Married!

After five and a half years together, and countless trips and excursions we finally got married! July 16, 2011 Jaimee and I said our vows in front of close family and friends in Guilford, Vermont. My Aunt and Uncle, Betsy and Neil graciously allowed us to use their house and garden for the event, and it went off exactly as planned! The weather couldn't have been better, and all the hard work by everyone paid off in that the grounds looked beautiful, the food was amazing, and we had our perfect Vermont wedding.

We leave later today for our honeymoon in Budapest and Prague, but I wanted to post a link to a few pictures from the wedding. When we get back we'll hopefully have more pictures, as well as pictures from the reception which took place the next day.

But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy these pictures. We certainly enjoyed being there when they were taken. Thank you to everyone who helped create a truly memorable weekend.

Vermont Wedding

Family Filled Weekends

Our weekends have been very full of family activities lately. Its been great fun to see so many family members this month and I must admit that I've loved the chance to get dressed up for a change!

We started the month with my bridal shower...my favorite day so far this year. I got to get dressed up, wear ridiculous shoes, and see almost my entire female family in one day! Here I am in the library at Cyprian Keyes.

We also managed to celebrate the birthdays of Asa and my mom and step-mother on that same day (enter the male side of the family!) While my family often celebrates multiple birthdays in one celebration and with one cake, its not often...or ever...that we've celebrated my mom's birthday and Sandi's at the same party, even though they share the same birthday.

The following weekend Asa, my sisters and I all conspired to throw a surprise anniversary party for my dad and Sandi. While we weren't able to surprise Dad, we did shock Sandi!

We had so much fun planning the party and were very pleased by the big family turn out. We served Mexican food as well as margaritas and sangria. One of Janelle's friends made and delivered a delicious cake and I made an apple crisp for dessert. While it isn't apple season...it was the dessert served 25 years ago at Dad and Sandi's wedding. Here's Asa, Jonah and I having a quick cuddle before Jonah got wisked home to bed.

The next day we raced back to our apartment to spend the afternoon with my mom, Nate, Abby, and Shaun. Mom was still in town after her surprise appearance at my shower. Asa and I were excited to be able to host her again at our apartment! It was the first time Shaun made it to our place and it was a great day for a walk in the Arboretum. Here we are on Peter's Hill, a short walk from our apartment.

We don't only spend time with my family, you know. We love spending time with Asa's family and while they aren't in as close proximity to us as my family, we really look forward to our weekends away visiting them.  Asa's Aunt Betsy and Uncle Neil, who live in Vermont, invited us up for a weekend and we were thrilled to be able to go to Goose Landing (their home) after a great morning of cake tasting for our wedding reception. We are going to have our wedding ceremony at Goose Landing this summer and we have offered to help them with the yard work as much as we can before the wedding...so we did some raking while we were there this time.

This weekend we were able to go to a nice Easter Brunch with my dad, Sandi, Janelle, Michelle, Russ, Meme, Auntie Linda and my cousin Matt. We went to the Grafton Inn for a nice brunch and then traveled back to Dad's house for a fun game of bocce.  

The next couple of weekends we'll be heading to New York to see Asa's cousins Lexy and Vahop in Brooklyn and Asa's Aunt Lisa and Uncle Dick in Catskill. Really looking forward to those adventures as well!

It's Nice to Be Loved

Living in New England we are lucky to be surrounded by loving and supportive family and friends. Last weekend we experienced that love first-hand when Jaimee's step-mom Sandi organized a beautiful and well-attended bridal shower, in anticipation of our wedding this July. Jaimee's sisters enjoyed planning the party, which was originally supposed to be a surprise, but because of Jaimee's sleuthing skills, she found out about it well before hand. Here's Jaimee with her sisters and step-mom:

From Wedding Shower

Jaimee's mom did do a surprise visit all the way from Idaho, so at least we were able to get one surprise:

From Wedding Shower

Jaimee received many awesome gifts, that we've put to use right away, including a few sets of nice glasses, an amazing coffee maker and various other kitchen items. Some of items will take some getting used to, such the set of "rolo" shot glasses, which I found out pretty quickly you need to hold on to when pouring:

After the shower, Jaimee's dad hosted a joint birthday party for me and Jaimee's step-mom (she's April 3, I'm April 5). It warms my heart to be part of such a loving family:

From Wedding Shower

Readers of my last blog post took note of the fact that I said I didn't get the memo regarding a yellow biking jacket, so one of my gifts was a bright yellow jacket along with a memo:

Now when I do my group bike rides (or even when riding solo), I'll be highly visible and safe!

More Adventures in the White Mountains

This weekend, Jaimee and I spent another wonderful weekend in the winter wonderland of the White Mountains. We stayed for two nights at Carter Notch Hut near Mt. Washington. We drove up on Friday and when we left Boston it was a hard rain that turned to snow as we progressed north. It took over six hours to drive there, more than double what it should take. This meant we got a late start hiking, leaving the trailhead at 4:15PM for the four mile hike to the hut.

