Look Who Came to Town !

It was just another normal Tuesday at 3:00 in the afternoon when I received a text from Mr. Jake VP. He was in town playing a show in Cambridge only a few miles from my house! Jake is my little brother Jonathan's best friend who has been touring with the band This Providence for the past few years. He's a musical genius and such a great guy. Matt and I were thrilled to be able to pick Jake up and spend a few hours with him before he had to perform.

Jake had never actually seen the city, so we did our best to show him what we could in the few hours we had. We walked through the common, walked through the financial district, told him some of the history and ended up in the North end for dinner.

We chowed down on some of the best pizza in town from Pizzeria Regina, and walked over to Mike's Pastry so Jake could experience his first cannoli.

The woman behind the counter at Mike's thought Jake was the cutest thing as you can tell from the picture below. It was too funny and we had a great time teasing Jake about it the rest of the night. :)

After eating we rushed Jake back to Cambridge with just enough time to spare before he had to go on. Matt and I stuck around to watch the show and . . . that's right, we were on the guest list!

The band went on at about 9:45 pm and even though I didn't know any of their songs, it was an absolute blast to be in the concert goers atmosphere again. It was even more exciting to see Jake up on stage and to hear the crowd go wild. I was totally proud and felt like I was watching my little brother up there.

Matt and I felt a little old surrounded by so many teenagers, I'm sure they all thought we were nuts, but we seriously had such a good time.

It was so good to see Jake, to show him around, to see him play and to catch up a bit. We can't wait until he comes back to Boston again.

Best Surprise EVER!

I bet you're wondering why I've posted a picture of Matty and I sleeping (or pretending to sleep, shhhh don't tell anyone) at the front of a post that says "Best Surprise EVER!" Well, it's because on Saturday morning at about 12:00 am Matty informed me that I better be ready to see him in 5 short hours because he was taking me to NEW YORK!!!

We've been talking about going for a long time now and I haven't been back in over a year, so I was super excited! We boarded our bus at 6:30 am, slept almost the whole way there and jumped off to explore the city that never sleeps. Here are some highlights and all the fun surprises that Matty had planned for me. (Get ready for a lot of pictures!)

It was absolutely beautiful outside, so our first stop was Central Park. It was full of people running, biking, sun bathing (what!) and participating in all other kinds of out door activities. Honestly, the day was absolutely beautiful and I probably could have spent it entirely in Central Park.

I really wanted to ride the carousel but was devastated to find that it was closed down for repairs. I wanted to cry . . . but don't worry, I didn't. :)

While in New York I was amazed to see a whole ton of small dogs being carried around. Really, it was kind of ridiculous. However, none of them were more ridiculous than this poor pooch (below). He had on shoes!

After doing a little shopping and sight seeing we were off to have lunch at one of the best hamburger places. The Shake Shack! We were both starving and I was absolutely not prepared for the line that lay in front of us.

Yes folks, all or at least most of those people are waiting in line to have lunch. As soon as I saw it I turned to Matt and said, "Um, let's find somewhere else to eat I'm starving!" He was adamant that they had the absolute best hamburgers and that we at least wait a little while to see how fast the line moved. So we stood there, and stood there, and stood there. We stood for probably a good 25 minutes. I was just about to complain yet again, when someone familiar came up behind me. Juliet!!!

(please excuse my cone shaped head here. I'm not sure what was going on.)

Juliet and I lived together when I first moved to Boston. She has since moved back to New York and I haven't seen her in such a long time. Matt took her number out of my phone without me knowing and planned to have her meet us for lunch. I was so happy to see her and felt kind of dumb for complaining about the line.

We waited in line for a good hour but it was absolutely worth it. It was so fun to catch up with Juliet and for Matty to finally meet her. Also, just look at that hamburger! It's perfect.

Another really fun surprise Matt had planned for me was to take me to the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). I figured he knew that I liked modern art and that was why we were there but I was dead wrong (kind of). Matt didn't tell me until we got up to the counter to buy our tickets that we were really there to see the Tim Burton exhibit! I was thrilled and so excited about it. I absolutely love Tim Burton!

There were so many things crammed into such a small space but it was absolutely amazing. We got to see all kinds of things from original drawings, school essays, early home made films and poems to the original Batman costumes, Edward Scissor Hands costumes, and original clay figures used in his stop motion movies.

Above is a picture to the entrance of the exhibit which was so cool. We weren't allowed to take pictures once we were inside but Matty snuck one anyway. :)



Since we were already in the museum we decided to check out the other art work there and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. I had no idea Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night was there. So cool!




After walking around all day we were really grateful to sit on some nice cushioned benches to ponder and observe the art work. It was so nice to get off our feet for a little while.

One person at the museum definitely did not feel the same way we did.



There was a performance artist at the museum who had the most ridiculous exhibit I've ever seen. She sat in a chair all day long and just stared at people. It was a participation type exhibit where they wanted people to take turns sitting across from her. You could do whatever you wanted which is why Matt and I died laughing as we watched people step up, sit down and just stare right back. We wanted to participate and make funny faces at her or sit on the table or something like that but people were so serious about it and would sit across from her forever! I don't think I'm cool enough or artsy enough to understand this. Seriously, when did laziness become art?



Another cool thing Matty and I discovered in MOMA was this VW bus that was extended by clothing. Someone sewed a bunch of clothing together to make the walls of this thing and I loved it. It was really unique.





After going to the museum Matt was so good to let me look around one of my favorite stores, Anthropologie. There is nothing for guys in that store, so he happily sat on their comfy couch and played games on his ipod. He was so cute and kept telling me not to worry about him and to take my time. He's amazing.



