Deep Fried Turkey.....mmmmmm

Every year we swap Thanksgiving and Christmas with each of our families. This year was the Ellis' turn for Thanksgiving, so 5 of the 9 siblings gathered at Joy's house in Austin for feasting and fun.
Rob and I flew in Thanksgiving morning (and we were very thankful for JetBlue and direct flights from Boston to Austin) and were welcomed by the smells of a smorgasbord of delectable delicacies that Joy had been preparing all morning. Then we got right to work helping her finish dinner preparations for her houseful of 18 people.

Because Joy only has one oven and because we were making about 10 other side dishes, Joy and Darrell decided to borrow their friend's deep fryer for the turkey. Rob got to be Darrell's turkey-fryer sidekick and has now vowed that he will be in charge of all future Thanskgiving turkeys as long as he can use one also.
And I have to say, I am absolutely converted to the idea; our fried turkey came out incredibly moist and delicious...and we were glad to eat it for 2 (or 3) meals a day until we left on Sunday.

Joy and Darrell also happen to have the coolest backyard ever, that includes a trampoline, a huge fort/jungle-gym, soccer goals, and even a 9-hole putt putt golf course! We were all out there trying to beat the course record that stands at 16. Although we had flashes of brilliance, neither of us even came close.
In the end, it was great to spend a few days with family we don't see nearly as often as we would like. We are so thankful for our wonderful families and although we don't have a putt putt golfcourse in our backyard (in fact, we don't even have a backyard) if anyone wants to get together before the summer, we do have a spare bedroom here in Boston! :)

If you are in need of a little inspiration....

Click Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snAjZ8mfoYw

Alas Poor Edith!

I guess Rob and I have a Halloween tradition (a whopping 2 years running) of carving a pumpkin, naming it, then putting it outside our door for the season.

Last year we got to enjoy Ed, our pumpkin, for a good long time. He and I developed quite a relationship. He was a smiling face to come home to every night, someone to greet me at the door at the end of a long day. Eventually he started getting very tired (read: he was getting so droopy that his features no longer looked like a face) so we had a ceremonial funeral, complete with eulogy, to help us put an end to the relationship. Good ol' Ed...makes me tear up just thinking about him!


This Halloween season was on track to produce another lasting friendship.

Rob and I were invited to a pumpkin carving party at a friend's house so we went and picked out a pumpkin with character (character=warts in this case)....

We carved and carved, working to really bring to light our pumpkin's true soul.

Eventually, Edith emerged (She is the witch-pumpkin with a wart on her nose at the center of the picture). Edith was a great Halloween pumpkin. I was so excited to get to know her...

So we put her on our stoop. She would wish us well on our way to work every morning and was a great companion for me when I was waiting for Rob to get home in the evening. She and I were getting very close; sharing our innermost thoughts, fears, and dreams.

(This is a picture of all of the finished pumpkins at the party...Edith is the menacing-looking one, 3rd from the right)

Then one evening--only 2 days after Halloween--Rob was going outside to meet some friends on the street. I heard him open the door, heard him take a few steps, heard him mutter "Oh Crap!" then heard a dull smash. My heart sank and I knew a something terrible had happened.

HE KICKED EDITH DOWN THE STAIRS! I ran outside and found her smashed to smithereens on the pavement....All of a sudden a budding friendship had been destroyed.

I guess sometimes life is just hard. But we do our best every day... and resolve that next year we're investing in some good quality, stainless steel, pumpkin armor.

Oh Canada and Peep Leafing

A few weekends ago a group of friends rented a lake house in VT on the border (literally) of Canada and Lake Champlain. Although the forecast predicted rain all weekend, Rob and I didn't want to miss out on any fun so we drove through heavy rain (and Friday afternoon traffic) and made it to the house late Friday evening.

Saturday morning we woke up to this awesome view of Lake Champlain :

Although the weather looked a little threatening, Rob and I decided to do some early morning exploring. We walked to the end of our driveway, looked to our right and saw the U.S./Canada border! There were security stations for each country, but we thought we could bypass the system...
It gives new meaning to the phrase "hopping the border," right? (yuk, yuk, yuk)

After we got yelled at by border patrol (really) we came home and a group of us headed over to the Adirondack Mountains for a hike. The weather held up and we drove through some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen. It is so beautiful here in the fall...if the season just wasn't so short and wasn't followed by such a long, brutal winter, I would be totally up for living in New England permanently!