From More Winter Adventures

We made good time on the slog up the Nineteen Mile Brook trail, but when we got to the top of the ridge, it was pitch black with a hollowing wind. Even with our headlamps on full blast we could barely see in front of us, and when we got to a trail sign that said the hut was 0.3 miles we were super excited. The problem was, with the blowing wind, there was no trail. Having never been to the hut before we didn't know that it sat just above two small lakes. All we found were the lakes, and as we wondered across the frozen surface we noticed that our tracks were blown away so it was impossible to backtrack. I'll skip to the ending in that we eventually noticed the lights from the hut, but I will say, I was very, very scared. The White Mountains are a dangerous place, especially in the winter, at night, in a blizzard. It was the first time I'd ever seriously contemplated activating the 911 feature on our Spot device, but luckily, we stayed calm, found the last bit of trail that we recognized by walking the perimeter of the lakes and were able to find the path people take in the summer. There was another sign at 0.1 miles from the hut and at that point we could see the warm glow of the hut.

Our two-night stay at the hut was fairly uneventful, except for a drunk person in our bunk room. We stayed in a six-person bunk house the first night and one of our bunk-mates threw up inside the room, multiple times. It's a pretty horrible sound to hear retching and then the sound of vomit hitting the floor. Luckily the room was about 10 degrees so the vomit froze and actually didn't smell. But the guy did cause some drama looking for the door, falling on ice, making all sorts of noise. The second night was less dramatic as we had the room to ourselves.

We climbed one 4,000 foot peak during out stay, Wildcat Mountain A, which was quite the hike. It's only one mile up to the summit but because we had to break trail through drifts of snow over four feet high it took us two and a half hours to get to the top and only 40 minutes to come down.

From More Winter Adventures

The hike out to the car was much easier than the way in, but we decided to just return the way we came on the Nineteen Mile Brook trail instead of out and over Carter Dome, another 4,000 foot peak in the area. We got back to our car, and although the car was fine, we'd left a Sigg water bottle full of water in the car and when it froze it broke the metal bottle! The weather and conditions of the White Mountains are not be taken lightly!

Other than our little weekend adventure, we've had more quality family time. We celebrated Jaimee's birthday with her cousin and meme, who all have birthdays within a few days of each other. I love this picture of the three of them blowing out the candles on the cake. Take away the smart phone on the table and it could be a Norman Rockwell painting:

From More Winter Adventures

We also got in a trip to Vermont to visit my Aunt and Uncle, where Jaimee and I pinch-hit for my Aunt (she hurt her knee and has trouble snow-shoeing) and led the wine and cheese snow-shoe tour at Grafton Ponds where she works. Much easier than hiking up Wildcat Mountain, this was a 45 minute hike through the woods to a waiting bonfire where they'd already brought up bottles of wine and blocks of cheese via snowmobile. We drank four bottle of wine between 10 of us, which made for an interesting walk back down through the woods. We've had an amazing snowy winter here in New England and we feel lucky that we've been able to enjoy it as much as we have.

40 years ago...

No, I'm not turning 40. I may be old, but I'm not that old (not yet anyway). Forty years ago today my parents got married. They were married for 19 years when my father passed away, and I have no doubt that if he hadn't died, they'd still be married and celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this week. Their anniversary was a big deal in our family because, as some of you may know, we didn't celebrate Christmas growing up. (We also didn't celebrate Hanukkah, which is always the next question when you tell someone you don't celebrate Christmas.) Instead, my parents arranged what we called, in retrospect somewhat unimaginatively, "Present Day" which coincided with their anniversary. We took the Christ out of Christmas and moved it to early February. We also took out the lights, decorations, stockings and trees. In reality it was nothing like Christmas except that we exchanged presents. This tradition fell by the wayside as my sisters and I got older, and I honestly couldn't tell you when the last official "Present Day" was.

I mention my parent's anniversary today, not so much because of the memories of "Present Day", but because my dad has now been gone longer than my parents were married. I got to thinking about this recently because I have a strong tendency to dwell on the past, and while I never ever want to forgot the people from my past, sometimes the past has a way of covering over the present. Life moves forward, and it sounds like a cliche, but you can't live life looking backwards.

Take for example our around the world trip. Before we know it, we will have been back in the States longer than we were away. It's not that the memories of the trip are fading, but the relevancy is fading, or at least that's how it feels. It might seem obvious, but the trip we took will never change, which means we'll always be answering questions such as, "Did you go to Cambodia?" with "No." Or  "Did you go to South America?" and we'll have to say "No." We'll answer "What parts of Africa did you go to?" and it will always be "Just Egypt". And we'll always be explaining that we only visited southern India, and didn't see the Taj Mahal.

