Vermontster

Six people piles into one Honda CR-V.
Six people piled into one small hotel room.
Six people touring New England Cheese Factories EQUALS One Good Time!!

Eating at a mall food court with a carousel in the center. Just takes you back, ya know

Our hotel room (Nishan avoiding being pictured, again)

Ben and Jerry's Factory. Ice Cream. The other Dairy Product.

Having a Dang Good time at Cabot Farms
(l to r: Anita, Nishan, Tim, moi, Emily, Brittany)

Happy Halloween

This is our pumpkin this year that Brit's friend Matt carved for us. You can see we support Team Edward. But this is seriously amazing! Props to Matt...

We went to the Harvard Club in downtown Boston for the Big Halloween dance, sponsored by the church for the LDS Education Conference held that weekend. It was just this amazing room with a vaulted ceiling, beautiful chandeliers, huge pipes for the organ and just so ornate!! (These pics are not from our party, but they give you an idea)


Guess who I was this year for Halloween? Elphaba (fka Wicked Witch of the West). I had a good time sportin the green. My roommate was Glenda, so we had a good time with that!!

The crew at the party-

Darin's costume was the cutest ever, so all us girls got a pic with him. He was Russell from UP and I couldn't get enough of him. Rachel was amazing too- dressed as Cruela DeVil. You can't see it, but Britt has a silver briefcase with a number on it with the $1,000,000 paper in it- so she was a Deal or No Deal girl. Cute Britt. And Ashley was just classy and beautiful as always (it was either costume or formal wear for the dance)

Another successful and super fun Halloween-
just maybe my fave holiday of the year (besides the ones I get presents at!)

Rock n' Roll

Woops! I maybe am posting these pics more than a month late, but I haven't been very good about blogging so I am catching up!!

Here are the pics and such from my real birthday party! We divided into bands and played Rock Band 2!! It was so fun!!

This Month is Such a Special one, it's birthday time for you!

So I love my birthday and take every opprotunity to celebrate it. This year I had 2 celebrations.

Esther- my most wonderful cousin, got us girls a house on the Cape for the weekend!! It was so so fun!

The weeken included:
-swimming in the shark infested water in the rain (4 great whites are stalking the beaches in the area so we were afraid to go to deep)
-watching movies
-eating pb&j's and guacamole
-eating sea food at a local eatery
-shopping at a job lot!!
-eating a most beloved and hard to come by Dairy Queen cake
-Skinny Dipping in water filled with bioluminescence (still not going deep for fear of sharks!)
-eating crepes in the morning with strawberries, blueberries and lime juice!

haha! I laughed so hard when I read my cake. Emily, of course, was the mastermind behind this! Thanks girls for the amazing surprize!

Most of us ladies, before our walk down to the beach for our late night swim!!
yes- we also walked down to the beach mostly in the buff!
And the bioluminescence on the beach was amazing. Everystep you took, the sand just glowed all around your feet. And your hands made blue glowing trains when you moved them in the water! It was magical!!

Half-Blood Prince Party

So I had this party a month ago on the night of the mid-night showing of the 6th Harry Potter. Woops- just posting this now, but I haven't had all the pics until this weekend, not a big deal.

I might have thrown one of the funnest Harry Potter Parties ever, not to brag or anything, but it was seriously off the hook. I have been planning this party for months before, and I was really proud of myself, cause I plan a lot of really awesome parties in my head, but i never start on them soon enough and then they never turn out like I want them to. But I actually didn't procrastinate and I got everything just the way I wanted. I wish I had gotten more pics of other stuff besides the food, but we were too distracted by the wizarding fun that the muggle memories escaped us!!

First, I sent out this invitation- individually addressed to each invitee. And yes, I downloaded a dozen Harry Potter made fonts for all invites and signs. It's all in the details.

When you walked into the house, there was a place to put your broom if you rode it (had some pre-placed). And when you walk up the stairs, there was about 15 pics of all the Hogwarts faculty that had been there while Harry went to Hogwarts, and you could win points by naming them and what they teach. I made the sorting hat, and had house badges cut out in there, so you were sorted by pulling a house out of the house. I had made ties/scarfs for people to have once sorted. You could wear them as a tie, or a hair tie or whatever. They really added to the whole effect. There were little surprized everywhere, like the pic of Moaning Mertle on the toliet seat (Bathroom was labeled "Room of Requirements" - lol). There was also Wizard Rock playing in the background, with groups such as "Harry and the Potters," "Draco and the Malfoys," "The Mauraders," just to name a few.

