Elizabeth & Brendan

I swear, it is either feast of famine witho our lives.

After a few weeks of just tending to the house, we have blasted off into the stratosphere. 

• This past weekend we flew to NYC Thursday night and then had a whirlwind two days in NYC.  Friday we started in Park Slope, eating bagels with Emily and goddaughter Lily (who was all smiles and giggles when we there and we thank her for the great disposition) then went to the Upper East side to hang with Billy for a bit, then down to Grand Central for some happy hour delights, followed by a trip to Citi Field (Mets won) and the night ended hanging with Jason and Selena at Muldoon’s.   Saturday we got up, went to nephew AJ’s christening and left around 3:00 for Boston. 
• Brendan then caught a flight to the UK that night (I went home).  So now I am hanging with the pupster alone this week and Brendan returns Friday night. 
• Then dinner with UK friends and the Meklers. 
• Saturday we go to the first BC game of the season, then head back to Logan and take another flight to NYC – for Lily’s baptism on Sunday.  Then we head home Monday. 
• That Thursday, Brendan leaves for Las Vegas and I leave on Friday.  We will be going to his friend’s wedding there.  Then we come back on Monday morning (love the red eye!). 
• We have a two week travel break and then I am back to Switzerland for a week. 
• And there are two more potential work trips for me before Christmas (Frankfurt and another Swiss trip).

I need a nap just thinking about all this.

Well we headed to Taconic State Park for some fun with Mother Nature. Chris, Kim, Charlie, Kristin, Jack and Lulu also went (Kim organized it all so thanks!).

Eli had some issues but overall was great, especially sleeping. We thought he might be up all night. Here are a bunch of pictures of Eli camping. I swear I was there too.

Hanging out…

Sleeping in the tent…

In the tent looking for Brendan…

What I like to call “Snout and trees”…

So Brendan and I went to Iceland.  We planned the trip prior to the volcano erupting and ruining travel for everyone.   We were talking about planning a vacation and one day I was stuck behind a bus in traffic and the ad was for Iceland.  Hence the idea of going to Iceland.  The tourist board seems to advertise a lot in Boston and I think it is because it is one of the few cities with direct flights.

The flight is about 5 hours and unlike European flights, they have the same movies no matter direction you are going.

Here is what Iceland looks like when driving from the airport.

We went on a bus tour to a bunch of places including:
Gullfoss

On the way out to Thingvellir, our bus took a detour to look at some horses and got stuck.

Pushing didn’t help.

But then another tour bus and a stranger’s rope came to our rescue.

Geysir

The Blue Lagoon is a spa and worth a visit. We relaxed in geothermal water and it was amazing. I wish I could go there every day. Even Brendan liked it.

This is the view from the hotel at 9:30 at night. The sun didn’t set until around midnight and I have no idea when it came back up.

We went on a bike tour of Reykjavik and they drop you off at the hot dog stand. This is the best place to eat in the city and there is always a line.

The harbor.

Our bike tour group.

The large city cathedral and Leif Ericson statue.

Just after Brendan wrote the post below, we returned to the hotel to find out that flights have been cancelled from Iceland. They believe it will be back to normal tomorrow. So fingers crossed…

Quick greeting from Iceland. No more volcanic activity so far.

…here we come.

Eyjafjallajökull please stay quiet.

So when we last left, I was drinking under $100 red wine and catching up with Erica. We talked so long we got hungry and ordered food at 2am. One of the things I miss about New York – any food at any hour.  (I ended up with a burger and a milkshake and couldn’t have been happier.  Nick’s – good milkshake.)

Because of the talking and eating into the wee hours of the night, Erica and I were running late the next morning. We (not surprisingly) had not even bought a gift for the shower because we had plenty of time. Well we had about an hour and a half to get to the stores and get back. And we had to go to the bookstore to get a book for Baby Chase’s library. We probably spent about an hour in the bookstore, reading books, looking at books, discussing books. So this left us little time to get the real gift (which knowing Emily and us – seems just about right). So we ran but while paying got called by Debbie (BFD to those in the know). Sheepishly we called her back to say we are running late. However, in the end, she got there while we finished getting ready and we got out of there pretty much on time.

The drive to New Jersey was fine and contained a lot of laughter for things most of you wouldn’t get and some that should not be printed. But the lesson learned is that you cannot fill out cards while in the car because your handwriting will be jumpy.

At the pink-inspired shower (Baby Chase is presumed to be of the female persuasion), we learned what is soft and hard and that baby girl clothes are just the cutest.  Emily pregnant is also the cutest.  I had a good time imagining her at a Central Park event with the walkie talkie and baby bump.  Sometimes I find humor in weird places – it gets me through the day. 

