Fall Visitors Part One

Heidi and Whitney

Eileen and Whitney

At Sam Adams Brewery.

Beautiful New England in Autumn.

Picking Apples the fun way.

Eating cannolis and drinking espresso in the North End.

View of Back Bay from the Duck.

On the Duck.

Two weekends ago, my (Whitney's) parents came out for a long weekend. They arrived Thursday evening and left Tuesday morning. My parents spent Friday up in Rockport, a charming seaside town, entertaining themselves while Chad and I were at work/school. Then that night we went out to one of our favorite restaurants here, the Border Cafe. A great place to get cheap Mexican food and margaritas. We then watched the Departed, a very Boston movie. Saturday was spent touring Boston proper. We spent the morning on the Duck Tour, which was a lot of fun. Then we walked through the Back Bay, Boston Commons, Down Town, Fanuiel Hall & Quincy Market area, the North End, and Beacon Hill. We had lunch in a great little restaurant in the North End and treated ourselves to cannolis at Mike's Pastry (a Boston classic). Sunday we showed the parents our new church home in Brookline and then drove out West to go apple picking. The apples were sparse and hard to reach, however it was a gorgeous day and the surroundings were beautiful. Monday we took a tour of the Samuel Adams brewery, which is about 5 minutes away from our house. The tour was good, but the tasting was great. It was so much fun to have my parents over and to show them Boston and our new life out here. We had a lot of fun having them in our home. Having them here was such a blessing.

Then last weekend, we had two surprise guests. Eileen Grench, a childhood friend was randomly in town. We were able to have lunch and spend the afternoon together, which was so wonderful. She came out for the wedding, but other then that I hadn't seen her in 5 years. Then Heidi Peterson was in town for the weekend and needed a place to stay, so we got to see and chat with her. It was great to see two friends from home all the way out here in Boston.

Chad is busy busy at school, but doing so well. He's done extremely well on every test and works so hard. However, we find that we get plenty of time to spend with each other and to pursue other activities. Right now he is occasionally volunteering to lead tours for the student MD interviewees and giving out flu vaccines. The tours are extremely taxing as they end in dinners out on the town with free food and alcohol. I was finally given a place at my work (I was floating around between different departments before). I am now going to work in the Retina department and the Photography department. It's nice, I have consistent hours and more responsibility. The retina is the back of the eye, so we see a lot of elderly patients with Age Related Macular Degeneration (Central Vision Loss), patients with Diabetes, and patients with retinal tears/detachments.

We have recently become involved in a Theology home discussion group. Its a group of us from church that are meeting once a month to discuss heady theology. Every month we read several articles before and after each meeting to prepare and we have discussions online between meetings. It's been really great to stretch ourselves and get to know a great group of people better.

Hopefully I will be better about updating the blog in the next couple of months.