Boston, Greenwich, NYC

We recently went on a business trip to Boston, MA, where Sam made some good contacts for Call2Test (check

Our hotel in Boston, Newbury Guesthouse

out their website: call2test.com) and I got to see some of the Boston area. It’s a great city, although it was pretty humid! Coming from the dry, arid climate of Albuquerque, and Durango before that, this midwestern girl had forgotten just what humidity is. Stepping out of Logan Airport was an immediate crash course in humidity. We learned later that it was a particularly humid week, most everyone was commenting on how extreme the humidity was. We stayed at a quaint guesthouse in the Back Bay on Newbury Street. It had a French Bistro in the bottom level where we would eat our breakfasts. There are an abundance of eclectic shops lining the street, which was bustling with businessmen & women, students and tourists. Every sidewalk cafe was packed each day of the week, save Sunday, when I assume the life of Newbury Street is cozily tucked away at home until late afternoon.

Part of the Prudential Center, on Boyleston

Sam’s conference was at the Prudential Center, which was a short 2.5 blocks away, a quick, enjoyable walk from our hotel. The Prudential Center is a huge conference building that also has 2 hotels connected, stores, restaurants, it covers what looked like to me to be a whole city block. It even had walkways to connect buildings over the busy streets. Sam was attending the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, where he and his partn

Creepy (although tasty!) lobster

er were mingling with and meeting prospective clients. I don’t want to say too much, but all went well, and all in all I would call it a very productive and worthwhile trip.

On some of Sam’s downtime, we had dinner at Legal Seafood, where I ordered my first lobster. To be clear, I’ve eaten lobster before, but have never ordered it for myself. It turns out that while I really like the taste of lobster, I don’t have the stomach for preparing it to eat, all the cracking and ripping, all the while the lobster’s beady little eyes are fixed on me in a stony gaze. It was a tasty dinner, but I will admit that Sam had to do most of the dirty work for me. A little too much eyes and antennae for me! See the picture for yourselves, you’ll see what I’m talking about!

Molly, our trusty transportation.

We also had time to take a Duck tour, which was cool because we got to hit a lot of the highlights of the city, with a guided tour, and I’ll have to say, our “conDUCKtor” was classy with a capital C! Our steed, in all her shiny brown glory was named ‘Molly Molasses’. Molly took us through the

Our tour guide, Disco Dave---favorite quote "Good times!"

Back Bay, to Boston Common, past the Boston Public Library and Bunker Hill Monument. We passed Copley Square and Faneuil Hall also known as “The Cradle of Liberty”. We saw TD Garden, where the Celtics play (Go Celts!) and then we rolled right into Charles River to view the city from the waterway. It was an informative and interesting tour. We even got to see where our forefathers first read the Constitution. We saw the apartment that President Kennedy grew up in, and even saw a 250 gallon steaming teapot. Needless to say, Boston is a city rich with history and I really enjoyed learning more about it. I’d like to go back soon and spend more time walking around the city, and taking the T, the public transportation system that is surprisingly easy to understand. Almost as easy as the London Tube.

Me, Sam & Aunt Anne at Centro in Greenwich

After our time in Boston was over, we took the train to Greenwich, CT, to visit Granny, Grandfather,  Aunt Anne & we even had the pleasant surprise of briefly seeing Aunt Polly, too. We stayed at the Stanton House again, and had a lovely room overlooking the patio and pool. Again, we laughed at the silly rules in the ‘Stanton House Handbook’ , one of which is “Red wine is unforgiving, and so are we.” I can understand why they have such strict rules, though, because the rooms are in very good condition, and I enjoy the cleanliness and quality of it, and want to keep it that way for future visits. I imagine, though, that they keep a file on every person who

Our room at the Stanton House in Greenwich

boards there, something similar to a report card and you have to keep your grade above a B+ in order to stay there again. Or maybe they use the 3 strikes system. Whatever it may be, it had me double checking the room before checkout to ensure our ability to stay there again! It’s quiet and lovely and to spend a week in Greenwich with family would be heaven. I hope we’ll be able to make a longer trip there someday very soon, I always feel like the short times we spend there just blast past in a blur. We were also able to take a trip to Darien to see Jody, Kris, Leah, Graham and I had the chance to meet Sophie for the first time, which was a pleasure. Thank you to everyone who invited us over and made us feel so welcome. It’s always so nice to see everyone, it really makes me wish we lived closer to them. Before we left town, we had lunch at Centro with Anne, Grandfather’s favorite restaurant. It was rather tasty and had a great atmosphere. I finally know what Centro is all about!

Me & Sam at Back Bay Station on the way to Greenwich

The last leg of our trip was a less than 24 hour jaunt in NYC. By the time we got there, we were exhausted. We had dinner in our hotel room, went to bed early and got some much needed rest. Our flight was in the afternoon, so we took a walk around Times Square, then headed to La Guardia to come home.

We’re happy to be home now, getting back to normal life, dogs, work, etc. Our next trip will be to Rockford, IL to visit my side of the family. We don’t have exact dates yet, but it will be in the Fall, and I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone. We’ll be spending a week in one place and that will be a treat as well.

Lots of love to everyone!!!

Wedding Highlights (yes, more.)

This day was perfect. I just wanted to share a few more pictures with everyone.

