Moving

I can't believe how quickly life changes! One minute you are living in Pleasant Grove Utah, near family and your home town-the next you are packing your things and moving across the country? Yes, Nate and little Carter and me are moving to Concord, Massachusetts near the Boston area. Nate being gone as frequently as he is asked his company about us moving to his area. Because my husband is a hard worker and so driven and wonderful- they said "Sure we will relocate you to Boston! What a great idea!" So now, here we are. Talking about selling cars and furniture, driving 3 days across the country, finding new renters for our current apartment, and flights home for Christmas. Call me sentimental, but selling Rhonda the Honda for me is daunting. Rhonda was mine and Nate's first car together. We paid for it all on our own! She drove us to Lubbock, TX to visit Nate's mission. She brought Carter home from the hospital! She has taken us on many road trips and been such a good car! Funny how things can gain personification...but more than Rhonda though I love her dearly, I am really sad to move Carter away from his grandparents and aunts and uncles. It's been so fun watching him with Aunt Roch and Aunt Erin, with Grandpa Newman looking for Max dog, following little cousins Keira, or Maddox and wanted to be such a big boy. I know he loves every single one of them! And so do I. Thankfully, to make our transition a little easier, my sister Karlie and her little family have actually just moved to Concord themselves!! We are even going to be living in the same apartment complex if you can believe it! So neat! We haven't had the chance to live around them for a few years at least so it will be so fun and so exciting still having family close by. Not to mention, Kar has her cute kids Dean and Ainsley (who is Carter's exact age) so cousins will still be close by! So although leaving is so bitter, this change will also be very sweet :) We are SO excited for this new adventure that we are going on!! And we are hitting the road September 25th. Just driving out on the open road!!!

Say hello to our new home!

Nate has already been through Concord, and he knows I am going to love it there. By what he's told me, it's very Stars Hollow/Gilmore-esc. Which is more than up my alley. Small town, a market, lots of bakery's and small shops-they don't have any chain stores really in Concord, except one. Dunkin' donuts-for the coffee. Thankfully there is a awl-mart and a couple other essentials just outside of town. Concord is also very old fashioned, and just being there a couple days my sister Karlie says they are very big into the "go green" movement. No bottled water? We'll deal. Not to mention there are no stop lights in Concord! To save energy, they had them all removed. Can you say "stars hollow town meeting?" (For those of you Gilmore Girl's fans out there this will all be very easy to comprehend) Now since driving is maybe more of an issue without the stop lights- they may put them back in. We will see. All in all, Concord sounds like my one stop shop to paradise. Have a look.

This reminds me of the Avonlea bridge. "I don't want down sunbursts or marble halls- I just want YOU Gil" -Nate and I plan to do a little Anne of Green gables reenacting here..

Concord is very historical, and still has so many darling colonial buildings and sights to be seen. I am truly so excited for our upcoming adventures!! I have no doubt that this experience will be that of a life time. No one I would rather go with than my two boys! Massachusetts better watch it... :)

And Yet Again...

