Home away from home

This past week was so much fun!! Kenneth's sister was in town with her husband (Kenneth's best friend) and her son, who might actually be the cutest ever. 

I was lucky enough to have the week off, and Kenneth was able to do most of his homework and reading for his classes before they arrived, so we got to spend so much time with them.

We visited historic sites, toured Ben and Jerry's, went to the Aquarium and Walden Pond, ate yummy apple cider donuts from Wilson Farms, visited the Joseph Smith Birthplace, went candlepin bowling, had some very cute guitar lessons, and watched the Wiggles more times than we could have ever imagined possible in just one week.

Kenneth hasn't been home in almost a year, so we are so grateful that we were able to experience a little bit of home away from home. Our apartment seems pretty lonely now without our cute family. 

Thanks guys, we had a great week! 

Today's the day!!!!

Hooray! Finally, today is the day our family comes! Kenneth's sister Katie, along with her cute family, are on a plane right now flying to Boston!  

Before we moved here we saw them practically every day. It has been so hard to live so far away for the past 2 years.. and now, they are finally coming for a visit. We are so excited, we can hardly wait! Saturday has never seemed longer.....

Who wouldn't be excited to see these cute faces? 

(We love Court too... we just don't have any recent pictures of him on our computer... :)

My Name is Jonas...

Thanks to our fantastic friends Kristal and Richard, we recently enjoyed a transcendent evening with Weezer and the various inhabitants of Lowell MA. It is hard to describe the iridescent glow of joy that surrounds you as you sing "Buddy Holly" at the top of your lungs with a few thousand like-minded friends. Luckily, a picture is worth a thousand words...

We don't own a digital camera, so you are benefiting from Kristal's trained eye! 

We just finished listening to Angels and Airwaves... their music must make people fall even more in love with each other.

Look how happy we all are! The concert is over, but we can still feel the influence of Rivers Cuomo's mustache.

Richard's homage to the tracksuit-clad rockers.

Well done my friends, well done.

My husband the rock star

Last week our ward put on a musical fireside for our stake. Spearheaded by our good friend Kristal, the fireside gave members a chance to share their testimonies through music which would not usually be played in church. This is Kenneth's arrangement of "Nearer my God to Thee" - video by Kristal Willams-Rowley

Moving on up! - Literally

Hooray! We have finally moved in! And up - literally. Not only did we move from a regular apartment to a great one, we moved from the basement to the 3rd floor! Once we get everything settled we'll take more extensive pictures.  But here is a picture of our living room - our favorite place in our new apartment (it wont look this white for long - we have curtains and artwork to hang, but you get the idea).

This second picture is of the mugs that were awaiting us in our newly painted and spotlessly cleaned apartment on move in day - a gift from our fantastic management company.

I know many of you are wondering why we moved from our old Boston brownstone apartment to regular looking building on a regular looking street. But let me assure you this is the greatest place we have ever lived. We have super awesome friends in our building, we have a parking spot, a dishwasher, and a garbage disposal! (This may not sound so exciting, but most of these things are very very rare in Boston. Disposals for example, are actually illegal in some towns out here...) Kenneth's commute has gone from 45 minutes on the T to a 15 minute bus ride. We have 2 bedrooms, for any future guests that want to come stay with us (hint, hint). Everything is de-leaded (a feature which is hard to find in Boston) - a must if Kenneth and I are ever going to have children. We have a real live eat-in kitchen with an actual kitchen table. And best of all - we have a management company that takes care of us, as opposed to the sinking bathroom floor and flooding bedroom in our old place.

We are seriously so happy here. We have spent every night since we moved here unpacking and arranging things, as well as exploring our new neighborhood. This really is a great place for us to be and we are excited for you all to come visit us!

Special note:

We need to give a very special thank you to Christopher Seely (pictured below with his cute wife Robyn) for his contribution to this project (our move). Because without him, and the 30 other volunteers from our church that came to help us move, Kenneth and I would never be here in our new home. We might actually still be outside our old apartment trying to figure out how to get everything effectively loaded in the moving truck.

Thanks Chris! You're awesome!!

And, for more complete pictures and commentary from our move check out Robyn's blog :)

Also to note - for those of you who have been wondering... I absolutely LOVE my new nanny job. I have never been so happy and I am so excited to be able to get to know this new family. It is so nice to feel excited to go to work in the morning - especially when your alarm goes off at 6:00am.

Everything's changing!

How is it possible that everything in our life would be changing over one weekend?? We are moving to a new apartment, Kenneth is starting his PhD program and I am starting my new job. Seriously, life is crazy. Just look at our apartment:

Here is Kenneth - he is either super tired from packing, or pretending to sleep so that he doesn't have to help... you decide.

The Santi's return in glory!

Finally - the Santi's have returned from their year long adventure in the land down under! I, for one, feel much better knowing that they are on American soil once more (even if they did move back to Salt Lake instead of Boston).

And (as if their return could get more exciting)  who should be waiting for me when I got home from work today but Justin Santistevan! Hooray! We are sad that Katt couldn't come this trip, but it has been so much fun to get to party with Justin this week. 

Now if only he and Kenneth would stop playing guitar hero long enough for us to get some sleep.....