Our wedding photos

It’s only been some 5+ months since the wedding, but we’ve got our hands on our wedding photos now and are very happy to start printing and posting them. Here are a few, just for now. We’ll upload a link with everything, so you guys can download and print what you like. We bought the copyright from the photographer, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Yesterday

Yesterday was Cassandra’s funeral in Gallup, NM. It was an uplifting remembrance of Cassandra, with a traditional Navajo burial on her Uncle Edison’s ranch, in a stunningly beautiful clearing amongst the sage and oak alongside her brother, Cyrus. The ceremony, to me, was about Cassandra’s spirit being alive forever in each and every person with whom she ever made acquaintance. I know that all of her hard work and dedication to multiple passions and causes will be carried on by many who knew and loved her or were inspired by her very determination to simply make this world a better place. I can’t wait to see all of the good yet to come. We may no longer see Cassandra’s smiling face, but will recognize her lovely spirit in all of the world’s goodness and beautiful wonders.

As Sam and I headed to Phoenix after Cassandra’s service, we were heading into one of the most mesmerizing sunsets I have seen in a long while. Thanks, Cassandra.

Sam and I send all of our love to family and friends.

Cassandra & the kids

As many of you know, we tragically lost a dear member of our family this week, Jason’s wife, Cassandra. Since the kids are in the hospital in Denver, with Dad staying vigilant, things have been hectic, but the good news is that all three of the kids are stable and family and friends have been overwhelmingly supportive. We wanted you to know that we’ve set up a website which will serve as an informational page about Cassandra’s funeral, as well as a place to make donations to the family and to connect family and friends who wish to attend the funeral and would like to carpool. We also invite you to share photos and stories of the Cassandra we all know and love.

Visit the website at http://cassandrayazziehotchkiss.com/

Any words of love & encouragement for Jason, Noah, Amada, and Dante would be more than welcomed as they heal, also for Alicia and David who were thankfully uninvolved in the accident.

More photos from our trip!

So we are technically home from our trip–but boy are we totally wiped! Everything was so great, and such a whirlwind of activity, now it’s time to sleep. I plan to write up a good long blog about all of our adventures, but for now, I’m just going to post some photos so everyone can see.

NYC,Jersey & Greenwich SO FAR….

AHH, We’re still on vacation–and I don’t have time for stories–but I thought I’d upload some photos to see how the trip has been so far….I’ll write some stuff up later!! Love to everyone! Tomorrow we visit the Falls

B

NYC, CT, Buffalo trip

Hi Everyone, Just in case you live in the area and don’t already know this, Sam and I are headed to NYC and Greenwich to visit folks and can’t wait to see everyone! Our schedule is sorta looking like this:

Oct. 2 we’ll arrive in NYC. We’ll stay overnight again on the 3rd.

Oct. 4 we’ll head to CT to visit and meet Granny and Grandfather and see Anne again (yay!). We’ll stay overnight the 4th and 5th.

Oct. 6 we’ll be back in the city. I think we’ll be there until at least the 8th. We’re going to see a Broadway show (West Side Story) thanks to me aunt, uncle and cousin–we can’t wait!

Sometime after that, we’ll be heading to Buffalo to visit where I was born and see the sights, visit the Falls and catch a Bills game.

We head home on the 12th, early.

We can’t wait to get some traveling in and see everyone!!!!!

It won’t be long, now!

B

We’re moving!

Hey everyone! I hope this post finds everyone happy and well.

Just a little bit of news for everyone. Sam found us an excellent house available June 1, so we’re moving in 20 days. Don’t worry about your reply cards, they will get forwarded to us at our new address. The house is great, a little ways out of town, with a beautiful back yard and deck area, we hope everyone will get a chance to come see it while in town. The new address, for those of you who are diligent in keeping an up-to-date address book, is 160 Forest Ridge Road, same town, same state, different zip (81303). We’re really excited (and maybe a little stressed) about getting everything done in time, but we’ll make it, I’m sure.

Also, Sam and I realized after we sent out the invites, that a few people may have received reply envelopes with .42 cent stamps on them, hopefully this won’t end up being too big of an inconvenience for anyone. Sorry about that!  We’re beginner wedding planners and don’t plan on becoming experts in the art of wedding planning (since we’ll only do it this once!)

In other news, I’m taking a trip to ABQ on May 22nd to visit Sam’s sister Rachel, Austin, Zoe, Theo and Silas–unfortunately, Sam can’t make it this time, but I know it will be great fun, nonetheless! I’m looking forward to some time with Rachel & the fam, some time out of Durango, and now not to mention the packing I will be getting out of! (Sam’s so good to me!)

I’ll try to get Sam to make a post here one of these days!

Love to everyone near and far!

B

Welcome, Izzy!

Hi, I'm Izzy!

Meet Izzy, the newest member of our family. Izzy comes to us from the La Plata County Humane Society. She had been a member of the ‘Lonely Hearts’ club–meaning she had been at the shelter longer than 45 days. She had actually been there since 10.17.08. She is a spunky two year old retriever mix. She’s a snuggler, with the sweetest disposition. She and Barkley are getting along great–they play and wrestle all day long. Barkley seems very happy to have a friend. We haven’t had the time to get her into the groomer yet, but we can’t wait to get her a bath and a trim. Since she’s been at the house, she’s really come out of her shell–what a lot of energy she has. We recently had a big snow storm here, with over a foot of snow. When I let the dogs out into the yard, Izzy barrels out into the snow that is up to her chest and runs all the way to the back of the yard and back and forth like a mad woman!