back deck moments

Man, I love the beach. What is it about being there that makes you breathe deeper and enjoy life more? For me, I think it’s a kind of “coming home”. Growing up, I spent most of every summer at my family’s old beach house… laying on the beach, playing with my cousins, getting lost in books for hours (or days), sweltering in the house’s non-air-conditioned stickiness, enjoying (and bickering with) my family.

Down there, the back deck is where a lot of the living happens, especially at dusk and beyond. This past trip was no exception.

 

Cooper was a big fan of the back deck, especially if he got to sit in his cousins’ Dora chair. It was like “Goldilocks and The Three Bears”: “This chair is just right!”

 

 

Or if he was with Grandpa and his crazy faces. Please note that my father has never met an ultraviolet ray that he didn’t like. Cooper, well… he just hasn’t met one yet.

 

 

This is my cousin, Christopher, entertaining my nieces. My mom’s family congregates at the beach. My cousins (two sets) own a house across the street from ours. The rest stay with my grandparents, who built their retirement home just minutes away.

 

 

Speaking of my grandparents… this is “Pompaw”. In the last 10 years or so, Alzheimer's has stolen his memory, his independence, and a lot of his emotional control. Still, when he is happy (as he was at this moment), there is not a brighter smile or a sweeter voice. I just love it when he calls me “dahlin”.

 

 

I have always been impressed with the beauty of my “Memaw”, but lately I have been even more impressed with her strength. Determined to care for Pompaw basically on her own, she has fought with tenacity that I do not pretend to possess.  And look at her! Please, dear God, let me have inherited those genes.

 

 

At some point in the evening, I glanced outside to spy Memaw shagging by herself to some beach music. It wasn’t long before Pompaw joined her.

 

 

Are they not precious?? 

Note: If you have not seen the movie “Shag”, RUN- don’t walk"- to the nearest movie store and rent it. So classic.

 

 

My attempt to get a picture of Cooper with his great-grandparents was foiled. The child (sick most of the week) wouldn’t be farther than 3 inches from Curtis or me. So…  the picture became three of four generations. Not really sure why we didn’t call my mom into this one too. She was probably slaving over a hot stove, poor thing. God bless her… she needed some back deck time too. Don’t you?

becoming… cooler.

Cooper may look just like me, but he is certainly his father’s child. Not only in personality and energy level, but in his thickness of hair and his heat index. The child sweats… a lot. After nearly every naptime, I would come into his room and see his sweet head literally wet with sweat. Since it was every bit of 95 degrees at the beach a few weeks ago, Curtis and I decided to bless him with a buzz cut.

 

I just had to document that beautiful head of hair before it was gone. Thankfully, the cute face remains.

 

 

People were always stopping me with comments like, “What gorgeous hair. People pay a lot of money to get highlights like that!”

 

 

First, we cut. I almost wept at the amount of hair falling on the deck. So did Grandpa, whose slight OCD doesn’t handle floor & ground disarray very well. He stood by, with broom in hand, ready to battle the piles as soon as the last strands fell.

 

 

Thank goodness we didn’t stop there. Poor kid… he looks like no one loves him.

 

 

After the Oreo (the distraction) was gone, Cooper ended up on my lap. The buzzing thing on his skull understandably made him a little nervous.

 

 

It's hard not to laugh at a face like that.

(Alternate caption: Cooper after a facelift.)

 

 

This is about as still as Cooper ever gets, and it only lasted a few minutes. As Curtis got closer to his ears, Cooper totally freaked out about the clippers. The rest of the buzz had to happen quickly and haphazardly, but it happened. And the result?

 

 

Look at that stud.

boston: good times, tired feet, & full bellies (day 3)

I’m sick of blogging about Boston. I thought about skipping day 3 all together but, for posterity’s sake, I will just give an abbreviated version.

Basically, Sunday was spent touring Harvard and walking the streets of Cambridge. We took this hilariously awkward and LOUD tour of the campus.

 

I endured the shouting and corny jokes because I loved hearing the history and back-stories to the campus. Curtis… not so much.

 

 

It was hard to tear him away from the random wood block sculpture. He found that more interesting than the tour.

 

While I thought Harvard was beautiful, it seemed to oddly fall short of my expectations. Both Curtis and I found ourselves thinking, “this just isn’t as pretty as Carolina”. Now, before you start thinking how egocentric and biased we are (“it’s not always about YOU and YOUR school, Chesneys”), let me tell you that there are a LOT of similarities to prompt this comparison.