Later, our friends rented a speed boat and the crazy boys went waterskiing (apparently there's a man-rule that says : If there is a lake, a real man must ski regardless of the water temperature). :) In the evening we made s'mores around a campfire before falling asleep, completely exhausted. The next morning we stopped at a nice little branch in VT for church and did some more peep leafing on the drive back to Cambridge.

All we need is 2 wheels and an open road....

I don't know if y'all have heard about this, but apparently Lance Armstrong is making a comeback! I guess 7 Tours de France titles and countless hours in the saddle haven't satisfied his thirst for road biking.

Rob and I understand how he feels...
After doing a lot of research and debating back and forth, we purchased early Christmas (and birthday and Valentines Day and St Patricks Day and Yom Kippur) presents for ourselves: we bought road bikes!
After getting completely outfitted and broken in, Rob and I went on a more extended bike trip Saturday morning. We headed north from Cambridge, all of the way up the MinuteMan Bike Commuter path, then did a big loop to take in some beautiful scenery, a cranberry bog, and Great Brook Farm (where they make awesome icecream from their own cows). It was probably one of the best Saturdays we've had in Cambridge so far!
At the end of the trip we checked out our nifty cyclocomputers to see stats about our ride. We ended up logging 45 miles, with a total trip time of about 4 1/2 hours (including stops), and hit a top speed of 32 mph. The traffic-rebel, Rob, thought it was pretty cool that we were breaking the speed limit on our bikes. We finished tired but totally exhilarated and happy; biking is definitely a lot easier on the body than running and it's such a rush!
We're addicted. Too bad it doesn't look like we'll have much more time for biking before the cold, cold winter sets in. Maybe we should retire from this whole responsible adult/school/work stuff and give Lance a run for his money....

Holy Cannolis and St. Anthony

Once again, Brandon and Becca were kind enough to go along with one of my hair-brained schemes involving random "cultural" events happening around the greater Boston area. (I think the last major excursion involved a highly publicized pancake breakfast at a maple sugar farm.) But, they decided to give me the benefit of the doubt on this one, and accompanied Rob and me to the festival of St. Anthony in the North End.

St. Anthony, officially "St. Anthony of Padua (or Lisbon)," is the patron saint for lost things. Long ago, he lost his favorite prayer book--which had actually been stolen by a younger friar--then prayed for it to be returned. Shortly after the prayer, the thieving friar had a change of heart and returned the prayerbook. Nowadays, whenever those pesky car keys go missing, this common prayer can call St. Anthony to help, "Saint Anthony, Saint Anthony, please come around. Something is lost and cannot be found."

Here we are in front of the shrine to St. Anthony. It was littered with dollar bills, watches, rings, and other misplaced items. It was pretty neat; kind of like a holy lost-and-found.

After walking around the North End for awhile, enjoying all of the wonderful Italian culture, it was unanimously decided (Ok, everyone else actually got tired of me oggling all of the food) that we should stop so I could try my very first cannoli. Of course it had to be "Boston's Best Cannoli", so we went to a booth set up by Mike's Pastry to buy one. I wasn't expecting much...but...WOW. It was a fantasmic explosion of flavor in my mouth. Seriously A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Looking at that picture is making my mouth water.

And here we see that we can just leave it to Rob to make beautiful photographs out of a fresh produce stand on the street. I love it!

Before going back to Cambridge, we were all thoroughly entertained by a few thoroughly entertaining old Italian men rocking out to hits from the past 40 years.

More good times in Beantown.

So I married a... GOLFER! (who knew??)

After we got back from Brazil, Rob and I drove down to Myrtle Beach, SC for a week vacation with my family before Jacqueline went off to college.

Myrtle Beach has about 150 golf courses within 30 minutes of anywhere in the town, so it's pretty much a golfer's paradise. Rob took a golf class his last semester at BYU (over a year ago) just so he would be able to join my parents during golf vacations like this--and that's gotta be pretty much the definition of true love!

