We are headed to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina this morning. A week of nothing but the beach and golfing, we couldn't be happier...

Lazy Sunday

So what would you do on a sunny Sunday afternoon when you have an apartment to unpack and a trip to get organized for? Well, whether it is the right or wrong answer this is what we did...

That's right. We sat out in the sun and enjoyed a few ice cold beers. Even Belle got in on the action trying to work on her tan.

On an unrelated note, Belle's new favorite place to be is sitting on the back of the couch. She loves to sit up there when we are watching TV.

Unless you live under a rock I am sure you all know about the horrific murder that happened on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba, Canada a few weeks ago. A human life tragically taken for no apparent reason other than the mental instability of a man who never got the help he needed. 22 years old and a young mans life was taken from him in a savage and viscous way. So many are left hurt in this tragedy--the victims family and friends, the family and friends of the accused and the people who witnessed something so horrifying that I am sure it will stay with them for a long long time. And yet in the midst of all the tragedy and grief there will always be the fanatical groups out there who have to have their say.

Cue the crazies over at PETA. You just knew they had to sink their teeth into this one. Listen, I am a HUGE animal lover. Anyone who knows me knows that. I respect a lot of the work PETA does in fighting cruelty to animals etc. But sometimes they are WAY over the top and need to know when to just shut their mouths. Not long after Tim McLean lost his life on that Greyhound bus on a desolate Canadian highway PETA released an ad that went as follows--

"Manitoba . . . An innocent young victim's throat is cut . . . His struggles and cries are ignored . . . The man with the knife shows no emotion . . . The victim is slaughtered and his head is cut off . . . His flesh is eaten. It's still going on! Right now, this exact scenario is reality for many. They are sensitive, they value their lives, they see what is happening, they cannot run away, and they often suffer greatly yet are being killed for nothing more than a fleeting taste of their flesh."

PETA had to go out of the way to compare the life of a HUMAN BEING to that of an animal. Are you freaking kidding me? Whether the way a pig is slaughtered is humane or not that pig was put on this earth by God with a purpose and it wasn't just to roll around in the mud all day. Tim Mclean was not put on this earth to be the release point for some sick and twisted killer. To compare Tim's life with that of a pig, cow or any other animal of your choosing is off the wall insane. What happens when the president of PETA loses a family member in a horrific way? Are they going to stoop as low to make the same comparison in their own lives?

THIS article I came across this evening was my motivation for this post.

"The killings we have witnessed on the slaughterhouse floor, the cries of the animals and their desperate struggles, don’t make the news, so it’s PETA’s job to put them there"

I hope you guys over there at PETA sleep well at night while the mother of a young man is mourning the senseless death of her child. I hate to break it to you folks there at PETA but it is not your job to open your mouth and exploit the death of another HUMAN being for your own benefits. Maybe try and have a little class and pick a better time to get your point across. This is why organizations like PETA and others like it turn me off. They will stop at nothing to get their point across even if it means comparing human life to that of a cow or pig.

I love animals and I do wish cows etc were killed in a little more human way. I agree that some of these animals suffer terrible deaths and it breaks my heart. But my stomach doesn't turn when I eat a steak but my stomach sure turns and I feel nothing but sadness when I think of the horrific death an innocent young man experienced. If that makes me a bad person then I own it.

For the record this post was not meant to be a debate on what is right and wrong as far as animal cruelty goes. It was simply my own personal frustrations on something that struck a cord with me. This is my blog and I feel I have the freedom to say what I want. I know people will read this and disagree with me but please do not turn my comment section into fighting match. If you have a problem with anything I have said email me and we can discuss it away from my blog. Then again since I am such a big blog slacker I am not even sure anyone still reads this thing outside of my family. lol.

My deepest condolences to the McLean family.

If anyone is interested there is a post up on sports blog about why we went to Cooperstown, NY a few weeks ago. Go check it out.

http://www.cemcsports.blogspot.com/

Lightning and I are not BFF...

Ok so I never did get around to telling my story about the lightning storm we drove through in upstate New York a few weeks ago and I suppose there is no better time than the present.

Chris and I drove to Cooperstown, New York to attend the Hall of Fame ceremonies honoring those being inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. For those of you who are actually interested in reading about that weekend you can do so over at our sports blog. Give me a day or so though to get it all up and posted. I have been busy, cut me some slack;) For those of you who are too lazy to go over to the side bar and click the link I have kindly put the link HERE for you. But don't leave yet, you have to read this post first.