This isn't to say we won't travel again, and indeed I intend to continue traveling and visiting new places. I recently found myself on-line playing around with around-the-world tickets, which even though we didn't end up using one for our trip, I still find intriguing. Not to alarm anyone in our family lest they think we're planning another big trip, but I read a lot of travel blogs and I happened to click on an ad for a "South American around-the-world" ticket that stopped in Columbia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Costa Rica. All those stops (and there were multiple stops in some of the countries) cost less than $1,500 per person. That's an amazing deal, and part of me wants to head to Miami (where the ticket originated) and leave on that trip tomorrow. And not just because Boston has three feet of snow on the ground, although that certainly is big motivation.

Then again, as I've mentioned repeatedly, I am enjoying myself in Boston. Yesterday we had a lovely Superbowl party at Jaimee's dad's house and on Saturday, Jaimee and I had a long visit with my sister and nephew. I cherish those moments, and am truly happy that we are close to family. But, the travel bug is hard to kick and I sometimes wish we didn't fall into jobs and a routine in Boston so easily.

When we came back from our trip, I had a grand vision of finding some way to finance more travel, finding a way to break free from the "9 to 5", three weeks of vacation a year syndrome. Alas, Jaimee and I found jobs, good jobs that we both like, and an apartment that we love. So what's the problem? Nothing really, except that I still have unfulfilled dreams. I guess the take-away from this somewhat long rambling post is that I plan on spending more time in the present (and future), and less time reminiscing about the past. In reading other around-the-world bloggers, I noticed a similar struggle that sets in a few months after returning. Often it seems the blogs morph into something else. The most explicit example of this is AwayTogether, a blog about a family of four who traveled around the world, which turned into A Runner's Trip, a blog about long-distance running. Another example is our friends Jason and Gillian from Victoria who have continued their blog, but with a focus on motivation behind travel, living in the moment, and challenges to move out of your comfort zone. I know that Gillian sometimes reads this blog, so I don't mean to misrepresent her blog if my description isn't her intent, and I really encourage people to check it out for themselves, as it's quite motivating.

Maybe this blog will change into a place to motivate others to fulfill their dreams and live in the present. I suppose we can do that by setting an example ourselves. So, maybe you'll see more posts about dreams, goals and living a more fulfilling life.

60 Months

As of today Jaimee and I have been together for 60 months! January 28 is our recognized "anniversary" date of when we officially started dating. Sixty months is five years to those that celebrate in terms of years; we've gotten in the habit of celebrating Monthaversaries on the 28th of every month. We're celebrating the occasion by going up to New Hampshire and staying at Lonesome Lake hut for two nights. Yes, we're celebrating our anniversary by staying at a wood-stove heated shelter in the middle of the mountains that we have to snowshoe into, bring our own food and sleep in bunk beds! Yes, I realize our idea of romantic is quite different from other people.

We've been having quite the winter in New England. It seems every couple days we get another snow storm, so we're expecting great snowshoeing up in New Hampshire. We'll provide a trip report (with pictures) when we get back.

New Year's Report and Kicking it in Boston

Happy Belated New Year! And Happy 1/11/11 day. (Is that even a Holiday? If it isn't it should be!) We were in Vermont for New Year's Eve and Day, staying with Neil and Betsy. We had a wonderful time and we went to a New Year's Eve party at their friend's house, a party this particular host holds every year. We'd actually been to his New Year's party three years ago so it was fun to see the beginnings of a tradition of sorts. The party also doubled as a 60th Birthday so there were poetry readings, toasts and tearful speeches by the woman's son. Plus the food was catered and it was outstanding, including an amazing chocolate mousse cake!

New Year's Day we took a snowshoe up at Grafton Ponds where my Aunt Betsy does cross-country skiing and snow shoe instruction. She was leading a wine and cheese snowshoe tour where you snow shoe up the little mountain to a cabin where there is wine, cheese and a little camp fire waiting for you. It was amazing! A great way to spend the first day of the year!

Back in Boston, after that large Christmas snow storm, we've only gotten a few more dustings of snow, but apart from a warm spell on New Year's weekend, it has stayed cold, causing snowy/icy conditions on the roads. I've decided to try and commute by bike all winter so I picked up some studded tires for my bike. They're small studs that are placed on the outside edge of the tire to primarily help with lateral sliding. You also run the tire pressure a little low so that you get more surface area under the tire. For the most part, Boston treats the roads (including the bike paths!) exceedingly well so I wasn't needing the studded tires too much, although yesterday morning I took my normal route through the Arboretum and came across packed ice and snow:

See what I mean about treating the roads. This is inside the Arboretum, where no cars are allowed, so they plowed this for pedestrians and bicyclists. I was a little hesitant at first but then I realized the tires were gripping just fine so I made my way through. Here's another shot of the tires, all packed with snow:

As I've said before the commute is actually the best part of my day; despite the cold I love riding every day, and I hope to keep it up the rest of the winter. Plus, the studded tires are harder to pedal so I will be very strong when Spring rolls around. When I switch back to my "slicks" it will feel so fast.

