Texas Tech Football

I love college football!  I really love Texas Tech football!  It has been an interesting season so far.  I have really tried not to get down about our team.  I think we have some wonderful players and some very good coaches.  I feel like it will just take a little while to get all the kinks worked out.  I know our players and coaches are working really hard to win as many games as possible.

James and I have been to three games so far and have only won one of those games.  I think we had the ability to win all of those games.  I was starting to get down on the Red Raiders, but then I read Baron Batch’s blog.  Not only is Baron a very talented running back, he is also a very talented writer.  You should be keeping up with him on his blog.  He helped me to remember that football is just a game and there are more important things in life.

These pictures are from the Tech vs OSU game last week.  It was pink out for breast cancer, but not all of my family participated.  We took our friends Tyler and Moses to Lubbock for the game with us.  We had a great time with friends and family.

These pictures are from the Tech vs Texas game.  Ann went with us as Doneece’s date.  We had so much fun at Raider Walk and tailgating.  Wish Ann would go to every game with us.

Smithson Valley Young Life – Hip Hop Life

James and I are helping with Smithson Valley Young Life this year.  I was part of Young Life in high school and it was so much fun.  It is just as much fun as a leader.  We are having a great time getting to know these kids and hanging out with them.  Monday night was “Hip-Hop” night at Young Life and lots of kids dressed up.  It was so funny to see the different outfits.  Just a few pictures.

Happy Birthday To ME

I had a wonderful 30th birthday!

We didn’t have big plans for my birthday.  I didn’t want to do any sight seeing on my birthday.  I just wanted to have a nice relaxing day.  I started my birthday with a massage and manicure.  I had a wonderful massage at Bliss Spa at the W Hotel.  It was so relaxing and the perfect way to start my day.

While I was being treated like royalty at the spa, James went to Sweet Cupcakes to pick up my birthday cupcakes.  Yummy!  We had Lemon, Lemon Raspberry, Pink Lemonade, Red White and You, Strawberry Shortcake, Boston Cream Pie, Organic Karat, Red Velvet, Chocolate and Vanilla.  Go to the website and look at the menu, you will have a hard time getting your mouth to stop watering.  The Lemon Raspberry was my favorite, but all of them were delicious.  

After my spa treatments, James and I headed to Cheers for some lunch and to watch a little football.  It was really fun and we had a great burger.  After lunch we headed back to the hotel to watch football and take a nap.  It was a great afternoon.  For dinner James took me to Ruth’s Chris.  It is located at Old City Hall and a very cool building.  We had a wonderful dinner at the bar so we could watch college football.  You may notice a recurring theme.  I wanted to watch lots of college football for my birthday.

After our wonderful dinner we headed to a sports bar to watch the Tech vs New Mexico game.  The bar was incredible.  There were about 30 TV’s and a large projections screen.  We only watched the first half of the game before we called it a night.  It looked like Tech had the game under control and it was late in Boston.  We also had an early flight the next morning.

Boston was amazing and I had a terrific birthday.  James and I both commented numerous times how glad we were we chose Boston.  It is a great city with lots to do.  I have no doubt we will be going back to Boston again.  I have been 30 for two weeks now and so far I love it!

Boston Day Three

We had great plans for day three of Boston.  We were going to get up early and spend the day touring the city.  We had lots of stops to make and didn’t want to miss anything.

That is not exactly how it happened.  We did not get up early.  We got in so late from Cape Cod that we ended up sleeping till after 10:00.  We decided it was vacation and we deserved to sleep late if we wanted.  We finally got up and around and headed out the door.

Our first stop was Harvard.  It was a must see in our tour guide book.  We drove around forever looking for Harvard.  We weren’t even smart enough to find Harvard.  The navigation system in the car was no help either.  We finally located Harvard.  We spent some time walking around the campus.  It was interesting to try and figure who was a student at Harvard or just walking around like us.

Harvard is named after John Harvard.  This is a statue of him.  The tour book mentioned there is no known picture of John Harvard so the statue is based off some random person.  Just a little FYI for ya.

The commons area of the university was beautiful.  We people watched and enjoyed it.  I love all these bright colored chairs and the scenery.

After we left Harvard we decided to head over the The New Garden.  James and I both wanted to see where the Celtics play.  It was nothing special at all.  Just a plain commercial building with a Celtics banner across the front.  That was a waste of our time.  After our drive by we had a little birthday preparation to take care of.

