Prancing around Boston.

Yeah, two posts in one day. It's like Christmas for you! ;-)

We had pretty much two free days to do our thing in Boston. Thursday was spent walking downtown, from the Emerson bookstore to Fanuiel Hall, and up the Downtown Crossing, doing some shopping. Quick lunch and then Tim walked me to Back Bay Yoga, where I was pretty pumped for a Hip Hop Yoga class. I won't go into it too much, but when you are in a dark room, with Eminem blaring for 8 minutes, I would never thought that self guided sun salutations could be that exhilerating. But for who knows what reason, it was absolutely fantastic. I want to do it again.

After yoga, we changed into our baseball getups and walked to dinner at the Salty Pig. Tim loved his meat and cheese platter (I gotta say, his was pretty tasty) but my fig and goat cheese pizza left me desiring actual figs, not just fig jam. Especially since I splurged on a pizza order! Oh well. Not too much time to lament the fact since we had to race to Fenway to make it the Red Sox / Yankees game. We got their in time, but finding our seats was harder than one would think, so the game had barely started by the time we sat down.
Let's just say that I do not find baseball to be entertaining, to put it nicely. I had meant to bring some magazines, but totally forgot, at least I had my iphone, right? And by the end of the fourth inning, Tim went and got me a GINORMOUS ice cream sundae and himself a Dunkin coffee. It was quite a chilly night, so the combo was pretty much perfect. But by the end of the seventh inning. My phone goes dark. Battery dead. Ultimate despair. What am I going to do? I somehow made it to the end, but I was definitely antsy to go. I mean, game started at 7, and then didn't end until after 11:30. That is a LONG time to sit in a seat after two days in a car. Watching baseball nonetheless. But Tim got to see a Yankees/Sox game at Fenway. So its worth it. Once. ;-)

Friday brought on something new for us. We finally went on a Ducktour. It was pretty entertaining, glad to be able to say that we have now done the tour that I spent much of my freshman year quacking at. Mac, our driver, was decent, but once you've lived in Boston, you've pretty much seen everything there is to see on a Ducktour, other than when the Ducks actually go in the water.

Stopped by the pru afterwards for some lovely Lululemon shopping (how can I resist?) and had the great debate about lunch. After quite the logistics thought process, we ended up at Mikes Deli in Coolidge Corner, eating the largest sandwiches on the planet. Washed down with Red Velvet Party Favors cupcakes. More shopping, including a massive drama session at Macy's. I finally picked to Coach purse to use my gift card on, and it turns out that our card number had been cleared out last July in a big hack, but yet, they didnt contact us until now that we were trying to use it. So no purse. Oh well.

One workout later, we were meeting Caroline at Friendly Toast. I swear everytime I see that girl its like I saw her last week. The dinner was cut relatively short though since my leftover sickness from the week before was kicking up pretty hard again, but it was great getting to see her. Back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and shopping bag destroyed room for our evacuation the next day to Plymouth for the wedding!!!!

Boys like Baseball?

Last Thursday the whole Nordyke clan set out across the midwest. Baseball was calling the men. We spent the night in Peoria after watching Veronica Mars the whole way. Ice cream at Chevys (the only thing I personally deemed safe to eat). And while I watched Conan, Tim disappeared with Mitch to the bars of Peoria.

Friday started with free breakfast at the hotel, and now its such an awesome rarity these days that it deserves its own sentence in this post. The long driving day involved a showing of "Hes just not that into you" and "Fanboys." Checked into the Hilton downtown Cincinatti, a magnificent piece of hotel. And hit up some Rock Bottom BBQ before I walked the boys over to the stadium. I chose to work out in the biggest gym I have ever seen instead of feeding my face with free food at the game. But I did get some shots in before the gates opened up.

I met up with mom for dinner, only to be ignored at the hotel restaurant, but ended up at McCormick and Schmicks. (The Carribbean Shrimp salad is DELISH). And then the amazing purse recovery expedition occurred. It involved me barrel rolling over vehicle barriers and spiraling up 7 floors in a parking garage. But then I managed to talk my way into the stadium to get up to the boys to watch the huge fireworks display after the game. It was awesome. 20 minutes of set to music fireworks. Great show.

Chris and I were up early to workout on Saturday, but it was well worth it. I somehow convinced the family to trek to the Cincinnati branch of First Watch.

Oh how I love thee fruit crepes. Hotel check out was far too early and we were forced to wander the streets of Cincinnati as well as Newport, KY. But I did get my stamp at the Taft NHS. We eventually found the zoo, but by then there wasn't time. And the black people museum was too expensive. So we found a strip mall and dad bought me some cute tops at Dillards (because hes the man).

We dropped mom off at the shuttle location so she could go back to the B&N and the restaurant area, and went to the second game of the series. PS. Cubs playing the Reds, hence why we made the hike to Ohio. Game took forever. The boys had to see all of the warm ups, so we were at the field for about 6 hours before we left in the 11th inning because we had to make it to Dublin.

I was well entertained though, I read some magazines, ate a pretzel, and took lots of pictures. Made it to Dublin super late and crashed in the small childrens room on the floor. Woke up, chilled with Aunt Carol and Uncle Mike through breakfast, and then the men left to the Memorial Golf tournament, only blocks from Carol's house. They were gone for a few hours. And Carol's son, wife, and kids came by and we hung out until lunch was put out, the boys got back from the golf tournament and seeing Tiger Woods practice (all nice and crispy from the sun). And by 2pm, we hit the road for the 10.5 hour drive back to Iowa. For our viewing pleasure, we had "Defiance," "Outlander," and "Veronica Mars" but Christopher had other plans.

The kid can sleep in any position for hours. Despite a Frosty break, a Panera dinner stop, and a bathroom break at a truck stop, we were home by 11ish. I swear it was the weekend that lasted a month. A month! But all was grand.

Last little bit of gradjumatation.

My bad. I meant to post this last week and just never got around to it. I think I was too busy trying to have free time after a solid four days of go go go! The photos are pretty self explanatory. My brother graduated. Ceremony and all! Crazy. It was super nice to have commencement in the McLeod Center as opposed to the Dome where mine was. I was surprised at how fast the actual ceremony took, despite the 333 kids graduation. Afterwards, a few family photos outside (of course, the High School Graduate still needs his Mommy's help)
Other people took our picture, but really, I just take the best photos myself ;)

And for some reason, I just really like this one.

We had cake at my parents house, and later there was lasagna, but I gladly stuck to left over graduation rolls. Something about Open House bread. Deliciously naughty.

We headed off pretty quickly after, to make it up to Minneapolis that night. Caught a lovely late showing of Angels & Demons (much better than the first movie) and crashed. The next morning was lackadaisical. Breakfast that we brought, hit up IKEA, almost bought a table, didn't think it would fit in the car (and we CERTAINLY did not want a recreation of the time the art wouldn't fit in the car) and then headed to the Red Sox/Twins game.

I was not aware that the Twins stadium was indoors. Here it was, Memorial Day, gorgeous, mid 70s, super sunny, and I was stuck inside of an indoor baseball stadium that was freezing cold (I had Tim's jersey on my legs, my bag on my arms and was still shaking) watching baseball. This was my view, note the lack of beautiful blue sky.
But with the help of my current reading book, the Kevin Smith diary, I was at least somewhat entertained for the game.

Then off to home! Ending a very long weekend. But yes, my brother really did earn a diploma. Major plus.