So after a long day of touring Cooperstown, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum waiting outside the hall on the Saturday night to try and catch a glimpse of many of the stars of baseballs past and perhaps get an autograph or two, we decided we should be heading back to Albany about an hour or so away which was where we were staying. The weather had been threatening all day long and now that it was late (12am) and dark the rain was starting and the thunder was cracking and before long the lightning was lighting up the sky all around. We ran through the pouring rain to the car, hoping all the way that the lightning would not hit any of the trees surrounding us as we ran along the sidewalk. Finally in the car all safe and sound we started to drive and head toward the highway. Little did we know how crazy this storm really was.

We had about 10 miles or so to drive on a small 2 lane highway completely surrounded by trees. You would think this would make me feel better considering the lightning is likely to hit the trees before it would the car. But no, it was ridiculously terrifying. There were flashing literally every 2-3 seconds. I am not talking pretty flashes off in the distance, I am talking giant bolts of lightning touching down beside, in front and behind us. It was crazy. The lightning was so bright and so often that it lit up the entire sky so it looked like it was early morning. We thought once we reached the main highway things would be better and we would be driving away from the storm. But no, the storm literally covered the entire northern part of the state. So for the next hour or so I was in constant fear of my immanent death. I am not afraid to admit how terrified I was. I even cried a little. I was convinced that was how I was going to die. A giant bolt of lightning was going to blast our car and I would be left a black smoking pile just like in the cartoons.

Then the other day Chris and I were driving into the city and decided to go across the Tobin Bridge. The Tobin Bridge is a very tall and long bridge that crosses the Mystic River and takes you toward downtown Boston. I had said to Chris that perhaps the bridge was not the smartest place to drive right now because of the lightning we were having. Apparently we get thunderstorms EVERY day now. Chris assured me we would be safe on the bridge because the lightning would hit the bridge and not cars and we would be fine. As we were a little over halfway across the bridge a GIANT bolt of lightning hit the railing directly to our left about 10 feet. It was bright and it was loud and it scared the crap out of us. We had Belle in the car and I thought she was going to poop right there in my lap. Moral of the story. DON'T drive on large metal objects during a lightning storm.

I said to Chris "maybe God is trying to tell us something!" lol. Whatever it is, I sure hope he tells us soon because I am a little tired of almost being struck by lightning.

Still Alive

I realize my neglect of this blog is getting worse by the day. I will not make excuses. Although, I have been insanely busy between work and trying to unpack and get everything here in our new place organized. I promise I will back to my blogging duties within a day or two and will have plenty of entertaining stories to share. Well okay, I admit they may not be all that entertaining but they will be stories and that is better than what you have been getting so quit your complaining;)

So yeah, lightning is scary

More to come about this. But we drove through the most insane lightning storm last night. I have never seen anything like it and was terrified. We had strikes like this one in the pic going off about every 5 seconds or so. They were so close and all around us. INSANE!! We took video and this picture is from that video.

Leaving Town....

Chris and I are off to Cooperstown, NY this morning. It is Major League Baseball Hall of Fame weekend and we will be going to the Hall of Fame as well as the induction ceremonies on Sunday. Good times.

Annuale

BEST SNL skit I have seen in a long time. I laugh so hard every time I watch it.

"Don't take annuale if you plan to ever become pregnant, as it may turn your baby into a fire monster"

LOL!!

Belle had all her shots at Petco on Sunday. She was not impressed. But she got to "pick" this toy afterwards so I am certain that made it all better.

The New Digs

So this is the front of the house. We are on the main floor. The window on the bottom left is our living room. The window on the bottom right is just in the little porch area that has both entrances to our apartment and our landlords upstairs.

There is a pretty decent sized back yard. No grass but lots of space for our BBQ and a table and chairs to hang out outside in the summer. And plenty of space to hang laundry if we want.

The kitchen. It is a good size with room for a table and chairs. Something we didn't have room for in our current place. The little lady in the picture below is our landlord, she is so nice and has lived in this house here ENTIRE life. 82 years, WOW!

The walk in pantry. I am SO excited about this. We currently have very little kitchen space and I always feel so limited when I am grocery shopping because I have nowhere to put anything. The extra space is going to be awesome.