We unfortunately had to leave Emily, Lowell and their families and head back to the city for some music.  Debbie, Erica, Lauren and myself headed to City Winery for the Rhett Miller show (show great, wine great, hummus not so great).  And then we decided to keep the party going and went to, I think, The Other Room or The Room or some type of room.  I don’t know – it was dark.  All in all, it was great to see Emily, Erica, Debbie, Lauren, and everyone else – my stomach hurt from laughing so hard.

This past weekend had us traveling…again. Poor Eli spent another weekend being boarded (don’t fret as he has gotten plenty of attention since we got back and will get spoiled this weekend if the weather is nice. who is joining us at the dog park?)

Brendan left for his annual day of italian meats and NCAA basketball (not kidding) on Thursday and I cuddled with Eli (see related post here).  Then on Friday I drove down to the city to stay with Erica since we were going to New Jersey on Saturday for Little Rhody’s baby shower.  (Convenient for the shower to be on the same weekend Brendan was down since it saved him from having to get up at 6:00 am for a ride back to Boston.  And judging from how he was on Sunday, it wouldn’t have been pretty.)  I left work around 5:30 and hit some traffic getting on to the Pike and stopped at Charleton.  But other than that it was smooth sailing and I got to the Upper West Side around 9:30/10:00.  I was weary about the parking because I have had nightmare situations.  Erica told me of a dead-end street that usually has spots so I tried there.  No luck.  So back to West End Ave. and a few blocks  was pulling out of a spot.  Score!  My parallel parking skills have been improving now that I have been driving more so it was not embarrassing for me to park.  But then I had to figure out how to get to Erica’s apartment from where I was.  I look up and realize I am across the street .  Double score!

I go in and sit down with a glass of water and we begin chatting.  Erica being a gracious host offers me a bottle of wine.  I select a red.  The only problem with her red wines are that an ex-boyfriend bought some and she knows one is worth about $100 and she is saving it for a special occasion which I am, apparently, not worthy of.  Whatever.  So she pulls at two bottles of wine (identical year and type) and we Google it.  $100 each.  Okay so we found the expensive wine but let’s just check the next bottle of red since it is from the same vineyard.  $115.  Next bottle: $125 and the final bottle: $165.  About $600 of red wine.  And none we can drink.  After totaling it all up Erica replied, “Now I know why Brandon wanted me to ship the wine back to him.”  We ended up drinking a really nice bottle of wine and I told Erica “Don’t worry.  When you come to my place, no wine is more than $20 so we can drink it all.”

More on the shower and the rest of my girls weekend to come…

So two weeks ago we went to Naples, Florida for Brendan’s college friend’s wedding. We took a 6:30 flight out of Logan and arrived at the airport at 5:45 (because we checked in online). What we didn’t expect was to see the longest security line known to man and the local news filming people online. I guess they were beginning to use the body scanners and it wasn’t going well. Needless to say we made through security at 6:28. Some girl tried to cut us but I put a stop to that. We are all on the 6:30 flight toots. I hadn’t had my coffee yet.

We made it to Newark and transferred to another plane. We had a bit of a delay as some passengers didn’t get the gate change memo and were late to arrive. The last hour of the flight to Florida was the worst turbulance I have ever experienced. The plane shook, it dropped, people screamed. At one point, one passenger kept yelling “Jesus take the wheel! Jesus take the wheel!” I wanted to say “Dear Jesus, I know you are omnipotent and stuff but can you just have a licensed pilot take the wheel? You can clear up the weather. Thank you. Amen. xoxo Liz” Obviously we landed safely and applause broke out.

Wedding was a blast and all that jazz and then we had the flight home. We were delayed in Florida because of the nor’easter blasting Boston. Eventually we took off and were flying fine. Then we were told we were in a holding pattern for Logan. Apparently the cross winds were too strong and the runway used in these situations just had its lights go out. Awesome. Then the captain told us we had hit “bingo” level on the gas and needed to land so we were being diverted to Hartford. And this when people got a tad bit upset. I was getting apranoid since Eli had been dropped off at 1:00 and it was 7:30. Oh and the crew was reaching the time where they couldn’t work anymore so that was an issue. Basically after waiting an hour, we rented a car and drove to Boston. Erica joined us. Who is Erica you ask? Some random girl who tried but couldn’t rent a car due to her age (24). We could tell the rental car guy wasn’t going to budge and she was going to lose it so I asked her if she wanted to just ride with us. I think for the first 30 minutes she thought we might kill her and that is why she was furiously texting. In the meantime, Laura saved the day by letting Eli out and giving him food. He was biting Elefanten when she left so we knew he was fine. We made it back in 2 hours and returned the car the next day and got our luggage. No pictures since our camera battery is dead.

I am done with Florida.

May vacation is booked and we are going here:

Any guesses?