New Orleans

I'm not heartless. I'm really not. I just do not care to hear one more thing about Hurricane Katrina. Seriously. If you watched the NFL's first game of the season last night then you know what I am talking about. If you'd believe the media, the New Orleans Saints- a FOOTBALL team- helped to save an entire city. Really? Hmm. I seem to remember those players getting the heck out of town (as any sane person with the means to would have) and not coming back until it was safe. How is that saving a city? Are they all donating their entire salaries back to the city? No. Did Drew Brees really chose to go to New Orleans or was he not wanted in Miami? The latter. Do not even get me started on Drew Brees' book. Could he be more self-righteous if he tried? I'm all for giving credit where credit is due, but I'm not sure credit belongs with a football team. It has been 5 years since the hurricane hit the city nestled BELOW sea level. According to my Facebook observations, we're ALL over hearing about Katrina. Rebuild if that is what you want to do. (Please note: you will still be below sea level.) Cities and towns do it all of the time after natural disasters. Why are you so special, New Orleans?

Also, someone please tell Saints fans that they sound uneducated and stupid when they say, "who dat?!" Really. What are you trying to say? Who is that? Is that what you mean? The last time I checked "dat" was not a word. Do us all a favor and stop sounding like idiots. The United States is one of the most highly educated countries in the world so let's start acting like it.

End of rant.

MacK & Boomer

MacKenzie comes home next Friday from her Grammy's in Indianapolis. While she's been there, she's gotten to play with her "boyfriend" Boomer. (I know, we love this dog a little too much. She's even got a boyfriend!)

We found a great new place along to harbor tonight that has plenty of grass for MacKenzie to play ball in and it has a spectacular view of the city. Woo hoo. We're ready to have her home! :)

From Grammy's

MacKenzie checked in from Grammy's via e-mail. We miss her so much and cannot wait for her to come and join us. She returns on the 17th. Grammy will be here for a few days to go to a Red Sox game, Cape Cod and some other fun stuff. Woo hoo! :)

Massachusetts Residents

I did it. I gave up my Indiana residency and became a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Jackson converted from being a resident of Colorado (he had to register when we moved there. I didn't since I was a student.) It was not without incident. I seriously hate the Registry of Motor Vehicles here in MA. They're worthless. I didn't let them win, though. My Indiana plates expired yesterday and I was able to finally get all of the paperwork that MA needed on that very day. Whew. We changed my plates last night. Tear. I'll miss rooting for IU with my car. (I do not do bumper stickers and since my car is a convertible window clings do not work. Sad.) It was really cheap to plate my car here, though. $123 for plates until July of 2012! I would have never guessed that it would be so inexpensive!

I'm afraid people will expect me to know where I'm going now. HA! Fat chance. Actually, I am getting pretty good of predicting what Gabby (my GPS) will tell me to do. The engineers who came up with Boston's big dig should get some sort of incredible award. It is quite the feat. It makes getting through the city an absolute breeze. We are able to get anywhere within 10-15 minutes. It blows my mind. (Indianapolis- take some notes.) I'm even getting used to the double decker interstates and bridges. Wild.

We should get our new Massachusetts licenses in the mail soon. Sigh. It doesn't seem real quite yet. I think that now that all of our administrative tasks of moving are complete we will have time to let it sink in that we're Bostonians. I must say that so far this has been the best decision of ours lives. I love, love, love it here. :) I even get to enjoy my last fews days of freedom (I finally start work on Monday- woo hoo!) without a single thing on my to-do list. Incredible. :)

Deutsche Bank Championship

Well mark it off of my bucket list. I've met Tiger Woods. I saw him play some great golf in the flesh. Woo hoo! It was so awesome. I cannot even explain how exciting it was to be RIGHT there. We got to the tournament site at about 10 in the morning. We stopped into our hospitality "tent" to say hello and get our credentials. The tent was AWESOME. It was not really a tent. It was more like a building. Anyway. They had a full breakfast spread with an omelet bar. It was so cool. Every single table had a floral arrangement on it like we were at a wedding. There was a full service bar. There were free sodas, waters and ice cream bars everywhere. Basically it was incredible.

