Birds and the Bees

Before our power goes out again (thanks to Sandy), I thought I'd post about the fabulous Halloween party that we attend every year. This year we went as the birds and the bees, as in the birds and the bees. 

Last minute Charlotte decided to wear her skeleton pj's along with her ladybug costume and hung out with us until playing with her friends upstairs. 

We didn't win anything this year (unlike last year and the year before) but that's okay because everyone else had amazing costumes - check them out here. 

We also shared some eyeballs to snack on

Head of the Charles 2012

Well, I did it. I participated in the 48th Head of the Charles last weekend and survived! We competed in the women's club 8's and although we didn't make our goal of the top half, we did have a clean race (no crashes or penalties). It was an amazing experience. We did really well the first half of the race (the total is 3 miles) and passed some boats, but then my crew started getting tired, but we did our best. 

Luckily the weather was beautiful and I had so many wonderful friends and family supporting me. My parents and my sister Amy were able to watch from a distance, via webcam, and my sister Tracy and her family drove from Maryland to watch the race. I felt so loved and supported, but I will say that Stuart and Charlotte have been my biggest fans all along (as well as Trisha, who really encouraged me to go for the race).

The Head of the Charles is a world premier regatta. Qualifying for this race was a big accomplishment and is the result of many early morning practices, freezing on the water with lots of stress. Only 2 more days of rowing left in the season. 

Thank you again to all my friends and family for the support and for the pictures below. It will certainly be remembered. 

My crew - awesome women

My cheerleaders - wonderful friends and family

My #1 fan

Chaos is Coming

I feel as though I've escaped into another way of living these last couple weeks. Everything is rowing. It's all I think about, read about, talk about and stress about. It's taken over my life this month, but things will be wrapping up soon. 

On Saturday I will be participating in the Head of the Charles, which is famous and one of the world's largest regattas. I am coxing our women's 8 for the MIT Rowing Club and was competing for the coxswain seat. Luckily I was chosen, but now I'm a total stress case. 

Even though I know this course, it is different competing on the course at full speed with lots of other boats on the water. The word chaos comes to mind and that part I'm not looking forward to. Over 9,000 athletes compete and over 300,000 spectators watch. The HOCR involves everyone from high schools to National champions and Olympic athletes. And not to add any more pressure, but this race is often referred to as "a coxswains race" due to the many bridges and sharp turns. So it's pretty much my responsibility if anything goes wrong. 

So, starting next week I should return to my "normal" crazy self. After the regatta we have one more week of rowing and then our season ends and I will actually be able to sleep again! 

Loft Makeover

This summer on the Vineyard we spent a lot of time updating the loft, which is above the garage. It used to be the girls room, shared by my sisters and cousin Heather and has come a long way. Since it's separate from the house it became the catch all room, but now it has a cohesive theme and a modern look. Here are some of the before pictures and during. We are so pleased with it and now it's become the favorite room.

We did a lot of painting, sewing (well, I didn't, but my sisters did) and painting. Did I mention painting?  Pretty much everything has been repainted, which means lots and lots of coats. The bathroom was a big project by itself as we created a paneling style on the walls and luckily found another chart to use as the backing for the shelf as well as framed pictures. It's finally completed and the pictures don't do it justice.
Obviously I'm so proud of us because it was a lot of work.

What the Fluff?

We finally made it to the Fluff festival. If you don't know what Fluff is then you're missing out. It was created in Somerville (right next to Cambridge) hence the festival. Growing up, all the lucky kids had fluffernutter sandwiches, which I would beg my mom to make me, but that didn't happen. But my mom would buy Fluff every Christmas for her fudge recipe.