The Newman Everyday consists of work for Nate and me, caring for Carter, hanging out watching movies with take out Chinese or Indian food, love notes, and what seems like will never be enough time with each other. Lately for the past six months it also consists of a lot of "goodbye's and hello's". Nate travels each month to Boston for work 1-2 weeks of the month sometimes. He will be gone a full week, then home for two, then gone another week and so on. Tonight just so happens to be one of the nights that my sweetheart has left again to get on a plane for the night-layover in NYC and then to Boston International. He was so sweet to me, because his plane was supposed to leave at 5:30 today- but in the attempt to buy us more time together, he switched it to the red eye which leaves at 11:40. It did earn us 6 more hours together but also I am assuming it earned my poor husband a crumby night with no sleep and a neck cramp. We got some good time in though and ate a lovely dinner of fettucine alfredo with chicken and broccoli, some baked bread, and then to top it off I made a great big texas sheet cake which we ate hot with some ice cream (divine). But sadly, no amount of sheet cake or chocolate will numb the instant heartache I got as I watched my Nate leave tonight. It's not an overwhelmingly long time to be apart, but it is the consistency that is tough. Saying goodbye yet again, knowing that the stress of the week with work and finding babysitters for Carter is all just beginning all over. I know now that I would never be cut out to be a wife of a Marine or a member of the US army. Long distances don't suit me well, and I am far to emotional of a gal to be able to tolerate life without the one I love for long periods of time. He leaves for a week and from my eyes you would see the world crumbling and empty! So consider this a little note for you Nate. I hate not having you next to me at night stealing all of the covers even though you always say you are hot...and I hate living off of mac n' cheese or cereal because cooking a meal for just myself isn't worth the time or effort without you to sing the praise of my culinary brilliance. And I hate having 20 conversations on the phone each day because we are always having to call each other back or the timing is not good. And I hate locking the door myself at night and knowing that i am the one that has to be strong and grown up. And I hate watching you pack your bag while I sit on the bed and wish I could unpack it and force you to stay. But I love that you are such a hard worker and that you do so much and make sacrifices to provide for your family. Consider this our first love note of your trip. I miss you already.
Here's to another week of late night Gilmore Girls episodes, and hoping that I don't find my cookie sheet empty of its sheet cake in the morning.
Love, me

Carter Is 1 !!

So a year has gone by since my little guy was born and it has gone so fast that I hardly know how it happened! But his big number 1 was a big success. Here are a few photos to remind us how fun it was.

We served fruits, veggies, meatballs, and for dessert- chocolate chip lava cookies with ice cream. YUM.

Nate picked out the "choo choo" birthday cake which was so cute.

Yes, Carter knows how to blow :) He does it  always before he eats anything. So cute. Then the eating begins....

 

And of course he made sure to slap a wad of red gooey frosting in his hair..

UMMMM.....OK. I want to eat this boy. 

I love love LOVE my sweet baby boy!!!!!!!!!!! I can hardly believe how big he is! He is my best little guy. What a sweetheart. HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARTER MOO!!!!! I know you won't remember a thing, but you were darling. Muah!!

Boston Pictures

   So the travel day was pretty rugged, but the rest of the weekend in Boston was truly wonderful! Here are pictures to prove it! Get ready for a million of them! I really love the way Boston looks. The red brick buildings and the colonial feel.

Romantic Fire Escape

These are pictures of Newbury Street. A really long shopping frenzy street with musicians all over the place and high end stores! Stores down those cute stairs and up! Everything you could ever hope for!

This pink little place above looked like it should be my home one day. A "You've got Mail" feel to it that I love!

Me and the man at Boston Commons (the beautiful City park!)

Catching my ride on the subway! This was so fun! I became a pro at the metro system out there with all my spare time while nate was in his Conference!

This restaurant was RIDICULOUS. So amazing, truly the best Italian food we have ever eaten. Nate got lobster ravioli and I ordered a chicken dish that we are going to try somehow to recreate. I could have drank the sauce. I truly have not had better food anywhere else. This was on Hanover street in the North End. They have all these little hole in the wall restaurants (most all are italian) and each one only has like 4-6 tables max! People stand in lines to eat there because it is so delicious.

Here is a place where people truly stand in line though. It's called Mike's Pastry, and the place was SWARMED! The line went all down the streets. They move at lightning pace though so we didn't wait long. This place is known for its cannoli. It truly was fantastic. And they wrap all their pastries in these cute little boxes! Every thing is the size of your head or bigger and we ate cheesecake there that is worth the flight again. WOW.

Cute cobblestone streets!

This is Paul Revere's home! Pretty neat! We were actually there on the anniversary of his big ride I think!

Sunday I went alone to the Museum of Fine Arts. It was SO neat.

If I had a lot of money I would buy this piano for my sister Steph to put in her multi million dollar home she will have one day for being so genius. 

These Greek pottery artifacts made me hope some of the people on them would sing like on Hercules

And all this Egyptian coolness made me think while I was in a museum of Egyptian history that the music to Aida would just start playing and the show would start. It did in my head a few times...

HUGE Painting. I don't know how an artist could manage that!