Though Harvard was founded probably 200 years before Carolina,  a great deal of the HU’s growth came about in the same era as UNC’s. Hence, the similarities…

I can’t remember what they call it, but I’ll call it the Harvard “quad”.  It’s JUST like the ones at Carolina except with more trees. Also, there are two of them, like UNC’s “upper” and “lower”. Most of the buildings are even similar architecturally.

 

 

This is their version of Wilson Library. Seriously… a  huge, historic library on the “quad”. Ironically, we did not go in this library either. Carolina peeps: can’t you just see yourself posing for graduation pictures on those steps?

 

 

Lastly (and hilariously), Harvard too has a large 1960’s-style eyesore of a building, similar to UNC’s undergrad library or Venable Hall. Thankfully, Carolina had the sense to finally tear that one down and try again.

Honestly, though, I did like Harvard a lot... pretty campus, gorgeous architecture, cool town. I think what I realized, though, was that it didn’t need to be quite so high on a pedestal. We had it pretty great down in little old NC as well.

 

Two final impressions of Boston to leave you with:

First:  The dichotomy of old vs. new.  No matter where you look, you see both historic and modern; signs of the foundations and the future of our country.  I think that is what I will remember most about the city.

 

Second: THIS was the most common sight in Boston. I kid you not. Instead of a Starbucks on every corner, it was Dunkin’ Donuts. Dunkin’ Donuts after Dunkin’ Donuts after Dunkin’ Donuts. Who knew??

boston: good times, tired feet, & full bellies (day 2)

We ate really well in Boston. Really, really well. Saturday morning we decided to stop by the North End (Little Italy) and go to the highly-recommended Mike’s Pastry shop. We didn’t realize, however, that pastry=dessert. Since we weren’t in the mood for breakfast brownies, we decided to go take advantage of a little Italian market around the corner and have a European-style meal instead.

Oh my goodness, it was divine. Fresh bread, a hunk of asiago fresco, and salami. It made me want to hop a plane back to Italy. You can’t tell from this picture but this was a massive amount of food(that baguette was probably 2 feet long). Don’t worry- we basically ate it all.

We stopped by the amazingly abundant Haymarket and picked up fresh fruit for later. I was so jealous of the residents that have this available every few days. A pint of blueberries or blackberries or raspberries were each only ONE dollar! Oh, the joy.

Fat and happy, we were ready for the Freedom Trail, with a lot of help from the map… can anyone spot the tourist??

There is something intriguing and beautiful about old cemeteries.

This was especially precious and heartbreaking to me. The inscription had long since worn off, but I couldn’t help but imagine a little baby buried close to his mommy.

Get this- this church (whose name I have forgotten) had only these boxes for pews. From what I could gather, they were designed as family pews both for warmth and so that the parents could face the pastor and keep an eye on the kiddos at the same time. Ha ha ha… genius.

There is such a rich history in Boston. This is one of the original town halls outside of which the Boston Massacre took place. Not only that, but the Declaration of Independence was first read to the Bostonians from this balcony.

Carla and Norm would clearly be a part of that rich history as well. :)

Being the small town folk that we are, we had no idea the number of street acts we would see. Even more surprising- how much dang cash they bring in! This guy was Curtis’ favorite, mainly because he stood on a balance board the whole time. He must have had several hundred people watching. Even if everyone only gave a dollar…

Posing at the end of a long day on the Freedom Trail. Note the flimsiness and flatness of the shoes: worst mistake ever.

Did I mention this was sort of an anniversary trip? 5 years. Crazy.

The trail ended with us back in the North End, so we found a little Italian restaurant to rest our weary feet. This bruschetta was by far the best I’ve ever tasted. I only wish I had asked for the recipe.

Curtis is showing us his “full” face. On our plates is what was left AFTER we had eaten our fill. (p.s. we split one entree. MASSIVE portions.)

Isn’t it amazing how you can honestly not eat a single morsel more of your dinner and yet somehow have room for ice cream? Or, should I say gelato?

Or maybe that’s just us.

Please try not to judge when I tell you that we then went back to Mike’s Pastry (we were right around the corner!!). It was for later. Much later. I promise. As you can see, we weren’t the only ones to hear about this place. It was crazy busy.

The selection was extensive. Because of the crowds, though, we literally could only even see a few cases. What we saw, however, was beautiful. Cheesecake, brownies, “lobster tails”, and canoli out the wazoo.

It’s such a unique place! After your goodies are put in this cute box, they pull string from overhead and wrap it up.

And voila! Isn’t it precious?!

