Happy December!

I love this month. It's so festive and fun and spirited! Every day brings us closer to days dedicated to family and every single day is one to reflect on all the blessings we've had this year. 

This is my first year spending Christmastime in Boston and there are so many festive things to do! AJ and I have already attended two Christmas events, the Faneuil Hall Christmas Tree Lighting and the Tuba Concert in Faneuil Hall. And we have many more planned! If you live in the Boston area, or want to visit, consider putting these on your calendar!

Dec. 1 Commonwealth Avenue Mall Lighting

Dec 2. Copley Square Tree Lighting

Dec. 4 Boston Common Tree Lighting

Dec. 5 North End Holiday Shopping Stroll

Dec 11. Beacon Hill Holiday Stroll

Not to mention countless shows and performances to get you in the spirit! What are your plans for this month?

A Concert And What's On Tap For The Weekend

This photo has nothing to do with the post, but it's pretty and it's a good image to start the weekend with!

Last night, AJ and I made the trip out to Hartford to see his favorite band, Kings of Leon, in concert. We had tickets to see them live back in 2011, but they cancelled the show a few weeks before so it's been a long time coming! We had lawn tickets, meaning we were sitting outside on a big hill and looking down at the concert. It was a beautiful evening and we had a beach towel in the car so it was the perfect set up but about 30 minutes before show time, a man that worked at the venue started passing out stadium tickets to everyone so we got even better and much closer seats inside for free!!
The drive there was good, the drive back was not fun. It was after 1 am and trying to keep myself awake and focused was a challenge!



It's almost 9 am and I just saw AJ off on his own adventure for the day—I'll talk about that more later, though.

This weekend I am going to Manhattan to stay with my sister, Marina. It started out as just us but now a bunch of her girlfriends will be joining us, too!

Our plans for a weekend in the city, so far, include:

Exploring the Morgan Library and Museum, something Marina and I have wanted to check out for a while

Browsing the shelves at The Strand. So. Many. Books!

A late dinner at Tuttles once everyone arrives in NYC

Visiting the New Museum of Contemporary Art

Walking The High Line

Saturday night dinner at Bottino

And hopefully, bagels at some point

Of, course, some plans will change and some activities may be added but I'm just excited to spend some quality sister time with Marina before I move to Boston soon! Needless to say, it will be a fun, packed weekend and I am looking forward to it.

What do you have planned for this beautiful weekend?

A Successful Day Off

Wednesdays are my day off from babysitting. I like to take advantage of them and fit in as many fun things and activities possible.

Yesterday I started the day early, drinking coffee with my mom on the porch. At 9:30, I met my cousin Maria for a Zumba class which completely exhausted both of us and made us feel sadly out of shape.

From there, we drove to Orange to a store called Plato's closet. They buy and sell clothes and I had a suitcase full of clothes I've been wanting to try to sell for months. We dropped off the clothes and headed to the nearest Whole Foods for an early lunch which happened to be one of the yummiest lunches I've had in a while.

I take the girls I babysit to Whole Foods once a week, usually, and I tend to stick to the salad bar because there are so many options, I get overwhelmed and fall back on the familiar. This Whole Foods, though, was a bit more spread out and it was pretty empty so I didn't feel rushed to pick something. We took our time walking around, looking at the options before deciding what to get. Also, this has got be the cleanest and most well kept Whole Foods I've been to. Usually, the hot food bar and salad bar get messy and aren't correctly labeled and such but this store had so many more options than I've seen before and each section was filled and looked fresh.

I gravitated towards the hot food bar and filled my container with a little spring greens salad with walnuts and goat cheese, then I added a piece of herbed chicken along with steamed broccoli, summer squash, and zucchini. On the side, I had to add the grilled pineapple and grilled peaches (something else I've never seen at the Whole Foods closer to me) and it was all delicious! It was a bit pricey for lunch but it kept me very full for a long time and it all tasted great.

We went back to Plato's Closet and the store only took 4 out of my many, many items but they gave me $18. Not much, but better than nothing!

From there, we drove to New Canaan to visit my mom at her volunteer job at the thrift store and we ended up shopping more than we meant to! I got a cute Lilly Pulitzer dress for around $30 among other things. They have such great steals! The sale special for that day was one bag of clothes for $25!

I ended the night at the beach in Norwalk with my mom and some family, looking out at the water and listening to the ABBA tribute band that was performing. The weather was beautiful all day and night, it was perfect for an evening at the beach.

Today, I'm back to babysitting and the Westport Library and Farmers' Market are on our schedule for the day!

The Night We Saw Queen

Insane, right? That's all I keep saying about the Queen + Adam Lambert concert I went to Thursday night. I can't stop talking about it!

AJ bought the tickets a few months ago and we had been wanting to see the show for a long time before that, but in the days leading up to it I was getting nervous to go. AJ and I both had to work Thursday and he would be rushing back home from Greenwich, showering, changing, and then rushing over here to meet me for the last train that would get us to Madison Square Garden on time. Happily, it worked out and AJ got here even earlier than expected so we didn't have to rush to the train!

We did, however, speed walk to Madison Square Garden from Grand Central because if you ever go to New York with AJ, you will be walking. There is no such thing as the subway to him.

We got to MSG and found our seats quickly. We had bar stool seats so we were up in the back but we had a good view of the whole stage and we had freedom to move around, dance, and get out of our seats without bothering people around us. Plus, we were five feet away from a concession stand and a bar so naturally we had to get a MSG box of popcorn and pour peanut M&Ms in it.

Of course, the music was amazing. Adam Lambert was born for this job and watching Brian May on the guitar is unreal. There were touching moments, too. Brian May sang Love of my Life and spoke about how he used to do it as a duet with Freddie Mercury and during the song they brought up footage of Freddie singing it, so it was like they were singing it together again. They also brought up video of Freddie during Bohemian Rhapsody.

There are so many Queen songs and they did a good variety of them, but as we were walking out people were complaining about some songs they had left out. But who cares? It's Queen!

After the show we rushed back to Grand Central to make the 11:30 train so we didn't have to wait until 12:30 to head home. We made it, fell asleep on the train, and woke up in time to get off at our stop. I'm so happy we got to see that concert. It was amazing and I doubt I'll see a show of such great magnitude any time soon!.