 
 Rino's place was a restaurant on that show "Diners, Drive In's, and Dive's." Watch the youtube clip and you will die. It looked unreal. So we decided to go before our flight home! You can tell by the look on Nate's face, it wasn't opened in time....heart break.

And this was the good ole rental car that took us this way and that! 

Boston is wonderful! I love it and would love to live there one day!

Boston Birthday

So Nate took me to Boston this last weekend over my birthday! He had a business conference there and since he should not want to leave his wifey on her day of birth, he got me a plane ticket too! Amazing. We packed up the Carter Moo and left him with his Grandma and Grandpa Rhodes (Aunt Roch, Aunt Erin, and Uncle Teo were all huge contributors also of course) and we left Friday morning (my b-day) at 4am to catch an early flight. Here is a short recap of the day (since in retrospect this was actually humorous and we will want to remember)

4am-Leave for Airport

6am- Lindsey's flight leaves (we couldn't be on the same flight unless we paid a 50.00 change fee. Looking back the change fee seems like pocket change and well worth the while)

7am- Nate's flight is scheduled to leave. Scheduled being the key word...flight CANCELLED. They sat on the tarmac for some time until they announced they couldn't get a warning light to turn off, so everyone had to unload. Nate couldn't fly out until 11am. Boo.

Meanwhile- Linds has a 2 1/2 layover in Minneapolis. I get a call from Nate telling me that his debit card has been confiscated. (I had reported MY card lost/stolen a day earlier. Who knew they would get so frisky over his card right?)

11am- Nate leaves SLC, and I leave Minneapolis to head to Boston shortly after

4:15pm- I arrive in Boston. Nate doesn't get in until 7:30pm. So I cozy down at a table and call up my sister Steph who tells me I can go hang out at Harvard with her friend Kara. Since that sounds better than the airport, I get up and head down to the ground transportation and hop onto the Silver line metro and head out. Just about leaving the large airport and having gone through 4-5 stops already, I notice my hands are lighter than they were before and realize I have left the dress bag I was carrying somewhere. Maybe by the baggage claim? I freak out, and jump off of the train- right as my darling friend Paige calls to wish me a happy birthday. She is in for a treat because she guides her panicked friend through a very stressful moment! I had jumped out of the train (moving if that paints a better picture) and was running my way back to where I started when a kind gentleman introduces me to another bus that will take me there much quicker. Paige is helping me laugh and smile and telling me she loves me. I get back to the baggage area and find nothing. SO I do what any rational girl who just lost a brand new birthday dress and her husbands brand new 250.00 suit would do. I start bawling of purse and running to every information desk that I an find asking if it has been returned. Much to my dismay, it is no where to be found. I hang up with Paige and call my mom who is very sympathetic and she and my good sis Erin say a little prayer. Moments after they finish a literal light bulb went off in my head and I thought of that little table I had sat down at after I got off the plane! After a lot more running and another trip BACK through security, a few escalators and diners later- there is was. Sitting on the back of that chair. I grabbed my bag, made my way to the gate where Nate would come off his flight, and collapsed in a chair, mascara smeared and looking like a crazy. I figured Harvard could wait and I needed to stay put. (This all took me about 2 hours of high stress and anxiety).

After Nate landed and gave the sympathetic  man reaction to my story- "oh no way dude!" kind of a thing, we went to pick up our rental car and made our way to our hotel. For dinner we grabbed some chinese food and then we crashed. Needless to say, the day of traveling and frustration wore us right out! A birthday to remember!! Thanks to all the family who listened to me cry that day :) The weekend was truly such a blast though! Check out my next post for some Boston weekend pics!

What? KFC Goodness?

So we may have cracked an almost KFC close fried chicken recipe and we are pretty proud of it! We made fried chicken tonight with mashed potatoes and gravy, and a side o' corn. Let me tell you- it was pretty darn amazing. Thought I would give you a couple teasers of our delicious dinner this fine evening!


It all begin with some raw chicken.......ew

The secret to this fried chick, is the good ole pressure cooker!

And vuala! You have a gorgeous homemade KFC meal!

Maybe one day I will share the recipe...

Muahaha :)