Hello, Boston!

Matt and I have finally arrived in Boston. We came with 4 huge bags of luggage, two of which weighed 50 pounds and the other ones nearly as much! (What can I say? I travel light but after a month in China and two months staying with various family members, we accumulated a lot!) We didn't take a taxi from the airport despite the fact that it was raining and we couldn't carry all our bags at once. Instead, we took the bus and the T. Boston's public transportation system is great (by US standards...Hong Kong's public transport really can't be beat), so it actually wasn't that hard to get home with all our stuff. Also, I think we just wanted to prove to ourselves that we can get by without a car, no matter what situation comes along.


When we got back to our apartment, we walked 2 miles to Target to buy an air mattress. Of course, Target worked it's usual magic and we ended up buying a huge cartload of stuff. We bought a 75 piece "kitchen in a box" for 30 bucks. That should hold us until our stuff arrives in September...It is really fun cooking again after travelling for so long and having such a tiny kitchen in Hong Kong. Our kitchen seems HUGE after Hong Kong!


Our house is empty, so we are "camping out" and I am obsessing over the holes in the wall and the grease stains in the kitchen. Oh well...Matt says I need to get used to living in an old house. I need to figure out hos to get grease splatters off the wall! We have no TV or anything, but we bought Yahtzee and a puzzle at Target. THe second bedroom is the Puzzle Room. We are using a big cardboard box for a dining room table and a smaller one for a computer table. It is lots of fun actually!

Last Days in Beautiful California!

All good things have to come to an end...so we left beautiful, beloved California. And since I seem to be using cliches today, I may as well go ahead and say that when one door closes another one opens...and now we are here in beautiful Cambridge, Massachussetts! And yes, Cambridge IS beautiful, we have been loving it so far.

On another note, it seems like alot of my friends and family are empowering themselves and starting independent, creative businesses and/or hobbies. Excellent! For instance, Matt's old friend from Eureka has a gorgeous web site with his art on it. Matt's mom started a pet burial at sea business, and my Aunt Lisa left academia and started a photography studio. Also, my good friend Kelly from Hong Kong is starting a Daily Candy-style web site for Hong Kong. I know it will be successful, and I will post the link when it launches in mid-October. Then I can read about everything going on in Hong Kong and fantasize about my old life there! (Hmmm...this could be a bad thing...Ha ha!) Oh, and I almost forgot to mention...my grandma Janet has taken on a new profession as a web designer/administrator. This is extremely inspiring because she has had a full career, and now, as a soon to be great grandma, she has taught herself a new profession. WOW! She created a website for the very successful business of my Uncle Jimmy, and now two of his colleagues want her to do a website for them.

Wow! Maybe Matt will be next...he wants to start a company but "The Big Idea" has yet to hit him. And then there is my fantasy yoga studio...

Matt's 10 Year Reunion

Matt and I were in Eureka for Matt's 10 year high school reunion. It was SO much fun! Reunions are great, especially when they aren't your own. I didn't know anyone so I popped around taking pictures of everyone there. It was funny, Matt would say hi to someone and I would immediate take a picture, like the paparazzi. Actually I shouldn't say that I didn't know anyone there...I knew all of Matt's friends...I think there were about 10 of us altogether, and I have known all of his friends for a few years now. Everyone met at Matt's house before the reunion, and Matt made all the guys take a shot of his snake wine that he brought all the way back from China. It was gross, or so it seemed judging by the looks on their faces! (I had tried lots of Chinese liquor in China and drunk snake blood in Vietnam, so my curiosity about that sort of thing has been sated...besides, sname wine is for virility.)

I also got to see my old college roommate Emily, it was great! It was my first time to see her as a married woman.

One highlight of the night was when Matt and Matthew Winkle ran through the room in their underwear. Then they ran and jumped in the pool. THis prompted a whole bunch of people (mostly guys and a few really drunk girls) to go into the pool in their underwear.