Our lovely PINK tile bathroom which you all just know Chris loves even if he won't admit it;)
Our living room. I didn't really get great pictures but you get the idea. The front window is brand new. This place has lots of windows. Something we also don't have here since we are in a basement suite. It will be nice having natural light and not feeling like I live in a dungeon anymore. lol And I know Belle will be in heaven with windows to sit and look out all day long.
Our bedroom. Again didn't get very good pics but you get the idea. I love the windows.Spare room/computer room. We are so happy to have an extra room for our computer and storage space. We do plan on putting a bed in there in the near future so all of you slackers back west and up in Canada have no excuses not to visit now ;)

A lot of you know Chris and I have been wanting to move into a new apartment for quite some time. We have lived in our current place for almost 4 years. The entire time we have lived in Boston. I suppose I will always have a small bit of nostalgia for this place since it is the first place Chris and I lived together after we were married. We drove 3000 miles from Seattle to Boston, leaving behind all our friends and family there and in Alberta. We had no idea we would be in Boston this long, never mind this apartment.

There are many reasons we have wanted to move. For starters there is a mouse problem in this house that just won't go away. This has been an on going problem since back in 2005. Nothing has killed them. They are some sort of mutant mice I am sure of it. Then there is the fact our landlords don't really fix anything around here, after this long you just get sick of it. Our place is also small and it seems to shrink by the day. It is technically a 1 bedroom but we use the bedroom as a closet and storage space. So we really live in a studio if you look at it that way. I am running out of places to put stuff. And last but probably the biggest reason we have wanted to move is because we live in the GHETTO. And no I am not exaggerating. We really do live in the GHETTO. Hyde Park is an older area of Boston. It is mostly black and Hispanics and I imagine a lot of lower income families. Places like that tend to have a lot of crime, gang issues etc. When we first moved here things were really not that bad. There was crime but not extremely violent or frequent. That has certainly changed over the last year. A few months ago only a few blocks away a young black male broke into an elderly ladies apartment in the middle of the night and beat and tried to rape her. He was never caught. On July 4th there were 3 shootings within 3 blocks of us in 3 different directions. 2 were fatal, one of them a drive by and one of them happened at a BBQ. Both were teenagers that were killed and both died from gunshot wounds to the head. The other shooting was outside a convenience store when 2 armed young black males shot 4 teenagers around 2:30 am. Those teenagers then fled to the house ACROSS the street from ours to call the cops. I realize most of this stuff is probably people who know each other or gang related, but I don't need to wait around to get caught in the crossfire.

We have been looking for apartments for a few months now but were not really in a rush. We wanted to be patient and find a place we would be happy with. But then on Wednesday our landlords informed us they were selling their house. So it took us by surprise but we are kinda glad cause it pushed us to really buckle down and find a place.

Saturday we went to look at a 2 bedroom (first floor of a 2 apartment house) in Revere and we knew then and there that was the place we wanted to move too. It is not the biggest apartment but it is bigger than what we have now and we have 2 bedrooms as well as our living room. The kitchen is a good size and has a walk in pantry. I am super excited about the pantry just because for the last 4 years I have had ZERO kitchen space to put anything. There is a back yard, no grass mind you (just concrete) but nice regardless and lots of space for our BBQ and a table and chairs. Our landlord is an 82 year old woman who lives upstairs. She does not seem 82, is very active and still gets around on her own. Her son and daughter help her with the upkeep of the property and they do a great job because the house is in excellent shape. We aren't crazy about the wood panelling in most of the rooms (except the kitchen) and Chris doesn't like the pink tile in the bathroom. lol. But those were small issues compared to all the positives. We get our keys on the 18th and move in on the 1st. HOORAY!!

I have been packing like crazy. Tyring to be organized so I don't pull my hair out trying to find everything once I am unpacking. Our landlord said we can start moving stuff in after the 18th so that will be nice. We can move most of our stuff before the 1st and just move the stuff we need right up until we move like the fridge, futon, computer and tv.

I will post some pictures once I have some. Until then I will try and not get lost in this sea of boxes in my living room.

Caelan Ethan Floyd

Mommy and her boys

Daddy and his boys

Big Brothers

Grandma Fletcher

Grandpa and Grandma Floyd

Grandpa Floyd and Grandpa Fletcher