Patrick’s Birthday

Hey all!

So I have been MIA this week huh?

I have been in training all week for this new system that my company is trying to implement. Kinda sucks big time, but what are you gonna do, ya know? Ever heard of SAP? No? Keep it that way.

Anyways, so I wanted to tell you guys how the weekend with for Patrick’s birthday went. I know a lot of you were asking how it went and where we went, etc.

We ended up going to Boston, what a great place to St. Patty’s Day right? (except for me because I gave up alcohol for Lent, still holding strong!)

Patrick was such a sweetheart about it, I don’t even think that he had a beer either. Which I TOLD him to , but I think he was doing it to make me feel like I wasn’t missing out 😉

3/16:

We started off on our trip. I got Patrick snacks, drinks, made a special playlist on my mp3 player (which is not a iPod, Zune baby!). The reason I spoiled him so much on the trip was because…well…he was blindfolded the entire time. haha. 

OK OK…before you start judging me now…I planned out this weekend with all sorts of goodies for him. Great places to eat and great things to see. Just wait, I will make up for blindfolding my boyfriend for almost 2 hrs in the car.

Actually it is kinda funny because we were talking about it and how funny it must have looked to anyone driving by us, “why on earth is that guy blindfolded?!”. Patrick was like I should write little “Help” messages on the windows.You know like you used to do on the school bus when you were 13.

Smartass. haha

So we drive to Boston. It is raining the whole time we are going there. I end up taking a *ahem* slight detour. Stupid GPS’.

We get to where we are staying which was the Marriott Long Wharf Hotel. By far one of the best hotels I have ever stayed at. For a few different reasons. The location is not only SUPER convenient, but the actual location where it is located right on the wharf so you get to wake up and look out over the water. How amazing is that?

Also, the work out facility at that hotel is AH-mazing! I know many people don’t go places to work out, but working out is a big part of Patrick and my routine, so when we find a place with a good gym? We get excited. It is the little things!

At this point, Patrick is still blind folded. I pulled into the parking garage and gave him his first card (for each day I had made up cards for what we were doing that day and all that jazz). It just so happens that 3/16 was our 9 month anniversary, which I just cannot believe.

He took off his blindfold and knew where we were immediately. He is so smart 😉

He opens the card that says “Happy Anniversary” in a sappy Hallmark kind of way. It also tells him where we are going to dinner that night. A little Italian joint called Lucca. Definitely a good restaurant if you ever want to get some Italian in Boston. A little on the pricey side, but my dinner was hearty and definitely tasty.

Happy 9 months Patrick!

3/17:

St. Patty’s Day! ♣

We wake up on Saturday, go to the gym and then I give Patrick his second card. A St. Patty’s Day card which told him that we were going to be going to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Then to a Sushi place called Douzo. Which came highly recommended by our friend Mo. Thanks Mo!

We start out to the Museum around noonish and use the subway to get where we are going. Because while you are in Boston and when you have your car parked that is just the easiest way to do it right?

Welllllllll, the subway was having some construction problems and then there was bout 2.4 million drunk people trying to get on and off at every stop. haha. Éirinn go Brách.

So we kept ourselves entertained with making funny faces at each other and people watching.

Don’t you just love to people watch? Holy cow some people. AND on top of it, it was St. Patty’s so it was just an awesome day to do some people watching. Hope that doesn’t make me a terrible person. hehe.

Anyways, we finally get to the Museum and it was incredible. Patrick and I are those kind of people that like to do nerdy things. We like to go to museums. We like to look at art and check out exhibits. Just those kind of people I suppose 😉

We saw all sorts of things from the Roman art to the Egyptian. We also were able to see Dale Chihuly’s glass tower. I didn’t know this, but originally the piece had come to MFA as a exhibition piece for a special series they were running during the summer. Well it got such a good reception in Boston at the Museum that they decided they wanted to buy it.

They asked admirers and supporters to shell out their cash so that they could keep the piece at the MFA. So far, looks like they won that fight since it is still there and they were running the campaign to keep it last summer.

Patrick and I are both intrigued by the the whole glass blowing thing. So interesting. We were actually planning on going the the Simon Pearce studio in Vermont (I actually went to one in PA when I lived there near the Brandywine river). Sadly the store in PA is closed now and unfortunately the place in Vermont had some terrible damage during the strange weather we had this year so we haven’t been able to go.

Anyways, we were also able to check out a lot of pieces by Monet. Which I ADORE. My stationary is actually Monet. I am a big fan of Monet and Degas (can anyone guess why Degas? Ballet dancers, anyone? anyone? Bueller?)

Can you believe the picture above I took with my camera? I was amazed at how clear that came out. Yay for cameras being awesome.

All around it was a really nice visit. We also love doing that kind of thing so much fun.

After we did our site seeing at the Museum. We decided to get our dinner. It was a little early, but I had heard from our friend Mo that Douzo gets extremely busy later on in the evening.

PERFECT!

Early dinner, snack later 😉

We got ourselves some yummy sushi for dinner and also the tempura that Mo told us that we just had to try especially the sweet potato tempura. I personally am not a big fan of tempura but it seemed like Patrick really enjoyed it. That is the most important part.

3/18:

We woke up on Sunday bright and early and went to the gym so that we could get the work out taken care of early.

Came back to the room, got our stuff together and packed all up and decided to get checked out of the hotel. Bye Bye Long Wharf.

Patrick then got his last card. Which was a birthday card saying Happy early Birthday (since his real birthday is on the 19th of March). He also found out that the activities I had planned for that day.

The USS Constitution.

Again more dorky things for us nerds who like to see things like that. It was SUCH a beautiful day. Which by the way we have had gorgeous weather ALL week. Seems like summer! I think we are supposed to get back to more normal weather here next week.

We were able to go onto a couple different ships including the USS Constitution. There was a neat little museum that you could check out all the random factoids and things like that.

It was so nice just walking around and doing our own thing. You could just walk around as you pleased. Granted you had to go through a security check when you walked in, but I am sure that is just to make sure we don’t have some strange individuals walking around some of our nations precious historic artifacts.

Seemed a little strange to go through a metal detector when going to look at a ship, but hey! What do I know?

We walked to a little bakery down the street from the ship and had ourselves some muffins. It was really nice being able to just sit in the sun and relax and watch the people walking their dogs and people taking their kids out to ride their bikes. 

Just relaxing. I think we both needed it.

We left Boston around 1 on Sunday afternoon. We had done the “tourist” things as my friend Nick would call it. haha.

He is always teasing me about what is REALLY what people in Boston do and then what the tourists do.

Well you know what? I am a tourist. I can admit it. I don’t live in Boston. I would love to live in Boston such a nice area to be in and there seems to be so much to do.

Patrick and I had had our weekend so we were headed home and says to me “why don’t we stop at Wegmans?”. Which is a fantastic grocery store that We don’t any of near where I live now. When I lived in PA there was this OUTSTANDING Wegmans that was about 10 miles from where my family and I lived.

Holy cow, they have everything! Have you ever been to an updated Wegmans? I have been to some that aren’t all that fabulous but the updated ones are just out of this world.

So many prepared foods, so many different kinds of fresh foods, so many baking ingredients. It is like heaven for me.

We stopped on our way back and got a few items to take back with us and then had a nice picnic lunch on their patio with some cheese and wheat bread. Was such a nice way to bring the weekend to a close.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I know this post has been a little long winded, but I wanted to tell you all about our adventures. Next week I am hoping to post more food things for you all. Since the training is now over, I won’t have to work crazy hours anymore to get my work done.

Have a good one guys!! See you next week 🙂