Anyway, when it came time to play we (of course) had no time to warm-up, but Rob totally rose to the challenge and we all had a blast! He's just a natural...I mean, look how good he looks holding that golf club!

And here's me being happy...and very cool...

One last Wonder

For our last weekend in Brazil (and as a 2 year anniversary celebration) we thought we should cram one more wonder into our already very wondrous summer; so, we hopped on a flight to the southern tip of Brazil and the Foz de Iguaçu (Falls of Iguassu).

The Falls are one of the 7 "Natural Travel" Wonders of the World, but they should definitely take the place of Victoria Falls on the actual 7 Natural Wonders of the World list. I thought the Falls de Iguacu were more spectacular and beautiful than Victoria Falls...but that's just the world according to Christa.

Anyway...for those of you considering a Brazil visit, Foz de Iguaçu is a must. It's a little bit of a hike to get there, but is well worth it. 275 separate waterfalls stretch over 1 1/2 miles of incredibly beautiful terrain, deep in the jungle along the Brazil-Uruguay border.

We only had about a day to see the Falls, so we got as close as we could. Here we are in a little boat right up at the base of one of the waterfalls. You can't really tell, but we got totally soaked from this mist (and by mist, I mean water spraying so powerfully that I felt like I was standing next to a fire hydrant).

Then we removed our rain gear and hiked along the side of the falls, totally in awe of the sheer power and beauty around us. And because we knew y'all might think life has just been too easy for us this summer, we took a picture of this sign to prove that our travels are truly fraught with peril, and we bring you these pictures at great personal risk...

Anyway, I'm really grateful we were able to make the trip. Brazil is such a beautiful country (especially once you leave Sao Paulo) and I feel like we did a pretty good job of experiencing at least a good portion of what this huge country has to offer.

Que Coisa Boa!!

Beautiful Alaska (Last one!)

These are a few of my favorite pictures of the incredible, wild beauty we saw in Alaska.

The southern coast of Alaska, near Vancouver Island.

Awesome close-ups after rain.

A wet, cold, frozen day looking at glaciers.

Alaskan Fireweed:

A beautiful day for whale watching
Flowers in Skagway

Alaska (part two): Humpback Whales

We arrived in Juneau after a few bleak days of continual rain. The sun was shining and it felt great to step off the cruise boat, stretch our legs, and explore the nature that belongs in an outdoors magazine.
My family received a complimentary shore excursion in Juneau (one of the perks of travelling with a small army) to go whale watching in the surrounding ocean inlets. Although the brochure listed a dazzling array of animals for which we would 'be on the lookout,' I did not board the catamaran with exceptionally high expectations. But after a few minutes of sailing through beautiful (but animal-less) scenery, we hit the mother load...
Our boat was surrounded by two different pods of humpback whales (a total of around 30 whales) and for a solid hour and a half, we experienced the absolute adrenaline rush of seeing these beautiful whales up close and personal. And they were active!
The great part of having an awesome camera (thank you Christa!!): I was able to take rapid fire shots, capture the entire progression of their dives, and basically felt like a National Geographic photographer. The not-so-great part: having to later choose which pictures to put on the blog. (I took over 450 pictures of just the whales).

We got to hear their songs to each other and see a mother instructing her baby. But perhaps the most spectacular scenes came when all the whales would Bubble Net feed together. The entire group dives down into the ocean, sends bubbles up to the surface in circles to herd their food into a compact group, and then they all feast together in one sudden, synchronated lunge.

The naturalist conducting our trip told us a lot about humpback whales. Unlike killer whales that you can see in Sea World, humback whales are too big and consume too much to live in captivity. Consequently there is a lot that we still don't understand about their species. For example, marine biologists previously believed their lifespan to be 70-80 years. Then as recently as 2005, Alaskan Native Americans found a dead humpback whale with a 120 year old New England explosive (previously used to hunt whales in the Atlantic) that had lodged into the head, failed to detonate and was sealed into place by scar tissue. Experts now believe humpback whales can live to be over 150 years old.

On the way back, we stopped for pictures of the Mendenhall Glacier (above the center tree line). Here we are with my five older siblings and their spouses. It is so fun to do things with the people you love.

So for anyone contemplating a fantastic trip, I have just two words for you: Juneau, Alaska.