Key West

We drove from West Palm Beach to Key West yesterday. It was a gorgeous- and sometimes slow- drive. The water down here is incredibly blue. I have never seen anything like it. There were not as many bridges as I had expected and I deem the drive quite manageable. I disagree with only having single lane roads much of the time, but that's just the city girl in me. We got to Key West just in time to board our sunset sailing adventure. We were on a huge catamaran with about 30 other people. Our captain, Bob, was quite the character and we were fairly certain that he was on drugs. HA! :)
The sunset was one of the more gorgeous ones that I had ever seen. I did get a good chuckle at all of the drunk people marveling when they realized that the sun was literally setting on 2010. Oh man, one has to love loopy vacationers.
The water was calm and gorgeous for our little sail.
There were quite a few other boat soaking in the view with us. It was a really nice time and I would highly recommend such an excursion if you're ever in Key West.

After the sail we stopped for dinner at a local eatery. It was quite good. We decided not to stay in town to watch their ball drop because they have a real issue with drunk drivers here in the Keys. Since there is only one road connecting all of the islands there is no real way to avoid such dangers. We came back and watched NYC's ball drop while dangling our feet in the water outside of our hotel room that is right on the ocean. It was perfect and a lot more low key than last year- that's for sure!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! :)

Florida days

We were able to get out of Boston (woo hoo!) on Tuesday after just a short delay of about an hour. We were so happy to be in sunny Florida instead of the snow-covered city of Boston. We headed right over to Okeechobee when we landed and took my Grams to lunch. We did a little shopping with her, went and looked at the lake and hung out. Jackson did some odd jobs around the house. He's such a good kid.
It had been a long time since I'd actually seen Lake Okeechobee so we stopped by to see it.
They built a new fishing pier that was pretty cool. We then headed over to my friend Danielle's house to see her family. We so enjoyed seeing her little twin boys. I met them a few weeks ago, but Jackson hadn't yet so that was fun.

We are staying in West Palm Beach- one of my favorite places. Yesterday we enjoyed a lazy day. We slept in, walked along the coast, did a little shopping and napped. We cleaned up and went to dinner at City Place. City Place is an outdoor mall and residential area that is one of the loves of my life. Seriously, if you're ever in WPB, you MUST go to City Place. Last night they had a live band playing really good music. We dined on the balcony and people watched from a brewery/ bar restaurant. It was such a nice time. Then we got a drink at my favorite Starbucks on the planet and people watched again. Ah- it was a PERFECT night. :)

Today we slept in again (we like doing that!) and then headed outside for the day. We took some long walks, ate at my favorite BBQ joint and just enjoyed the weather. It was a gorgeous day.
We played at the beach today. I loved the crazy swimming man in the background of this photo. He was the only swimmer out there today and he was loving it. Jackson loves to play in the waves and I was certain that at any time he'd shed his clothes and jump on in. He didn't. Whew.
Isn't he the cutest thing?! :)

Tonight we ate on Clematis street at a burger joint. It was actually quite good and that's huge for me because I usually hate burgers. We walked around WPB for a long time before coming back to retire for the evening. This has been a really wonderfully relaxing trip thus far and we're loving that! :)

Beach baby!

Please excuse my annoying laugh...Jackson just cracks me up.

Blizzard!

Oh yes, we know how to pick where to live alright. We left Indianapolis (where it gets snowy and icy and the snow never melts and becomes black and ugly for months) for Denver where we got HUGE snowstorms quite regularly (but the snow did melt quickly and really wasn't all that annoying) and then left Denver for Boston. The weather in Boston, just in case you didn't know, STINKS. In the summer it is hot and humid. In the spring and fall it is rainy, cloudy and miserable. The winter is still rainy, extremely cold and now we're getting a blizzard. ARG! Here is hoping that our flight for Florida on Tuesday morning goes as planned. We need a little warmth!

Stockings!

Stockings were always my favorite thing to open growing up because they usually held all of the good stuff. MacKenzie's stocking was no exception.

"Open my stocking? Sure."

"It sure smells good!"

"Give it to me! YUM!!"

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

The real story

The rest of the story.

Santa?

Alex: "You're creepy, Santa!"

Santa: "You're so cute!"

Alex: "Oh, Santa! You're OK after all."

Rockettes take 2

Jackson's company, John Hancock, sponsors the Radio City Rockettes' Christmas Spectacular here in Boston and gave him free V.I.P. tickets to last Thursday's show. I just saw the Rockettes in NYC and LOVED them so we decided to go again. They had a reception before the show with free food and drinks (John Hancock doesn't take V.I.P. lightly. We've learned this.) and then we had fabulous seats for the show. It was not nearly as well done as the one in NYC, but I expected that. It was still a great show and a really fun (and cheap!) Christmastime date night. I love date nights- thanks, John Hancock! :)