This past weekend, we received a last minute couchsurfing request from an Australian guy doing a two month bus trip around the US. He had only one reference from a fellow traveler and not a host, but we took a chance on him and it worked out great. He's a super nice guy, very knowledgeable about the US, including sports. We went down to the local pizza place to watch one of the NFL football games (since we don't have TV at our apartment), and I was surprised how much he knew about football. But apparently basketball is his favorite sport and he went on ebay and bought two tickets to last night's Celtics game. He wouldn't let me pay but he took me along, and it was super fun, even though as it turns out, the Celtics lost. As luck would have it, we watched the first Celtics home loss since mid-November. But, I'd never been to a Celtics game before so I enjoyed it. I'd never seen so much green before; next time I go I should definitely get a team jersey:

He's moving on today to Montreal, then Ottawa, Buffalo, Detroit, Nashville, Memphis, New Orleans, Austin, and who knows where else, eventually making his way to Los Angeles where he flies back to Melbourne, Australia.

We might have more couchsurfers this coming weekend. A couple, he's from Philadelphia, she's from Taiwan and they're trying to couchsurf in all 48 of the lower 48 states (while writing a book about it). Meeting all these travelers makes us miss our travels a lot, and it feels odd to now be in the position of living vicariously through other people's travels. Part of me wants to just jump on a bus like our Australian friend, but then again, Buffalo and Detroit in January? Detroit at all? I think he needs some help planning his itinerary.

A Winter Adventure

With this posting I may have to really rethink the whole "Chasing Summer" title for this blog. I just spent three days enjoying the aftermath of the "Blizzard of 2010" up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. (Jaimee could not go with me as she had to work.) Last Sunday night New England, especially coastal areas like Boston got hammered with snow. Boston alone received 18 inches of snow. Before the storm, we spent Christmas Eve to Christmas morning at Jaimee's dad's house in Shrewsbury. We had a lovely, festive time, and pardon the inside joke (but let's be honest, only "insiders" are really reading this anyway) no churches were burned down on Christmas Eve. We left Shrewsbury Saturday evening and drove down to Cape Cod where we visited with Jaimee's visiting Mom and her brother and sister. The storm began rolling in late Sunday morning, and although we had plans to return to Boston on Sunday night, we spent another night and braved the roads back to Boston on Monday. Although by Monday most of the snow had fallen, the roads were still somewhat treacherous and parking in the city was a nightmare. Our downstairs neighbors were out of town so they said we could park in their driveway, but that meant I had to shovel it. It took over two hours to shovel out the driveway wide enough to park the car. Dealing with this much snow is certainly never something we had to deal with in Seattle.

However, the timing of the storm couldn't have been better with respect to my planned trip up to the White Mountains. I spent two nights with our friends Liza and Michael at the AMC Zealand Falls Hut. The hut is rustic, only heated with a wood stove that they stoke between 4PM and 9PM each day. The hut has bunks for about 35 people and it was filled to capacity each night. This meant for cozy accommodations especially in the main room with the stove. We had a great time though, playing games and meeting new people. Not only did I meet someone who knew one of the Appalachian Trail through-hikers I met last summer while hiking the Long Trail, but I also met people who knew my Aunt and Uncle, Neil and Betsy. One guy said he'd house sat for them, and another said he used to work at the West Hill Bike Shop when my uncle owned it. It truly is a small world.

We also got in lots of snowshoeing during the day. The first day was a relatively easy snowshoe into the hut because the trail was already broken out. The second day we took the trail up to Zealand Mountain which was not already broken out. It took the three of us five hours to break through snow that was often up to our waist deep. We eventually got to the summit, which sadly had no view. Although it is a 4,000 foot peak so it helped my friend Michael who is attempting to climb all 48 of New Hampshire's 4,000 foot peaks in the winter:

The third day we returned to the car via the summit of Mount Hale, another 4,000 foot peak. Again, waist high snow where we took turns breaking trail to reach the summit. Hale actually had somewhat of a view and the day was beautifully sunny, so we enjoyed basking in the warm and calm summit:

It was a lot of work snowshoeing through the mountains, but it was a ton of fun and I hope to get up to the mountains more this winter. I'm not necessarily trying to climb all 48 New Hampshire 4,000 footers in the winter, but I am keeping track of which ones I've climbed; I'm up to 16 peaks climbed (and now two in the winter). You can see the rest of the pictures from my hut adventure here.

Now we're finishing packing up and are headed to Neil and Betsy's for the weekend. We might get in some cross-country skiing, but overall hope to have a relaxing New Year's. 2010 was a tremendous, life-changing year for me and Jaimee and I'm hoping 2011 brings more adventures and fun!

Home for the Holidays

Although Jaimee and I have enjoyed our Holiday travels in the past, this year we're taking advantage of being in the area to do many of the family things we were too far away to do in recent years. As we mentioned in the last post, a couple of weekends ago we went down to Cape Cod to visit Jaimee's brother. While there we helped him install Christmas lights on his house. They were the "icicle" style:

From December 2010

Although the Chatham stroll was kind of a bust (we thought it was happening both Friday and Saturday nights, but when we went on Saturday night many stores were closed), we still had fun visiting family and friends.

