"we bought a zoo!"

I wanted to blog about this because I just re-watched it last night. "We bought a zoo" was probably my favorite movie I saw this year.
You know how sometimes you just really want to watch a great movie...something new, with ups and downs and fantastic music? This was that movie. Plus it's based on a true story. Bonus.

The preview made it seem boring, (don't judge it by that! in fact...don't even watch one.) so I really didn't care to see it, but I heard from a couple people that it was great. We watched it like, 6 months ago and I really really liked it, and what struck me was how great the soundtrack was. Perfectly timed, just wonderfully done. I'm actually not one for noticing music so much in a movie, but this one has a superb setlist.
Tom Petty, Cat Stevens, Temple of the Dog, Jónsi, Neil Young's "cinnamon girl"... wonderful, the whole way through. 
Has anyone else watched this? I feel like it kind of got skipped over. Anyway, the movie is great, and the little girl is the cutest thing you've ever seen.

a preview of the fantastic music :

"a pirate's life for me!"

Halloween! So, every year my family has their big Halloween bash and this year the theme was pirates. I'm totally bummed we missed it, but we decided to dress up anyway, because...well...it's Halloween!

this was our "arrggg!" face. somehow I ended up with a popeye face instead. ha ha

Captain Blackbeard

first mate

hurricane Sandy came through tuesday with a pretty good rainstorm, but yesterday was really pretty. So everything is good here. Ahoy from Boston, mateys! Now gimme all yer candy! 

"here i am...rock you like a hurricane..."

Hurricane a-comin'! Stand fast. Secure the riggin! 

So, apparently Massachusetts gets hurricanes. This is news to me. I hadn't even thought much about what natural disasters are around this area until a couple days ago when suddenly there were all these emergency preparedness things going on about Hurricane Sandy heading this way. I think it's actually going to be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hits us tonight and tomorrow but it still means plenty of crazy weather and possibly power outages. We were told that we should probably fill up our bathtub in case the power does go out and we need water for things.
...fast forward to right now. Remember how the bathtub just flooded our bedroom and soaked through to our downstairs neighbor's house and maintenance showed up and ended up ripping up our carpet to try and save us all?  This all after we soaked every towel and blanket in our house trying to remotely mop some of it up...unsuccessfully. oops.

On the bright side, if our power does go out, we'll have plenty of water! ...and so will our downstairs neighbor...
Happy hurricaning everyone!

Logan: "I just re-parked the car away from the tree and next to the big hummer, so..."

"So if the wind blows, the hummer will fall on top of my car?"Logan: "oh. way to be a pessimist!" ha ha.

"home. let me go home... home is wherever I'm with you..."

One of my friends said something yesterday about having to get a new license because his last one expired and it made me laugh because I thought, "people actually live in one place long enough for that to happen?" Who knew?
It seems weird knowing for sure we'll be living in Boston for the next four years. I've never had the future planned out that far in advance! Not that it's really planned at all, just...living here. ha ha.

Anyway, things are going well so far. (although it hasn't snowed yet...I might be singing a different tune once it does...)  Here's to the next 4 years!

"For Boston, for Boston, we sing our proud refrain..."

 So, now we get to the fun part Boston...playing in the city! I've been excited for my big sister to come to Boston for the first time, because she graduated from BYU as a History major and I knew she'd love the cool stuff out here. Melinda came to visit last week, and we partied like the Boston tea party...literally, actually, we went on a boat and dressed up like indians (i.e. putting feathers in our hair) and threw tea overboard. It was awesome. Then we let out a big hearty cry of "HUZZAH!" and we were on our way.

We went to almost all the cool historical sites.

the USS constitution; "old ironsides"

the site of the Boston Massacre

the Old North Church, "one if by land, two if by sea"

Paul Revere's house


We took a trolley tour and we also did a duck tour.

 the view from the duck tour was cool.

One of my favorite things we did, though, was go sailing on the Boston Harbor on a tall sail pirate ship.

It was a gorgeous sunset view of the city, and so much fun. Everything was peaceful and pretty out on the water.

We posted a ton of pictures and basically took over instagram the week she was here, but we just kept doing so many things it was hard not to! ha ha.

It was so fun having her here, and it was fun for us to get out and explore the city.
Until next time...
Huzzah!

"She said I think I'll go to Boston, I think I'll start a new life, I think I'll start it over, Where no one knows my name"

Man.....I went on a posting spree and then just disappeared again. whoops. I really thought i'd written since last time. Alright, on to an update! We are I guess now technically official residents of Boston with a Boston address!

After about a month of living in our temporary home, our moving date finally came up. I was sooo relieved. It's no fun knowing you have a bunch of unpacking and things to do, but aren't able to do it, so I was ready. Since our stuff has been in storage, we scheduled the moving truck all our stuff was in to arrive the day before we were moving. About 30 minutes before he showed, I went to the front office and asked where we could park, only to be told we weren't allowed to park there at all or the truck would be towed. Apparently the girl who told us we could and had been helping us the whole time, quit the day before. Noooo. After that one thing after another just kept piling up. They told us we'd have to rent a Uhaul and unpack our truck and re-pack it into a Uhaul and drive it the hour away it was to our house. Oh, and all that while Logan has school every day, so basically I'd have to unpack all our things myself, and re-pack it into a new truck and drive by myself in this chaotic place. Um...no thanks.

So we moved in without any of our things for a couple days. ...and discovered although they'd shampooed our carpet, it smelled like feet when the shampoo smell wore off. gross. We tried to get that fixed, while also hiring movers to help us, being stuck in lots of traffic, rain, and dealing with the office management rules of things like "you can only move in for 3 hours a day, during office hours." ugh.

Buuuut...the happy ending to this story is that we're finally in!

While we didn't have our stuff, I was able to paint without having to worry about moving furniture and stuff out of the way, so that was actually pretty helpful.

Before

After

Before

After

I painted the bathroom/laundry room this way while Logan was at school one day. He came home and I think he was a little shocked at first, but he seems to like it. Ha ha. I love it, I think it's way fun. 

after all our stuff got here

Anyway, I'm just really glad we're finally in our new place and getting settled. It's been all kinds of crazy weather so far. Warm, hot, cold, windy, rainy, really cold, and very humid. For a couple days it got pretty chilly here so I made a few hats for the Logan...

and then made a few more while I was at it for the cute little nieces and nephews this winter.

That's all my updates for now! Stay tuned for next time, when I get to post about Melinda's first trip to Boston!