My Gal Sal

Happy Birthday to my favorite gal,

My favorite gal is my mom, Sal. 

She's my best friend and partner in most things,

She loves to laugh, but not often sings.

She's the life of a party,

She is quite hardy.

She loves her family most of all,

If we could, we'd throw her a ball.

The princess kind, not the sports type,

She's not into socks with a stripe.

She always has solutions for us,

"You're stressed, you're tired, don't make a fuss."

"Use some old aloe, take some Advil,"

"Who cares if it came from a landfill?"

She's been through more ups than downs,

Therefore, smiles more than frowns.

She loves the beach and the salt air,

She's always up for going to a craft fair.

She's my rock and is always there for me,

No matter the day, she fills me with glee.

I am truly lucky she lives down the street,

Sal's my gal and that, my friends, is sweet!

Stonewall Kitchen For the Win

Birthday celebrations are abundant at the end of March, beginning of April in our world. Bobby had a milestone Birthday last week so I reserved a day at Stonewall Kitchen's Cooking School for us. Bobby loves to cook, so needless to say, he was very happy. Plus, Stonewall Kitchen is in Maine. We puffy heart Maine. 

We started the day with a quick drive around York. Still some snow on the ground!!

Our cooking theme was April in Paris. I had been to Stonewall's Cooking School with a blog event a few years ago. A "classroom" watches a chef cook, while the "classroom" gets to eat the delicacies the chef is making. Win win! No one cuts their fingers off and everyone eats!!

So we had the pleasure of enjoying Carrot Ginger Bisque, Brie Stuffed Chicken Breast with a Caper Sauce, Smashed New Potatoes, Champagne Glazed Carrots and Chocolate Mousse.

We both highly recommend taking a class there. Friendly people, a class organization and the shop afterward!!

I was not asked to write this. I wrote this because we had such a great day and it's an easy activity to do from anywhere in Eastern Mass. 

Easter Recap

Easter weekend was fun and busy. My sister's best friend of 30 years came down with her husband and 2 of their teenagers. Although it was chilly, we hit the beach and spent as much time outside as we could. Decorating Easter eggs, 2 egg hunts, 4 year old antics and laughs, plenty of laughs.

What's the next holiday? Shall we plan on Memorial Day?

Pushing Spring

The calendar says that it is spring, but the air and surroundings say, "maybe not". Either way, we took a drive today to Provincetown (Ptown to locals). The sun was shining. It was probably in the 40's, but the snow and ice were melting. It felt really good to be outside without a hat and mittens. We walked out on a jetty that probably went for a mile. I would guess that we went more than half way. I had never been on this jetty before. It was really low tide so there were people digging for quahogs on the mudflats on either side of the jetty. 

The seagulls had their tables on the flat rocks. The seagulls take a quahog or clam and drop it on the flat rocks so the shells break. Pretty ingenious and we wondered if it was a trial and error thing or if it was inbred to drop them on the flat rocks.

Doesn't that bottom right picture look like a butterfly?

The pier is another fun place to walk. At the end you can see the building with the Portuguese Fisherwomen pictures on it. All the little huts that take reservations for fishing or whaling trips or sell trinkets were still closed.

We were not really sure why this house was anchored out in the harbor. I don't think it is suppose to be there, but I am not sure where it drifted from if that were the case. 

All in all, a stellar day with hopes that summer Sundays in Ptown are not too far off!

It's A Wrap!

A part of my high school senior's life was a wrap last night. She was in her last high school musical. If she didn't feel badly about it, I sure did. It's been quite a run and to watch her grow in her acting and singing has been a gift.

She has had the honor to be in How To Succeed In Business, Rent and South Pacific.

This year, she was Rizzo in Grease. To say she fit the part would be an understatement. I don't say that because I think she is like Rizzo, I say that because she did an amazing job portraying Rizzo.

The whole crew did a fantastic job! The best thing was that it was the first production in a brand new auditorium. The stage was huge, the props were great and the audience could HEAR!! At the end of the show last night, the seniors got hugs and roses from the Director and Musical Director. Truly a bittersweet moment.

I hope K looks back on this time as a special one. I know that I will.

Bergs, Not Just for Alaska Anymore

Perhaps you have seen some pictures of Cape Cod on the news in the past week. We have been on the news because of large ice chunks on the beaches of Eastham and Wellfleet. It's something that has not happened in about 80 years and it is very (VERY!!) cool!

Bobby and I went and checked out First Encounter Beach in Eastham today in the rain. We wanted to see it for ourselves!

It was awesome!!

The first group of pictures gives you an overview. We had to walk across a lot of snowy ice to get to the actual sandy beach.

Of course there were iceberg selfies.

Because I wore rain boots, I could walk farther out through the puddles. I climbed one of the 'bergs and took this panoramic. There were icebergs as far as I could see. Many of them were shoulder height and some were about 6 feet tall.

This is me on top of my iceberg.

Professional wakeboarder, Brian Grubb, visited Wellfleet this week and shot some pretty neat video.




Maybe winter wakeboarding will be the next tourist attraction on Cape Cod?

ABC Jeep Tour

I had been to Aruba before and remembered the beauty and complete difference of the North/East side from the West side of the island. Melissa was going to be content floating, but I could not let the trip go by without a little jeep ride. Our hosts, Alicia and Joal from ABC Tours Aruba led us on a 2+hour adventure. When we first meet up with them, we were handed red bandannas. I thought they were like headbands as in, "this is our posse, don't mess with us". Obviously I had been hanging out with teenagers for too long. I guess they were for keeping the sand/dust out of our mouths, but we wore them on our heads anyway.

First stop, California Lighthouse. Don't we look bad ass?

We stopped by my favorite and cutest church. It is a Catholic church and there are services held here every weekend. Because the church is so small, there are benches outside for the parishioners. Joal thought it would be HYSTERICAL to put his friend's pet snake in our jeep while we were inside the church. Oh, it was hysterical because that's what Melissa and I were!!!

The North/East side of the island reminds me a lot of the Maine coast. It is  very rocky and rough. It is also breathtakingly beautiful. The little rock sculptures people had made actually have a very cool back story. They are called fisherman stones and before a fisherman goes out on a trip some of his family members come make a little stone column and say a prayer. Some were very elaborate!

Joal, our driver, was like a little kid with a dirt bike although he was an adult with a jeep. We took so many off road paths! We shrieked and screamed and laughed through the whole trip.

We wound down from our excursion on the patio of the Ritz with some cocktails. They were so pretty, I had to take a picture. And yes, we were wearing our cool headbands. You never know where I might show up wearing mine!!