This past weekend, we attended the Annual Leroux Christmas Party at Jaimee's dad's cousin's (aka Jaimee's first-cousin once-removed) house. He lives in a beautiful, recently remodeled house in central Massachusetts. The house was like a Bed and Breakfast, and good thing because there were probably 50 people there. The main event of the party was an "As seen on TV"-themed Yankee swap. If you think a Yankee swap with 42 gifts sounds like a nightmare, well, you'd be right...Actually it wasn't that bad, although the gifts were about what you'd expect given the theme: there were three snuggies (one plain, one with the Patriots and one with the Boston Red Sox, the Patriots), three Perfect Brownie pans and several other gifts that were good for a laugh, but not much else. Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprising for those that know us) the gift we bought for the party, we also got to keep (I traded for it). It's the Twin Draft Guard, a contraption for blocking cold air on drafty doors or windows. The door that leads down to the basement in our apartment is super drafty, but after putting the Twin Draft Guard on the side of the door - the draft is gone! It may not be the most stylish thing in the world, but it certainly works!

From December 2010

Speaking of drafts and cold weather, today was the first big snow storm of the year! It started snowing around Noon, and by the afternoon there was a good couple of inches on the ground. I was a little nervous to ride my bike home in it, but it wasn't all that slippery. It's still snowing and we have to go to the airport in about an hour to pick up Jaimee's mom. Her mom is visiting for the next two weeks from Idaho. She's spending the night with us tonight and then going to the Cape tomorrow. We're spending Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with Jaimee's dad in Shrewsbury, than heading down to the Cape to visit with Jaimee's mom and her side of the family. Here's the Leroux family tree (they seemingly buy gifts for everyone and his brother):

From December 2010

It's shaping up to be a busy Holidays, but my office is closed between Dec 23 and January 3, so it should also be relaxing. For me, anyway as Jaimee still has to look after the babies that she nannies for. While Jaimee is doing that I might be spending a few of my vacation days hiking up the White Mountains. My tentative plan right now is to snow shoe into Zealand Falls Hut for a couple nights and hike a few of the 4,000 foot peaks in the area. Given the recent snow storm, it should be beautiful up there.

Getting into the Christmas Spirit

After such a New England Thanksgiving we are continuing the Holiday season with what's shaping up to be a very New England Christmas too! In fact, my company already had its Holiday Party. It was a pretty low-key affair (on a Monday night!) but Jaimee made the trek into downtown Boston after work. It was actually pretty fun, because at one point Jaimee and I got on the subject of our trip with a few people. Most people are amazed when we talk about spending two and a half months in South East Asia or two months in New Zealand. It was fun to reminisce and it made me really miss our trip. I'm glad we don't forget about it and find new opportunities to discuss and remember it.

Last weekend we visited Vermont for two reasons. First, we spent Saturday doing some trail work on the Catamount Trail. The Catamount Trail is to cross-country skiing what the Long Trail is to hiking. It's a cross-country ski trail that goes the length of Vermont. They were having one of the final work parties of the year so Jaimee and I made the trek up to Killington to help clear a section of the trail. They were rerouting part of the trail off of a snow mobile trail. Here's Jaimee ready to go with the brush cutter:

From December 2010

And as is typical in Vermont, one of the people working that day knew my Aunt Betsy and Uncle Neil. We discovered he knew them because this guy started talking about how he's attempting to ride his bike along every paved road in Vermont, and he was wondering out loud if anyone had ever done that before. I said, well my uncle was telling me about someone who was attempting to do that, and as soon as I said it, I thought, wait maybe he's the same person. And sure enough he was. It's a small state.

After our day of trail work, we headed across the state to East Thetford where my cousins Jenny and Campbell live. We spent the evening babysitting their two kids while they had a dinner out with some neighbors. Their kids, Kate and Mack, are the kind of kids, as Jaimee likes to say, who could trick you into having kids. They are the cutest, smartest, most well-behaved kids. The next morning, we went with the family to pick out their Christmas tree. In true Vermont fashion you drive on a dirt road to a big field with a bunch of trees. You pick out the one you want, cut it down yourself and then mail the owners $16. (Subaru station wagon is optional, but strongly encouraged, as four of the five cars parked along the road were Subarus.) It was fun picking out the perfect tree, and my cousin's family did some nice posing for pictures. Here's Mack and Kate in front of the tree:

From December 2010

Then the whole family posed for a nice picture:

From December 2010

Continuing the Christmas theme, Jaimee and I are headed to Cape Cod this weekend for the Chatham Christmas Stroll. I'm actually in the strange situation of having to use up some vacation time. I accrue a certain amount per month at my job and I'm not allowed to carry over any vacation time to the next year. So, I'm taking a paid day off tomorrow, which is a strange feeling since my last few jobs have not had any paid vacation. Anyway, one last picture that Jaimee took of Jonah and Grace this week. It's been quite cold out recently, but Jaimee has been quite the trooper in wrapping up the babies for at least one trip outside each day. Here they are ready for the cold:

Aren't they lucky kids to have such a nice nanny?