It was still pretty early, so we stopped by MIT on the way back to our hotel. For the most part, it was pretty much what you would expect- plain, boring buildings. Then we saw this. What the heck??

While at MIT, Curtis decided that maybe he had missed his calling. Here he is, mourning the loss of the math nerd he could have been. I told him that if he had gone to school there he wouldn’t have met me. Apparently, this did not make it all better.

Day 3 to come! I promise that all of my posts will not be this long. Curtis saw the 1st Boston post and I think he was a little uncomfortable with how lengthy it was. Oops!

boston: good times, tired feet, & full bellies

Please don't infer from my silence that Boston wasn't super fun. It's just that we went from Boston (MA) to the beach (SC) to Durham (NC) all in the past two weeks. Needless to say, it has been a little hectic. Now that we are mostly recovered...


DAY 1

After maneuvering through the airport, the "T" (subway), and grabbing a cab, we finally arrived at our hotel.

It left a little to be desired on the outside. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture, but this one is the closest to reality that I could find online. Needless to say, it wasn't what we were expecting. Thankfully, we had a clean room, good AC, and a comfy bed. I mean, really... what more can you need?




After taking the T back into town, we walked through Boston Common, which is just as picturesque as you would imagine.




This tree was my favorite. Doesn't it almost look like it wants to dive in?

Right away, Curtis started looking for the bench that Matt Damon and Robin Williams sat on in Good Will Hunting. This is a pivotal scene which I apparently have forgotten. My husband was aghast. Then he chose a "close enough" bench, sat down, and started reenacting the dialogue. Okay, I made that last part up.

We headed down to the Back Bay area (cute boutiques, little eateries, quaint feel) and meandered around for a while. That is, until it started to downpour. DOWN. POUR. Thankfully, CVS was across the street, so we purchased two overpriced umbrellas (one of which already broke) and continued on our way.

This picture is especially for my beautifully tall friend Amy and any other vertically-gifted ladies out there. "Tall Girl: Fashion for the Taller Woman". Are you kidding me?!? A store that will sell me shirts where the belt at the waist actually hits at the waist and pants that even I might have to hem? Oh, glory. It was love at first sight.

Our plan was this: to walk around Back Bay, eat dinner, and then attempt to scalp tickets to get into Fenway halfway through the game (we knew our budget wouldn't handle the pregame price).

We got to the ballpark in about the 4th inning and Curtis started to work his magic. I'm telling you- the guy was a born negotiator. I pretending to be engrossed in my photography so that I could avoid the awkwardness of those conversations. At least 5 scalpers walked away from him before one finally caved, came back with his tail between his knees, and surrendered to my husband's demands. It was beautiful. I love watching him in action. Peripherally watching him from afar, I should say.

Fenway Park is phenomenal. By that, I mean that it is a phenomenon- unlike anything I've ever seen. It's as if you walk through those gates and timewarp back 100 years. There are, of course, plenty of modern ammenities but it has retained so much of it's original charm. Fenway is practically oozing with character, and it's as if it has it's own culture. People buy tickets to the "standing room only" areas (meaning they don't have seats for the entire game) and literally just hang out, drink beer, and mill around. I would have taken a picture to document this, but we were squeezing through so many of them that I just had to hold on to Curtis for dear life!

Our seats, and our view, weren't... well... the best. :) Large columns tend to diminish the baseball watching experience. Don't worry, we didn't stay here too long.

We did have a good view of the Green Monster, though. Good thing I now know what the Green Monster is.

Another benefit of the original seats: watching these two little girls. They were AHmazing. I don't think they stopped cheering the entire time... maybe more to entertain each other than because they were really that into the game. Regardless, I loved them.

And once they realized that I was taking their picture, they loved me too.

One (of a very few) major regret of the weekend: not coming hungry to the game. In fact, we came very full to the game. We were staring at all of this DELICIOUS greasy goodness and didn't have an ounce of room in our stomachs. Rookies.

The view from our "new and improved" seats on the upper level: much better.

Who knew??




We dedicate this picture to the Lawn Butler. Seth, does this make you covet?




A random guy took this. I was so excited when he told us he had the same camera. Finally, I thought, someone who will take a decent stranger-picture. Hmmm... maybe he had JUST gotten the camera?? Regardless, our trip to Fenway is documented. So, so glad that we got to go.





We try not to end many evenings without ice cream. You think I'm joking. Thankfully, my cousin Stacey and her new hubby Jeff recommended Emack & Bolio's.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

More on days 2 and 3 to come!