We went to the driving range to watch some guys warm-up. That was kind of boring so we headed for the putting green. There he was: TIGER WOODS. TIGER WOODS. TIGER WOODS. I shed a quick tear and then moved myself to forefront of the ropes so that I could watch him practice his putts. As luck would have it, Tiger hit a put at the same time as Charley Hoffman (who went on the win the tournament with an impressive 22 under par) which caused his ball to come flying at my foot. I picked it up and he came over to retrieve it. I smiled from deep down inside of my soul. I think he laughed at me. He grabbed the ball, said "thank you," and winked at me. Yep. It was crazy. The guy next to me was like, "lucky!" HaHa :) Anyway, that was our "meeting." I consider it official. Tiger did some fancy twirling with his putter and then was off to the driving range.

Then we headed for the bleachers behind the first tee to watch all kinds of guys hit their first ball of the round. It was so much fun! We went back to the "tent" for lunch that consisted of lobster rolls, lamb chops and shrimp cocktail. Incredible. We went to follow Phil Mickelson around the course. (Following Tiger was nearly impossible due to the masses of people that he attracts. It is a good thing we "met" before the round. HA!) Jackson LOVES Phil- I do, too- so we were pleased to get to see him play. He didn't have a good round. That's ok. He shook Jackson's hand! It was pretty cool!

We went to sit on the 18th green towards to end of the day. As we were leaving to try to beat traffic (there turned about to be NO traffic. I would never have guessed that.), Charley Hoffman (the leader and eventual winner) hit his fairway shot into the stands and into the guy standing behind me. It would have hit me but the nice stranger beside me saw it coming and moved me. I did thank him as I suspect that getting hit by a golf ball wouldn't have felt very good. Since we were hit by the ball, I assume we were on television. I don't know, though. Jackson doubts it. I don't. I think I might be famous and just not know it. (Kidding.)

We grabbed dinner in the tent- more seafood and then tacos. It was so, so nice. We were seriously spoiled. Thank you Deutsche Bank. If I'm ever super rich you've got my account- hands down! :)
We got home and took a look at all of the free stuff we'd been given by Deutsche Bank and others: 2 t-shirts, 2 sleeves of ProV 1's (fancy, fancy golf balls), 2 hats, 4 bags including one really nice beach bag, an Adidas jacket and golden golf balls. It was crazy. People just kept wanting to give us super nice free stuff. We didn't argue.

It was a GREAT day. I will never forget how much fun we had. :)

There goes dinner

Saturday we went up to Maine to go to our favorite beach. It did not disappoint. I finished reading Jodi Picoult's "Nineteen Minutes" while Jackson took advantage of the hurricane's leftover waves on my boogie board. (I highly recommend any book by Jodi Picoult. She's such a talented writer.) Jackson kept getting yelled at by the lifeguards for going out too far and eventually called it a day. I love reading on the beach and look forward to next summer already!
Sunday we decided to stay around the city and furniture shop. (See my previous post about our new couch. Gag.) Jackson walked down to the Yankee Fish Market on the pier down the road from us and bought fresh lobster for $5.99 a pound. He was so excited. They were so good! We had a lot leftover after that meal so we made lobster mac-n-cheese. You see it on all kinds of menus around New England so we're going to see what the fuss is all about. I'll let you know. It is what we're having for dinner tonight. :)

I almost died when the lobsters were crawling around my kitchen counters. It was so gross. I almost couldn't eat them when they were cooked. Almost. ;)

New couch

To remedy Jackson's having to sit in a lawn chair in our living room, we bought a new couch. I should say Jackson bought it. I hate the couch. I think it is boring and ugly. He liked it and the price so he bought it. Can you tell this has been a bone of contention in our lives? Anyway, the ugly thing is now in our living room. At least we have a place to sit. Even if it is horribly ugly.