Matt and his friends from Eureka are definitely tight...it is nice to see them, they seem to have a really strong bond. After the reunion there was a solid half hour of wrestling/hugging/saying how much fun they had. I think it helped they they had all been backpacking together for the three days before the reunion.

Aren't they cute? This was the final hug of the night.

I went to Grandma's house and was lucky to see the whole Hardy family! The Pulsiphers had a boat and we went wakeboarding. It was so much fun! I actually was able to stand up and was really impressed with myself. That sounds horrible, but it is true...I had tried to wakeboard in Hong Kong and decided that it was futile to attempt it. Maybe it was Gary's detailed instruction, or maybe I was just more relaxed because I was with my family...anyway, I am very excited about it!

We also went down to see the Valkos' new house. It is almost done, and it was looking gorgeous. It looks like a luxurious mountain home...it will be so nice for them when they can move in. It is phenomenal to me that they built the house from top to bottom as a family and they can live in it.

The past week has gone by so fast! Eureka is possible the most relaxing place on Earth. We have been hiking, picking blackberries, playing Settlers of Catan, and spending huge amounts of time asleep. It is great! In back of Matt's house there are tons of blackberry bushes, and in the span of two hours, Matt and picked a huge bucket full of blackberries. We had enough to make 16 jars of jam, two pies, 10 mini pies, and a cobbler! And, we still had berries left over to eat plain! It is amazing!


Yesterday, Matt's parents had a barbecue in honor of Matt and his childhood friend Courtney, because both of them are moving across the country this month. (Matt is going to Boston and Courtney is going to Buffalo.) It was lots of fun, with tons of food and a game of croquet.

This week, I am going over to Grandma's to hang out with the Hardy family in Lake Almanor and Matt is going on his "man hike" with all of his old Eureka friends. (It is for guys only, hence the name "man hike".) The guys are going to drop me off in Redding and my cousin Mike is going to pick me up...I feel really bad though cause the guys have no idea when they are going, so I am not going to be able to give Mike that much notice about when I will arrive. Mike is such a nice cousin to drive all the way to pick me up!

Arcata Farmer's Market

On Saturday, Matt and I went with his Mom and her friend Janina to the Arcata Plaza Farmer's Market. It was so much fun! I love farmer's markets, even though they cost more than going to a grocery store. The interesting thing about this one was that it was almost all vegetables and not that many fruits. The veggies looked beautiful though, and there were some things I had never seen before. For instance, lemon cucumbers.

There was also a guy selling lots of dried beans. There was a kind of bean called a "yin yang bean". They really looked like little yin yang symbols!

The highlight for me was the fresh figs. They are SO delicious, it is my new favorite fruit. We also bought honey with the honeycomb still in it, which I had never had before. I like to eat it with my oatmeal in the morning.

Another cool thing was the Pan Dulce Steel Drum Orchestra!

Pine House Reunion

For Matt's last year of college, he lived in a big house on Pine St in Davis with lots of roommates. They were really close, especially the original 6 residents of the house. Four of them happened to be in Humboldt County for our first weekend, so we (especially Matt) had a good time catching up with everyone. They looked at all their old pictures from college and we played alot of this game called "Cornhole". Apparently, Matt's old roommate Mitch learned this game in Ohio and he showed us all how to play. It was pretty fun, sort of similar to horseshoes. It was alot of fun...

His roommate Lauren moved up to Arcata and just recently bought a gorgeous house with a big yard and lots of berry bushes. The bushes were growing the most delicious, ripe and juicy blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. I was in heaven! I hope someday I have a house with berry bushes.

Matt's roommate Natasha moved to Granada, Spain and married a British man and had a very cute baby boy. Matt had a lot of fun putting him in the basket.

Marti Hard at Work

On our first Day in Eureka, Matt and I drove over to visit one of his old college roommates. On our way to her house, we stopped in to see Matt's mom. Marti works at a thrift shop that benefits the Companion Animal Foundation. In the back they had lots of animals, including a giant cat that weights like 30 pounds!