulbs

Course Four:

Vegetable Ragu with house made rabbit sausage and a farm fresh egg

Course Five:

Sausage Tortellini with wild mushrooms and pumpkin puree

Course Six:

Veal Two Ways, marinated in yogurt and sweet breads with turnips, mushrooms, and other fall veggies with parsnip puree

Dessert One:

Lavender Panna Cotta & Orange Panna Cotta

Dessert Two:

(there were four different ones that we shared)

One: Mascerated Fall Berries with peach soda foam

Two: Chocolate Peanut ice cream sandwich with banana puree

Three: Chocolate Mousse (I think)

Four: Anise ice cream with corn bread and raspberry puree

And of course there was wine and coffee... Delicious Delicious Delicious!

Owl City

Bryan and I got free tickets from a local radio station to go see Owl City play last night. If you don't know about Owl City take a minute to check out this song or this song on YouTube.


They were so so so good live!!

And as if that wasn't enough fun, look who I got to hang out with all day!

Success

We had our first visitors at our new place last night! (Lauren and Laura popped in that weekend Lauren was in town, but these people actually ate dinner here and stayed for a while!) So they are 4 out of the 6 other people in Bryan's PhD program at BU. They were all really nice and we didn't talk about philosophy the whole time either! Whew! I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to hold a conversation, but that wasn't the case at all!Vaughn, I-Kai & ErickErick & BryanNolan

I think it went pretty well.

I made Red Beans & Rice and Erick made a pizza and a calzone and I-Kai brought desserts! Everyone else brought drinks to share so it was really delicious and nice to meet everyone.