Warm Days and Game Nights

Us on top of the independence wharf observation deck.

After a brief stint in piracy cut short by Robin Williams, Captain James T. Hook forsook the nautical life to open a lobstah botique in South Bahstan.

The Greenway over I-93: without any snow!

Finally the snow is almost all gone. We got flurries today as a reminder of the horror that was the Boston white-out of 2011. However, temps are in the 40-50s this week and looking up, and it is so great to not have to wear gloves to bed (just kidding...or am I?). This past week was my spring break from school, but since we're flying out to Seattle in May, and, if circumstances permit, we might have to drag ourselves out again in August, I decided to save some money and keep it local. This involved a lot of studying and xbox, but Whitney and I also decided to get out and go for a walk on Saturday since the weather was sunny. We headed out to Southie to go check out Castle Island and Pleasure Bay, which was a nice walk but windy. We then checked out the Fort Point neighborhood, which I've been wanting to walk around for a while.

One of the things that I love about the East Coast besides the obscene amount of fried seafood is that they've turned all the old mills into loft houses. I would love to live in a loft house, and have always been excited by them. Fort point is basically a dozen square blocks of old mills and warehouses that are being redone into the new "it" neighborhood of Boston. They put in a new art museum, a convention center, the Harpoon brewery, and a whole bunch of other great stuff, so we strolled for an hour. Right at the end of our stroll, we saw a plaque on the side of a building that said there was a free observation deck open to the public in the Independence Wharf building. Needless to say, we headed straight to the 14th floor and got a great view of Fort Point and the Financial District near South Station. It was great to find a new tucked away view of the city, though the one from the top of the medical school is still probably the best one.

The best night though of the break was Tuesday night. In Seattle one of our favorite places is Blue Highway, the game store on Queen Anne. There's a game store near church, but they don't have trestle tables to try out their games, so they host game nights at the library and a cafe across the street. Whit and I showed up to play Cargo Noir, the new Days of Wonder game which I've been wanting to play. It's a simple game along the same line as Puerto Rico, but not as involved. While we were playing though, a woman from Columbia Pictures came by and passed out free shirts and sneak preview passes for Battle:LA, which I then saw on Thursday with Greg. After THAT, the game store owner invited us back for pizza at the store. So a good night. Battle:LA was a fine movie, but we were in the second row and this movie falls into the category of movies filmed by strapping a camera to a dog and letting it follow the action. A nervous, twitchy little dog.

It's the season of Lent, which I have never really followed before. Growing up our church didn't really talk about Lent or fasting. At SPU I heard about Lent but never felt is was something I should do. Our church here in Boston follows Lent, encourages fasting, and had an Ash Wednesday service last week. Chad and I went to the service and I've decided to fast desserts and sweets. So you're supposed to choose something that will basically be a big bummer if you can't have it. I thought this would be quite difficult for me considering I love to bake, I love dessert, and there is always something sweet hanging around at work. And we all know I can definitely use a lesson in self control when it comes to food. So this is week #2 and I'm doing quite well. I've had to pass on two donuts, warm fresh chocolate chip cookies (that I made for small group!), and a few other things. Part of the fasting is that Sunday doesn't count, it's not a fast day. So I can enjoy a sweet on those days, but I don't think you're supposed to gorge yourself either.

Right now I feel like were just waiting to find out what our next couple of years will look like. I'm waiting to find out if I got into graduate school. And Chad is waiting to find out if he got RA at BU (we find out this Saturday!). If he doesn't get RA then we'll be looking for a new place, probably moving in July. We want to move to Brookline to be closer to church and the gym. And Brookline is such a nice neighborhood with restaurants, coffee shops, etc all within walking distance. We like our place now, but there are many things that are lacking, and location is one of them. If I don't get into school I will have to figure out what I want to do. I like my job now because I knew it was temporary. I don't see myself being happy here longer then two years. It's not challenging enough and the company is a bit disorganized. I do really enjoy the doctors I work for and I really like a lot of my coworkers.

Besides that, Whitney and I hosted another meeting of our small group, which is meshing better and going well, and then had two separate dinner/game nights, so all-in-all it was a good break, even if I did miss the opportunity to go see some old friends in California. However, with school back in session, there's only a little more material to push through before school's out, I take the medicine boards, and we're back in Seattle for the Gracey-Huerta Bash and Kauai!

-Chad & Whitney