A Most New England Thanksgiving

We spent the weekend as if we were on a mission to fulfill every cliche of a New England Thanksgiving. We began at Jaimee's dad and step-mom's house on Thursday where we helped prepare a traditional turkey dinner while watching the New England Patriots beat the Detroit Lions 45-25. Then we welcomed a houseful of guests, a mixture of both friends and family, including five visiting Australians. There was a little pressure presenting a "typical" American Thanksgiving for the visitors, but as usual, Jaimee's dad and step-mom were wonderful hosts and could definitely qualify as model hospitable Americans. The Leroux house was like a revolving door all afternoon and evening as people came and went. There were probably a total of about 40 people that stopped by at one point or another.

Jaimee and I headed back to Boston on Friday where we met up with a couple of her friends from Cape Cod. We toured them around Roslindale and drank hot chocolate in our little apartment. Then on Saturday, we drove to Plymouth to meet some friends of Jaimee's from Chicago who were in the area visiting family. We met up for breakfast at a cafe right next to Plymouth Rock! How could we not snap a couple of photos next to the iconic 1620 rock?

From Thanksgiving 2010

From Thanksgiving 2010

After a brief pop-in at Jaimee's Aunt and Uncle's house in Plymouth following breakfast, we went back to Boston for a late lunch of turkey dinner leftovers with my sister and her wife's family. Isn't Thanksgiving about going from one meal to the next, all the while visiting family? After the brief lunch we came back to Roslindale and wandered into the village for the Christmas Tree lighting. We even got to see Santa Claus arrive on a fire truck! We didn't stay long but we appreciated living in such a cute neighborhood with lots of families and fun activities for them.

We then went home and waited for our couchsurfing guests to arrive. Those who'd been following our travels know that we used couchsurfing quite a bit during our travels. We begun using the website back when we lived in Seattle and hosted several people before we left. We then "surfed" many times while traveling and we vowed that when we settled down again we'd return to being hosts. Well, Dominic and Audrey from Saguenay, Quebec became our first guests in Boston. Saguenay is way up in Quebec; it took them almost 10 hours to drive to our house! They are incredibly nice. As is typical when couchsurfers meet, we enjoyed talking about our travels. We also helped them plan their time in Boston.

They were kind enough to bring us a little house-warming gift of a bottle of Sortilege: Canadian Whisky mixed with maple syrup! We cracked it open and shared some on a little ice. It was so delicious! The gift reminded us of when we hosted other Canadians last year in Seattle. Canadians are always so nice!

Today, while Dominic and Audrey went off to explore Boston, Jaimee and I met my cousin Bevan up in New Hampshire for a hike up Mt. Monadnoc. It was a typical New England winter day with crisp cold air and cloudless blue skies. We took the supposedly less-traveled Dublin Trail up the mountain, although there were quite a few people out climbing today. The trail was somewhat treacherous, especially at the top where there was lots of ice; Jaimee even got to use her Yaktrax to keep her from falling on the ice. It was a beautiful but cold at the top.

From Thanksgiving 2010

From Thanksgiving 2010

The hike was a wonderful finish to a wonderful weekend. What a great Thanksgiving, and as we mentioned briefly on Thursday we really do have lots to be thankful for. It might not seem like it with all our running around this weekend, but we did reflect on how lucky we are to have so many loving friends and family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A brief post today wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. Today we are spending the day at Jaimee's dad's house where we're busy preparing for a houseful of about 20 friends and family who will all be arriving shortly. Meanwhile, the Patriots and Lions are playing football, so it's shaping up to be a very New England Thanksgiving.

This is the fifth Thanksgiving Jaimee and I have spent together, but it's only the second one we've spent with family. We spent Thanksgiving of 2006 together in Portland, Oregon, 2007 in Idaho with Jaimee's Aunt and Uncle, 2008 in Whistler, British Columbia and last year we were in New Zealand with our first WWOOFing hosts, Jeanette and Doug. I think on actual Thanksgiving day last year we had home-made chili after a day of working on their farm.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, which is sort of ironic, considering I didn't celebrate Thanksgiving growing up and then I was vegan for several years while in Seattle and I spent Thanksgivings with my vegan friends, consuming more Tofurkys than I care to remember. So in some sense, this might actually be my first traditional Thanksgiving.

We have many. many things to be thankful for this year, including our loving families. On Saturday we'll be in Boston, spending part of they day with my sister and her wife's family, then on Saturday night we host our first couchsurfers in Boston. We recently reactivated our profile on couchsurfing.org and we're scheduled to host a couple from Montreal as our first guests since our return from our world-trip. Look for an update later!

