Summer in the City
A few months ago, Nate and I finished watching every single episode of West Wing. Yes, I was skeptical of it for being made in the 90s too, but it was amazing. It took us like a year, but when we finally finished, it opened up time for us to see more of Boston for the summer. Although, it was difficult to acclimate back to the reality of not having Jed Bartlet as my President.
Some of the things that we've done with the added time:
Recently Nate has planned some pretty awesome dates. First, we went to see the sand sculpting festival in Revere, MA, which is located right outside of Boston. Basically, competitors from all across the world come and they each get a big pile of sand, a few tools, and a designated amount of time (I think like 8ish hours) to complete these seriously intense works of art out of just sand and water. They were pretty awesome. Besides just the sand sculptures, it is a big festival with food trucks, music, and some rides. We got to ride the ferris wheel that looked out over the ocean, and eat some tasty fresh made kettle corn.
Another awesome recent opportunity we had was to go to another red sox game (thanks Katie and Mark!!!!!!) that we won in the 10th inning. We also have tickets for a game in August that Nate won for us in a raffle. So we are becoming real red sox fans, (note the gear). I haven't ever really followed any sports team before (besides my own high school swimming team). It is actually pretty fun. Unfortunately, the Red Sox aren't having an amazing season, but it's the first year I would've ever known that. We watched Fever Pitch a few days after the game, and I feel safe knowing that my version of a red sox fan will never be like Jimmy Fallon's version, where every single thing I own came from the Red Sox stores at Fenway Park.
Another exciting thing to happen this week was the baptism of a new family into our ward: a cute couple and their little 9 year old boy. They are super incredible and inspiring people, and we went to some of their lessons with the missionaries while they were still learning about the church. Nate was able to baptize the little boy, which was his first time since the mission performing a baptism. Even though a building inspector declared our church's gym unsafe the day before (disaster occurring the day of a baptism is always required, I guess), and we were only able to watch from the far side of the gym, it still happened. It was really awesome to be reminded of people starting fresh and with such zeal for God.
Lastly, Nate and I have spent lots of our time working. Nate finishes up with his New Sector fellowship this week and is staying on with Aspire, the non-profit he's been working with, for a few months longer to help them hire on and train someone new since his boss recently quit. He's taking over many of her responsibilities until they replace her and so that's a little stressful.
I'm working at Pfizer for a few more weeks. It is hard work, and this past week I've had to work late and juggle a bunch of experiments at once to try to generate some data, but I'm still sad it is so short! I particularly like the fancy equipment and $$$ they have available for research:) I'm working on finding out what some of the effects of one of their newest drugs targeting psoriasis are. Unfortunately, 7 weeks is such a short time that we are still in the optimization of the methods phase and I probably won't discover too much by the time my internship ends.
Some of the things that we've done with the added time:
Recently Nate has planned some pretty awesome dates. First, we went to see the sand sculpting festival in Revere, MA, which is located right outside of Boston. Basically, competitors from all across the world come and they each get a big pile of sand, a few tools, and a designated amount of time (I think like 8ish hours) to complete these seriously intense works of art out of just sand and water. They were pretty awesome. Besides just the sand sculptures, it is a big festival with food trucks, music, and some rides. We got to ride the ferris wheel that looked out over the ocean, and eat some tasty fresh made kettle corn.
    |
| Riding the ferris wheel and all the cool sand sculptures |
The next week, we went to the Boston Harbor (Habah) Hotel, which was playing Swiss Family Robinson out on the water on a big screen projector. I had never seen it, but it was a favorite of Nathan's as a young boy. Not surprising, considering the awesome tree house involved. We enjoyed watching it, and watching the cute little girl next to us getting super into it. It was pretty funny to see how ridiculous the gender roles were in a 1960's movie. (Luckily) that would never fly today.
The day after that we were able to meet up with my next door neighbors from home and we went to dinner at the Parker House Hotel. They invented the Boston cream pie and parker house rolls. Their clam chowder is also famous, but I wouldn't know about that :). It was really fun to see people from home and get to visit with them and the food was delicious!
The day after that we were able to meet up with my next door neighbors from home and we went to dinner at the Parker House Hotel. They invented the Boston cream pie and parker house rolls. Their clam chowder is also famous, but I wouldn't know about that :). It was really fun to see people from home and get to visit with them and the food was delicious!
Another awesome recent opportunity we had was to go to another red sox game (thanks Katie and Mark!!!!!!) that we won in the 10th inning. We also have tickets for a game in August that Nate won for us in a raffle. So we are becoming real red sox fans, (note the gear). I haven't ever really followed any sports team before (besides my own high school swimming team). It is actually pretty fun. Unfortunately, the Red Sox aren't having an amazing season, but it's the first year I would've ever known that. We watched Fever Pitch a few days after the game, and I feel safe knowing that my version of a red sox fan will never be like Jimmy Fallon's version, where every single thing I own came from the Red Sox stores at Fenway Park.
Another exciting thing to happen this week was the baptism of a new family into our ward: a cute couple and their little 9 year old boy. They are super incredible and inspiring people, and we went to some of their lessons with the missionaries while they were still learning about the church. Nate was able to baptize the little boy, which was his first time since the mission performing a baptism. Even though a building inspector declared our church's gym unsafe the day before (disaster occurring the day of a baptism is always required, I guess), and we were only able to watch from the far side of the gym, it still happened. It was really awesome to be reminded of people starting fresh and with such zeal for God.
I'm working at Pfizer for a few more weeks. It is hard work, and this past week I've had to work late and juggle a bunch of experiments at once to try to generate some data, but I'm still sad it is so short! I particularly like the fancy equipment and $$$ they have available for research:) I'm working on finding out what some of the effects of one of their newest drugs targeting psoriasis are. Unfortunately, 7 weeks is such a short time that we are still in the optimization of the methods phase and I probably won't discover too much by the time my internship ends.
Comments
Post a Comment