I made our living room into the Gryffindor common room. Not too many pics of this, but there was a bulletin board with announcements about Quiddich tryouts, Neville's lost toad Trevor, SPEW, and other things. I had posters around with Gryffindor related stuff on them, hung all the movie posters in the room as well, and made the TV into a fireplace with cut out wood and flames and it was showing the 5th HP movie. I set up games in that room. There was HP Memory, and I put Trivia questions all around the room (some hidden so you had to look for them). There was also a wand making station in the common room, so you could jazz up your own wand for the party!!

Kristy, Brit and Cyrus playing Memory in the Gryffindor common room. There are some yummy licorice wands dipped in white chocolate and butterscotch! So yummy- thanks Vackles! And in the round glass bowls, those are the house points that were handed out through the night- thanks to Nicky and Seth for cutting out all each individual circle- there were hundreds!!

Michael's decorated wand. Amazing, Mr. Visser. Amazing. But this facial expression is so Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix- luckily he is no longer as angsty or moody.

I was most excited about turning our dining room into the Great Hall. At the real Hogwarts, the celing is enchanted to look like the night sky, so I strung white lights on the celing and covered it with dark blue tool. Seth and Nicky hung it up for me the night before. And since the party was themed around winning the house cup, I sewed house banners for each house. They turned out awesome, and the whole room looked fabulous. Special shout out to Vicky/Nicky/Seth/Ashley/Emily for coming the night before to help set up!!

The Great Hall

The best part of the Great Hall was the Dining Table. I assigned people treats that were HP themed, and everyone did a great great job!! Tons of pics of the food!! I was well pleased with the magical creations everyone made!! Simply amazing!!

The Spread. With the Polyjuice potion as the centerpiece. The fabric was all sprayed with sparkles, so it was very glittery, and we ended up filling in those empty glass round vases with colored water and put mixers in them with light up ice cubes. Adorable. But did it after the pic was taken.


I was so proud of myself for actually getting on top of this treat in advance. I ordered frog molds for this Chocolate Frog must-have at any HP party. Ashley made them and they were rich and tasty!!

Brit made these adorable Cauldron Cakes. She baked cupcakes, turned them upside-down, and put the gooey potion inside them with the pretzel as the stirring spoon. So creative!

Good shot of the "Three Broomstick's BUTTERBEERs" I labeled. We got IBC root beer and cream soda and put these labels on them. Thanks to the Rindge girls for bringing the soda!

Leigh made Pumpkin Pasties- they were amazing. They were like chocolate chip cookie bowls with pumpkin in the middle. Divine!

Ashley's Beautiful Cockroach Clusters

The best part was of the evening was being able to just enjoy the wonderful night with all of our honorary wizard friends. Everyone got into it, whether they were fans or not, and dressed up and made the evening truly enjoyable

Ashley and Nicky enjoying a cockroach cluster

Showing off our wands- almost as good as a real Ollivander Wand.

Love Ashley's face in this, so had to post it. She seriously looks just like a Hayao Miyazaki Japanese Cartoon character. See...
Esther and Ashley hitting up the butter beer and Polyjuice potion. Ladies, come now, this is a PG movie. But they were both sorted into Slytherin so not surprising coming from that lot.

Gryffindor values courage, bravery, daring, nerve and chivalry. Yup- me and EMV all the way!! The Sorting hat knows what's up.

The whole game in the Great Hall!

Princess and the Frog

My team at work got to have a little outing Wednesday this last week. We went kayaking on the Concord River, then went swimming in my boss' back yard. I had a fun little friend to hang out with me in the pool. I named him Fred, and her seriously just hung out on my hand and shoulder for hours whilst in the pool. He was adorable.

Climb Every Mountain

So me and the peeps drive up to New Hampshire to hike Mt. Monadnock. It is 2 miles up, 2 miles down, and we were told it was a moderate family day hike, so no biggie right. yah- We were all in for a pretty big shock. Not that the hike was horrible, but it was way harder than any of us anticipated. Yah- you climb 2,150 feet in 2 miles. It was not a hike, but a climb. It was a great accomplishment to get to the top. Luckily, there was a pathway down that wasn't as steep as the way up, but was longer, and it hurt your ankles (at least mine) coming down, but it was a lovely day- a lovely view, and a wonderful hike/climb!

the finest group of people Boston has to offer: (l to r) Emily, Austin, Brittany, Crismon, Cyrus, Cameron, Mikey and his gun hand, Me and Caro!!

Hey Michael!

Cutie Caro- I am going to miss her so so much!!

Me, Caro, and Cameron gazing into the distance on top of the beautiful summit. Love New England. And notice how my Nike Emblem shines in pics.