Happy New Year!

Just a quick post wishing everyone a very Happy New Year and wonderful 2010. No pictures for this post as we're using an Internet terminal at the New Zealand Alpine Club and there's no wireless to upload our pictures from our laptop.

Although we had the option of WWOOFing over New Year's we decided instead to spend it at Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. We spent New Year's Eve at the Glencoe Lodge, one of the lodges in the park. We didn't realize it had a Scottish theme until at New Year's there was a big speech by a guy in a kilt with a sword (his combination of Scottish and New Zealand English was completely unintelligible) and then a rendition of Auld Lang Syne set to bagpipes. Then it was back to our dorms for the night!

We're headed towards Queenstown and Milford Sound today. The beauty of the South Island is amazing. The weather has been pretty good actually. The West Coast was raining (sounds familiar :-) but once we crossed over into the Eastern side it's been sunny and nice. Super windy, but we were able to do a nice hike yesterday up to the Sealy Tarns and across a suspension bridge above a glacial river. Oh, and caves! We did a river walk through a cave that took us 45 minutes! There was no natural light so we used our headlamps to navigate up and over boulders and through waterfalls. We'll post a full report with pictures soon!

Have a safe and happy New Year's!!

A Note about Christmas Gifts

Not that we are seeking out Christmas gifts, but some have been asking what we'd like for Christmas this year. It's a cliche to say that this trip is gift enough but it's true. We're having the time of our life and are not in want for anything else.

But if someone really wanted to get us something we decided we'd love Amazon.com gift certificates. Jaimee and I are both big readers so we can use the gift certificates to buy books during our trip.

How will we order books from Amazon.com during our trip? Well, before we left we bought a Kindle from Amazon.com. The Kindle is Amazon's electronic book reader. I was intrigued with the device when it first came out, but never considered getting one because we are both huge library users and would usually read most of our books from the terrific Seattle Public Library. However we didn't want to carry a lot of books on our trip and days before we left the US Amazon released a new version of the Kindle that works on the cellular network of over 25 countries. What makes the Kindle unique is that you can order and download books without using a computer. You connect via cellular reception and the book is downloaded directly to your device (or you can connect the device if you don't have cell coverage). The Kindle has been great. Jaimee and I have both now read several books on it.

I especially love how you can download samples - often when I have free time I'll browse and download samples of all sorts of books.

Anyway, if you'd like to contribute to our reading pleasure, click here. (Use our joint e-mail jaimeeasa@gmail.com as the recipient address.) The only thing we'd ask is that you also give us a book recommendation to go along with it. (You don't have to give us a gift certificate - feel free to leave book recommendations in the comments too - we're always eager for new reading ideas.)

Speaking of reading, we've been very busy on our trip so haven't had as much time to read as I thought we might (isn't that always the case?) but for those that are interested, here are the books that we've read on our trip so far since we left Seattle on August 15:

The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, Book 3), by Philip Pullman. The last of the series, the first two being The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife. We listened to this on CD during our US road-trip. The series is a great audio choice; it's unabridged but it uses a full cast of actors for the different voices. We read (listened) to this series when we were looking for something new after reading all the Harry Potter books.

Create Your Own Economy: The Path to Prosperity in a Disordered World, by Tyler Cowen one of the main bloggers at marginalrevolution.com. Not what I thought it would be at all and very hard to encapsulate. He combines autism, computers, economics, religion and politics together in unexpected ways. Recommended, but I'd understand if you couldn't get through it.

The Angel's Game, by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Another audio book that we listened to while in the US. The author of one of my favorite books of all time (The Shadow of the Wind) returns with another mesmerizing tale. Highly recommended. We were sad when the book ended.

Driving Like Crazy, by P.J. O'Rourke. Subtitled, "Thirty Years of Vehicular Hell-bending Celebrating America the Way Its Supposed to BeWith an Oil Well in Every Backyard, a Cadillac Escalade in Every Carport and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Mowing Our Lawn" it's a collection of essays O'Rourke wrote about cars. He reads the audio version himself. Several of his stories involves taking road trips and at one point when we were listening to the book in Arizona, he was relating a story that took place only a few miles from where we were.

Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey. I'd wanted to read this since I first visited Moab, Utah and saw the beautiful scenery in the Utah desert which is where this memoir/long essay takes place. It's now one of my favorite books and I would definitely consider reading it again.

The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care, by T.R. Reid. The first book I read on the Kindle, it's about a man who goes around the world searching for a solution to a shoulder problem he's having. Along the way he discusses the different ways countries handle health care. I enjoyed it quite a bit, although it gets somewhat repetitive in that every new country presents another opportunity for him to bash the way the USA handles health care (not that it's undeserved, but I didn't need a recap every 25 pages or so).

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer. Another Kindle book that Jaimee and I both read. You can't go wrong with Jon Krakauer; I've read everything he's written and enjoyed them all. Pat Tillman was the NFL football player who enlisted in the Army after 9/11 and was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan.