We finished off our trip with a slice of pizza and a walk to Times Square. I had so much fun with Matty in New York and I couldn't believe all the surprises he had up his sleeve. I felt so spoiled and couldn't believe that I didn't figure it out before hand.

It was a great weekend with my favorite person in the whole world. Thank you Matt, I love you. :)

One Wild Night . . . I mean Day

It's 4:15 in the morning and instead of being in bed, on this particular morning, you could find me and my two good friends standing in the cold with thousands of other girls outside the Hynes Convention Center in Boston.

It was the morning of the Filene's Basement Running of the Brides and we were on a mission. (Click Here if you don't know what this is.)

We honestly had no idea what we were getting ourselves into and we almost backed out after watching all the fights from previous years on Youtube. Seriously I can't believe what some girls will do for a deal.

After discussing it at length though, we decided to go ahead and take a chance. I mean, even if we didn't get our hands on a dress (the racks are cleared off in 60 seconds flat) we would at least get the experience and it could be fun . . . right?

We were absolutely thrilled when we showed up and were within the first 100 people in line. That pretty much guaranteed us at least a few dresses. At least that's what we hoped it meant.

As we stood in line we started to notice just how crazy all the people around us were. There were groups of 10 who were all dressed up and were strategizing on how they would take entire racks of dresses and one guy behind us was instructing his team to throw elbows if anyone touched theirs. We died laughing because we were just three girls who's only plan was to grab as many dresses as we could, run to the back corner and just start screaming to find one another. We were either really smart or in serious trouble.

At about 7:00 we were all moved inside the convention center to prepare for the opening of the doors. We were shocked when we realized just how close we really were. Someone else was a little disappointed with how close they were and decided to pull the fire alarm to resolve their issue. I think they hoped we would all clear out and they would be able to move forward. It didn't happen though. Instead, people just laughed and firmly planted their feet. I told you some of the people there were crazy!

At about 5 minutes to 8:00 (Go Time) girls started pushing their way up and filling in space. I was separated from both my friends and ended up even closer. Hooray!

Okay, I'm going to be honest here. I was actually scared out of my mind. I was nervous about getting dresses without being trampled and worried about not being able to find my friends after. All that kept running through my head was, "what am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing!" I fully intended to keep my camera out to capture all the chaos but as soon as that horn blew I focused and ran for my life.

I ran to the back, scooped up as many dresses as I could possibly carry and waddled to the back corner. I say waddled because wedding dresses are heavy and I am not as strong as I pretend to be sometimes.

My friends and I found each other right away and snagged a killer spot to try things on. After we piled our dresses up, we all sat back and died laughing at how well we did and at what a rush it was. For three girls who were just going for the experience we did amazingly well.

I immediately started trying things on while my friends traded and bargained to get more dresses. It was absolutely crazy in there but only the good kind. Dresses were being traded and thrown, girls were cheering and blowing whistles when they would find "The Dress", and people were generally nice and helpful.

However, after trying on all that we had collected plus more we had traded for I starting to feel a little down. My mom was not with me, I was running on about 3 hours of sleep and nothing thrilled me as far as dresses went. I was ready to give up and head home.

On our way out, we decided to see what was being hung back up on the racks just in case there was something we missed. We collected a few more dresses and headed to a mirror to try them on.

I honestly didn't think I would find anything, but when I put on the second dress and looked in the mirror the tears began to flow. It was everything I was looking for. It was simple and elegant and fit me perfectly.

(The dress pictured above is not "The Dress". I promise I'll show you . . . in June) :)

I was thrilled at my unbelievable find, purchased it and headed home for a much needed nap. My Filene's Basement experience had its ups and downs but ultimately proved successful. Hooray for crazy people and crazy sales!

We're Getting Married!!!

You can stop rubbing your eyes and no, you don't need to pull out your glasses because you read it right folks. Matty and I are getting married! He asked me last Saturday night on the anniversary of our first date and I said Yes!

The night was a little crazy, a little disastrous and a lot of fun. It went a little something like this:

Matt showed up at my house with the most beautiful bouquet of Star Gazer Lillis. We went to Costco to brows because it was a special day and Matt loves me. (note: Matt does not like Costco, especially browsing at Costco. So yes, this was special.) We had so much fun at Costco that we lost track of time, had to rush back to my house to change and ran out the door just as we should have been seated at Morton's Steak house for our 7:30 reservation. After calling the restaurant to tell them we'd be there in 10 minutes we proceeded to make 3 wrong turns and ended up at the airport. We didn't arrive at Morton's until about 8:15. Oops.

The people at the restaurant made it so special for us by taking a complimentary picture of us and printing up personalized menus. The only problem was that they misspelled both of our names and couldn't get our food right.

Our steak came out burnt to a crisp and not good the first time and almost completely raw in the middle the second time. As you can see, Matt was not impressed. Look really close though and you may just see a smile in those eyes. We thought it was kind of hilarious and just a little bit fitting.

After dinner we went for a walk along the Charles River in Cambridge. Matt and I took a lot of walks along the river throughout the summer and when we first started dating, so it's kind of a special place for us.

After walking for a while we stopped at a bench to look over the Boston skyline and to reminisce about how great the past year has been. Matt then dropped to his knee and asked me to marry him to which I of course said yes.

I'm so in love with my Matty and I can't wait to be his wife. Oh gosh, that sounds so weird . . . doesn't it? Wife. :)