I told James I wanted cupcakes for my birthday.  I wanted to be able to have multiple flavors of cake for my birthday.  We found a bakery and placed the order.  We also might have sampled a few cupcakes to make sure that they were absolutely delicious.

We were going to have a late lunch after the cupcakes, but that didn’t work out.  James and I both wanted to visit the Kennedy Presidential Library.  For some reason I felt compelled to check the hours on the way to lunch (lunch for us, but late enough that it was dinner for others) and found we only had two hours before the Library closed.

We high tailed it to the Library as much as we could.  It took us 30 minutes to get there because of traffic.  Once we arrived we only had an hour and a half to look at everything.  We were on the fast track, but we made it.

This is the script JFK read from at his inauguration.  I love this part!

This is a purse that the King of Morocco gave to Jackie Kennedy.  So pretty!  I feel in love with it when I saw it.  Wonder if the Library would let me borrow it for an evening.

If not the purse, maybe this necklace.  I love red rubies!

This is a piece of the Berlin Wall that was donated to the Library.  This may have been my favorite part.  I remember the day the wall came down.  Ann made me watch the coverage on CNN and told me how important it was.  I think I might have rolled my eyes at her and asked if we could please just watch “The Brady Bunch.”  The piece of the wall was donated because JFK was instrumental in the beginning of the peace process.

The grounds of the library were beautiful.  You could see the water and downtown Boston.

James and I both really enjoyed the Library.  It was interesting to see the differences between it and the Clinton Library.  The Clinton Library had so much more stuff.  I guess because Clinton served two terms and he is a modern day president.

For dinner we went to Kingfish Hall, which is a Todd English restaurant.  Ann recommended this restaurant and it was delicious.  We both really enjoyed our meal and ate way too much.  It was the perfect final meal as a 29 year-old.

Boston Day Two

Our second day of vacation was spent on Cape Cod.  It is about two hours outside of Boston and a really pretty drive.  We went to Provincetown to whale watch.  We got there around lunch town and quickly bought our tickets for the 1:30 tour.  They told us the seas were a little rough that day so we quickly found some medicine.  We took our dramamine so it could kick in for the boat ride.

We walked around the little town.  Everyone was really nice.  We started talking to a local and he suggested we go on the last whale watching tour of the day.  He said the whales were usually feeding at that time and you got a free sunset cruise as well.  We told him we had already purchased our tickets.  We walked around a little more then headed to the pier to get on the boat.  The line to get on the boat was extrememly long.  James and I started talking and decided we should see about changing our tickets.  We ended up changing our tickets to the last tour of the day and it was no problem at all.

Since we changed our tour, we had plenty of time for lunch.  We found a wonderful little restaurant for lunch.  I had lobster macaronni and cheese.  It was delightful!  After our lovely lunch we walked around a little more and got in line for the boat early.  We were some of the first on the boat so we had wonderful seats on the top deck.  Before long we were headed out.  They said the sees weren’t near as bad as they were earlier in the day.  I was still worried I would get sick.

Before long we were an hour off the coast of Cape Cod and looking for whales.  It didn’t take long before we spotted some.  The whale watching was AMAZING!!!  We probably saw between 20 and 25 whales.  The ride out there was not bad at all, but once the boat stopped so we could watch the whales things were rocking.  Of course James was fine and it took me about 15 minutes to catch my sea legs.  After that I was fine and had no problems.

This whale was feeding.  The whale would go under the water and collect water in its mouth.  It would then come up to the surface and let the water drain out while the food stayed in.  We watched this whale feed for about 30 minutes.  It was so cool.

This whale was in a very playful mood.  We watched it splash its tail and fins for about 20 minutes.  It was so fun to watch and really amazing to see how big they really are.  There is more of this whale playing in the video.

Day two of the trip was great.  I am so happy we switched our whale watching tour.  We got to see so many whales and it was so fun.  We didn’t get to see the sunset because it was really cloudy, but it was still totally worth the change.

Below is the video from the whale watching.  I will tell you now I am not the greatest videographer.  I was still trying to catch my sea legs at the beginning of the video.  You will also get a whale lesson from our tour guide.  Enjoy!

Whale Watching from robin perrin on Vimeo.