Thanks for the Memories, by Cecelia Ahem. We found this book at the first place we were WWOOFing in New Zealand. Irish author, set in Ireland and London about an American professor. Supposedly it's Chic Lit but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1), by Stephenie Meyer. Speaking of Chic Lit. What can I say? I downloaded the sample chapter (it's a generous sample so I think it included about three or four chapters) to the Kindle and told myself I would only read it if I liked it. Forks, Washington plays a large role in the book and having been there several times it was fun to visualize the locations (which were pretty accurate). The teenage romance stuff? A bit much at times.

The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education, by Craig Mullaney. This is a memoir about a West Point graduate and Rhodes Scholar who served in Afghansistan. I got this once from the library but didn't get to finish it before having to return it. Jaimee and I are both read it on the Kindle.

Pomegranate Soup, by Marsha Mehran. I picked this off the shelf at the WWOOFing place we're currently staying at. It's a novel set in 1984 Ireland involving three Iranian sisters who open a restaurant in a small Irish town. Each chapter begins with a recipe that is central to the upcoming chapter.

And I'm currently reading:

Blue Latitudes: Boldly Going Where Captain Cook Has Gone Before, by Paul Horwitz. I browsed through this book at a book store a long time ago and always wanted to read it. Now, after visiting a few of the places that Cook went in Australia and New Zealand I thought it would be fun to read about his journey. Although the Kindle does display pictures (and you can rotate to landscape for easier viewing) it does need some work on image viewing. I miss seeing a larger map of Cook's travels which I remember was on the inside cover of the paper version.

Jaimee has read the following books not mentioned above:

Strip Jack and Black and Blue by Ian Rankin.

Casino Royale and From Russia with Love by Ian Fleming.

New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2), by Stephenie Meyer. We borrowed this from Galit in Brisbane (and we're carting it around until I finish it and then return it to her.)

The Shark Net, by Robert Drewe. Jaimee found this where we WWOOFed. It's about a serial killer in Perth, Australia.

And she's currently reading Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3) on the Kindle right now (literally right now).

A WWOOFing Thanksgiving

As we write this, it's Thanksgiving Day, which of course means nothing in New Zealand. Also because of the timezone/international date line, it won't be Thanksgiving in the US until tomorrow. However, we're having a blast on our farm.

As some background for those that don't know, WWOOF stands for Willing Workers World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. The idea is to link up farmers with workers. You buy a year-long membership to each country you want to WWOOF in and you get access to a database of farms that take on workers. We decided in the beginning to try it for New Zealand (we're open to trying other countries later in our trip, but we only bought one membership thus far. We didn't do it in Australia because we figured we'd have other stuff to do there). As mentioned previously, we sent out some requests and Doug and Jean-Ann of Puriri Flat farm said we could stay/work with them.

Jean-Ann picked us up at the bus station in Warkworth (about an hour north of Auckland) and we went to their farm. It's on a beautiful hill (nothing flat about their farm at all) overlooking a tidal river.

From WWOOFing in Warkworth

There were two choices for accommodations: a small house with bunk beds or a semi-permanent caravan (trailer) at the top of the property. We chose the caravan as it contained a double bed and was unbelievably cute as well as being private.

From WWOOFing in Warkworth

So far we've worked two days. Breakfast is at 8AM, we start work at 8:30, have tea (Doug is originally from England) around 10:30 and then go back to work until 1PM. After lunch we are free to do whatever we want in the afternoon. Lunches have been sandwiches or leftovers, but for dinner Doug or Jean-Ann cooks up something yummy.

Thus far the work has been manual labor type stuff. The first day we cleared and mulched brush along the side of their driveway (it rivals my Uncle Neil's driveway for steepness - although this one is made of cement sections). Today we took wheel barrow loads (33 loads to be exact!) sideways across a hill to fill in a retaining wall. It would have made a perfect Amazing Race task as it required teamwork to keep the wheel barrow from falling over and was also very tiring. Phil would be proud - we didn't drop one load!

Today Doug gave us a ride into Warkworth, although we have to hitchhike back. Their farm is about 10km from town, although they said people hitchhike all the time so we shouldn't be worried.

One other quick note: Doug showed us pictures of all the other WWOOFers who'd worked on their farm (they've been doing this since 2001 and have had probably close to 100 groups come to work, taking pictures of each person for their book) and we felt very unremarkable. They've had Japanese who've brought sushi-making materials, a philharmonic clarinet player who gave a concert in their yard, a fifth-generation mason from England who built them a stone wall and artists who've done beautiful artwork for them. Jaimee has some funny stories about autistic kids to share and I was able to chat with him about which band of service to use for his cell phone (GSM vs UTMS). Not sure how memorable we'll be. Although it has only been two days so we'll see what we can come up with.

We're scheduled to work here through December 5, and I sheepishly asked if they work on the weekends, and the answer was, "If you're staying here, yes" although the days might be shorter. We'll see...