Boston Babymoon!

All the cool (pregnant) kids these days seem to go on a "babymoon" to exotic locations, places where it'll be much more difficult to go to once the baby arrives. My spring break finally arrived this week – already in my third trimester! So we weren't going to be too ambitious in planning a big trip: we can't go to the Caribbean because of Zika virus; I'm sure I wouldn't tolerate a long flight very well; and mostly, I just want to sleep all day!

So we happily planned a low-key visit for a few days up to Boston. We've been saying for the past couple years that we would go up and visit our friends, and now we finally had the motivation to go. We found a place on Airbnb in Cambridge, which is apparently where all of our friends now live.

After a stroll around Harvard Square, we checked out some places along the Freedom Trail. We ate lunch at Quincy Market:

And checked out the Paul Revere House and Old North Church ("one if by land, two if by sea..."):

Must make time for North End snacks, of course!

For dinner, we drove out to Newton to see Sarah B., her husband, and her adorable toddler. Sarah B. is also expecting, due just 4 weeks after me! Here we are with matching socks and baby bumps:

The next day was rainy, cold, and fairly miserable. Perfect for a museum day! After a taco stop, we spent the afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts (my first time there!).

They had quite a nice antiquities collection (for an American museum). I hadn't realized it earlier, but one particularly important vase is in their collection:

What's special about this 6th c., black-figure Corinthian vase? Well, it depicts Heracles on the left (with the bow and arrow), Hesione in the middle, and the sea monster that threatened Troy on the right (a somewhat obscure myth that I will not go into here). It's an odd-looking "sea monster," though, no? It really looks like an animal skull protruding from a rock. And this, friends, serves as evidence for how early Greeks interpreted the fossil record they encountered in their daily lives. How else to make sense of the strange, unrecognizable animal bones preserved in stone? Why, these are the mythological monsters of the past! Anyway, I do love this line of reasoning, and if you want to know more, I suggest you read the genuinely interesting and entertaining book I learned this from, Adrienne Mayor's The First Fossil Hunters: Dinosaurs, Mammoths, and Myth in Greek and Roman Times.

And now, back to vacation photos. We got to visit with one of my former roommates from Michigan, Christa, who now is on the faculty at Harvard and has two beautiful little kids! She also still has the two dogs Nien and Mika (plus their daughter) who first introduced me to puppy love. I don't know whether they remembered me, but I was sure happy to see them!

Before departing, we visited Townsman, a restaurant my brother Peter is invested in. I think it was a good choice, because the food was delicious, the location excellent (near the Chinatown T-stop and a close walk to Boston Common), the service accommodating, and there was a bustling lunchtime crowd. Everyone, go eat there!

 

And thus concluded our babymoon. Thanks to all our friends and family who made the time to see us! We hope to see you soon in Long Island, where you will be welcomed by all three of us!

a taste of summer

Lest I give the impression that it was all work and no fun, I want to share a few highlights from July! First, I ran my first race in New York City! It was a four-miler in Central Park, and it was Julie's first race ever. Even in the July heat, she did an amazing job!

Triumphant at the finish line!

The fun group of girls we ran with. After the race, we had a relaxed picnic in the park on a perfect afternoon.

A few weeks later, S. came to visit, and we had a busy NYC-LI weekend. We tried out a trendy restaurant run by a friend from her youth group, Contra. It was delicious, but not so filling that we didn't want to go for gourmet ice cream sandwiches afterwards:

 

Then we went out to North Fork to taste Long Island wines! It was fun to try different wines and learn some of the lingo, and it was very beautiful and peaceful out there.

 We had a seafood dinner by the bay:

And the next day, squeezed in some beach time:

One of the big reasons I'm glad I returned to the east coast is the opportunity to see my dear friends more frequently. Here's to more good times in New York!

The Big 3-1

I just celebrated a birthday – the big 3-1! Just kidding: it's really anti-climactic. But I always like it when my age is a prime number, so I'm hoping this will be a good year. The past year has flown by so quickly – it's hard to believe that a year ago, I was still a graduate student, worried about my future job (already!), frantically planning a wedding, teaching in Michigan, and making sure I'd actually graduate. So much has changed, and yet I don't think that I've had a chance to catch my breath during any of the transitions. But maybe all of adult life feels this way.

I've been so preoccupied with work that I hardly thought about the occasion. But it's been a nice birthday nevertheless. Julie and S. gave me an awesome blazer to help me look more professorial last week. Somehow it's "just my style" while also pushing the boundaries of what I would buy for myself. Perfect! And on Saturday night, Dave took me out for a fancy dinner at the River Cafe in Brooklyn. It's a restaurant on a boat anchored in the East River – through the window you can see the lower Manhattan skyline reflecting the light of the setting sun. Can't beat the view!

On Sunday, my actual birthday, Dave and I did work at home, then went to the local public library to work some more. But we quit in time for me to open presents (jewelry to help me look more professorial – anyone noticing a theme?) and to go to all-you-can-eat sushi with my family (incl. my parents, who stopped by for the occasion). Check out the berry cake, specially-made for the berry monster.

And here's my present from Dave – a photo mobile with pictures of us! I've been joking for months that I'm going to set up a "shrine to Dave" in my room, as a way to be reminded of the happy moments we've shared during the lonely times now. Of course, I never got around to it, so Dave got a  mobile, picked out some happy pictures, and now I have my ready-made shrine. Hehee!