SB 2012

dinner on night 1

It recently came to my attention that I haven't been home (to mom's house in Tampa) for a very long time.  Since March 2009 to be exact.  The last time I stayed with her I was growing out my hair, had yet to meet Chuck and Katherine was still in college.  Now before you start to think I am a horrible daughter I would like to point out that I have seen mom during that time (most recently for Thanksgiving in NYC this past year), and I have been to Florida during that time (most recently for Kacy's baby shower last April), but I have not actually seen mom in Florida.  So for spring break this year I went to see her!  I get out of the hospital too late on Fridays to have a Friday evening flight so I flew in Saturday afternoon (after an ATL layover - thanks Delta) and got a full tour of the changes to the house/backyard/guesthouse followed by fresh fish for dinner at an outdoor restaurant downtown.

DRob and me

 Sunday was a day of DRob: dogs, a walk on the beach (he gets major points for getting me to my first beach of the trip) and eating burgers, shrimp and beer with a view of the water!  On Monday mom, Dada, Marilyn, Michelle and I went canoeing down the Hillsborough River.  I brought along my GPS and introduced these ladies to geocaching!  It was very cool, the first cache we found was stage one of a multi-cache which means that it contained to coordinates to the second cache (which had the coordinates to the third, etc).  We spent the day drinking, canoeing and caching and the next thing we knew it was 5pm and we were three hours late for the van that was supposed to pick us up at our take-out point - oops!

Michelle (in the background) finding the first cache!

celebrating her find

On Tuesday we went to Clearwater beach.  We spent the day reading, ate lunch at the Palm Pavilion and took a long walk on the beach.  We left around four to make it home and shower before going to see a Red Sox vs. Yankees spring training game!

go Sox!

at TYCC

On Wednesday mom had to go to work.  I spent the day biking all along the bay from the Tampa Yacht Club to the Davis Island Yacht club.  I also did a fair amount of lounging about in mom's backyard :)  When mom got home from work we picked up a rental car for me and I drove over to Stuart to visit Kacy and Brett and their new baby Kate!  If you recall, I noted at the beginning of this post that the last time I was in Florida was for Kacy's baby shower.  Now Kate is eight months old!  Kacy took Thursday off work so that we could hang out.  Kate was our main form of entertainment but I

baby Kate

had a great time catching up with Kacy and seeing her parents (who live across the street), her brother (who was in town for the weekend) and Brett.  I drove back to Tampa Thursday night and mom told me that she had managed to get Friday (my last full day in FL) off of work!  On Friday morning we stopped by her office to say hello to her coworkers (she assured me that everyone brings their kids to work... even if those kids happen to be 27) and then drove over to St. Pete for one last beach day!  Thank you mom for planning such an AMAZING spring break and I can't wait to come back!!!

The Big Dig starts

Danbury Hospital

Rotation number six started at the beginning of March. (recap: one, two, three, four, five) I am at Danbury Hospital which is in western Connecticut. This hospital (B) is about an hour and a half drive north of my apartment (A):



Conveniently, it is only an hour from Chuck's apartment so I am staying with him for this rotation!

Since not everyone who goes to this hospital has a boyfriend living in Connecticut, they give us an On-Call room to stay in at the hospital. I have stayed over a couple nights when it is snowing or if Chuck is closing the store and I will say that it is nice to get the extra sleep but I get lost in a bit of a time warp when I don't leave the hospital for a couple days in a row. Same food, same people, same scrubs (well, a clean pair but they still look the same) - it all really starts running together!We still have class in the city every Monday so I am traveling back for that. Basically, I am spending a lot of time in the car this rotation! Thanks to Dad and Julie though I am riding in style :)

Tigger and pups

"Do Something That Scares You Every Day"

Little known fact:

I'm somewhat leery of heights.

Better known fact:

I rarely refuse a challenge.

So when DRob, my very favorite partner in crime and adventure, says "Hey, let's have some fun this weekend and go to MOSI to do the new high ropes course!" I, of course, say "Great!" - all the while thinking, "Are you nuts?!? THIS is your idea of fun? How about just dinner and a lovely bottle of wine? I'm FUN with wine!"

So this weekend there we were... scampering around a three story girder structure criss-crossed with various rope and/or plank bridges. Felt like a cross between a high steel construction worker and Indiana Jones being chased by angry natives across the gorge. More importantly it was a BLAST!!!

Oh... there was dinner.

And wine.

:)

BSO Date Night

This past weekend Chuck and I drove up to Boston to see the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform as an early Valentine's Day celebration.  We met up with our friends Jason and Dani for drinks at the Top of the Hub which is a restaurant/bar at the top of the Prudential Tower skyscraper and then headed out to dinner together.

Three hours and a fair number of drinks later it was time to go to the symphony.  Jason and Dani hadn't been able to secure tickets but we convinced them to walk us to the concert hall anyway and when we got there we snuck them in!  Here is a picture of us, flush with success (or perhaps that flush could be attributed to the champagne), you will notice that Chuck and Jason are both holding authentic batons:

Julie: I was published in the Wall Street Journal Today!

I think I can now officially retire...I've been quoted in the Wall Street Journal! Well, maybe not quite retire but it was cause for an official celebratory mani pedi today!!!

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