Christmastime in Beantown

Last night we bundled up, put MacKenzie's Christmas scarf on her (her scarf is blowing in the wind in the photo posted above) and headed out to see all of the lights and cheer that Boston had to offer.
The tree at Boston Common was quite big and pretty!
The Frog Pond in the Common gets converted into an ice rink during the holiday season. It was so fun to watch all of the people fall. :) They were slamming into the wall like it was nothing. Oh man. It was hilarious. I might be a bad person for enjoying that so much. Oops. :)
It was actually pretty crowded because it was a balmy (for Boston in December) 37 degrees last night.
The view from the government center plaza looking down to the Faneuil Hall area.
This is one of my favorite Boston photos ever. We LOVE that clock tower and the tree looks so pretty!
Jackson and MacKenzie by the Quincy Market/ Faneuil Hall tree. It was HUGE! I do not think it was much smaller than the one at Rockefeller center and I preferred their choice of all white lights here compared to the colored lights in NYC.
AH! I LOVE IT!
The Quincy Market area is one of the best parts of Boston. Period.
The Christmas tree outline at the Boston Harbor Hotel. The BHH is the only 5 star hotel in Boston. (I learned that on a tour of Boston and like to share that fact whenever possible for some reason.)

We had a nice 6 mile walk around the city pretending to be tourists! :) I love Christmastime!

Santa, you stink!

I laughed a good, hard long laugh when I saw that Jax (Heidi and Andrew's baby boy) had perfectly summed up my feelings about Santa. His little face both breaks my heart and makes me laugh- poor thing. I'm fairly certain this torturous visit was short-lived. Thank you, Jax, for proving to me again why I don't like Santa! :)

NYC at Christmas

Mom and I went to NYC as her Christmas present from Jackson and me. We saw the sights, did a lot of walking around and did some tours. I'm such a nerd because I was more impressed by Ernst & Young (another Big 4 accounting firm) having the EY illuminated on their building. I took this picture from the TOP OF THE ROCK. Note: if you go to NYC, go to Top of the Rock and not the Empire State Building. TOTR is so much better for seeing the sights.
We visited the Rockefeller center tree. It was gorgeous as always.
The best part of being on top of the rock is being able to see the Empire State Building all lit up!
We saw the Rockettes.
Mom was getting cross at people running into her. She was not used to crowds.
I loved these huge Christmas light strands.
Mom in front of one of my favorite things: the big ornaments!
The Radio City Music Hall was really something inside. It was so pretty.
Mom and I ate at Junior's Restaurant in Times Square. It was so good!
This is where the ball drops on New Years.
The lobby of Radio City Music Hall.


The view of Columbus Circle from inside the CNN: Time Warner center.
A view of the city from the water.
Again.
The building with the cranes on top of it is the new Freedom Tower-- where the twin towers used to stand.

I finally got to see Lady Liberty! I had been to NYC multiple times and never saw her so I was so excited to see that big lady.
We took a little stroll around Central Park and I thought the sun coming through the trees made for a gorgeous shot.

Ok, so here is what we did:
Wednesday night: We picked Mom up from the airport, baked chocolate chip cookies and headed for bed.
Thursday: Mom and I caught the Amtrak train to Penn Station. We rolled our suitcases through the city to our hotel. We went to check in under "Petefish" and the woman asked me when Peter would be arriving. HA! She misunderstood my last name. We just laughed and laughed. We left our bags there and headed for our bus tour. We saw all of the uptown sights and froze our butts off. Oh it was so cold. We went to the hotel, cleaned up, ate dinner at Qdoba (yes, you read that correctly. HA!) and headed to see the Rockettes. It was such a good show. SO GOOD! I loved it. I didn't know how I would feel about it, but it was wonderful. We went to the Top of the Rock (see the photos above) and took in the sights from above. We walked around seeing more of the store windows and Christmas displays and then slept like logs.

Friday: We woke up, ate breakfast at a yummy little bakery and headed to the NBC studios for a tour. It was really cool to see how television is such an illusion! We did a lot of Christmas shopping that afternoon. Our bus tour also included a boat tour so we decided to check it out. We were so excited that it was a heated boat!!! That really matters in NYC in December- it was darned cold. We loved seeing the city from the river (see photos above). We took a cab from the water to Macy's and shopped almost all of the 9.5 floors of departments. It is the largest store in the U.S. and was awesome. I usually hate Macy's, but this one was worth it. We did even more shopping on 5th Avenue after that and then grabbed dinner at a diner. Yes, don't go to a diner. What a bust. We should have done Qdoba again. :)

Saturday: Mom was sick of walking. We did a lot of walking. We went to Central Park to attempt a walk and she sat down on a park bench declaring that she was done. GRR! We ate breakfast at a lovely cafe where we sat next to some nice farmers from upstate New York. We grabbed a cab and headed to Grand Central Station. It was pretty cool to see it, but it was so, so, so, SO busy. It honestly brought new meaning to someone calling a busy place Grand Central Station. I was amazed. We rode the train to New Haven, CT and walked around Yale's campus. I don't know that Mom was as excited by the campus as I always am. I love that school. We drove back to Boston and did some sight-seeing around here. We went to dinner, had some laughs, grocery shopped and came home. It was nice to be back in the slower pace of Boston. I really never thought that I would think Boston was a slow pace kind of place, but NYC will do that to you.

Today we have not done much at all. The weather in Boston is cold and really rainy so we made it a lazy day. Jackson made a great breakfast, cooked chili for our lunches, and made dinner. He's the best! We've watched shows on the DVR, football and napped. It has been nice to slow down after a few crazy days in the city.