Girls Night & Other Weekend Happenings

What a fun weekend I had! I am loving having some extra free time on the weekends to go out and have fun in Boston, as well as get my apartment more and more settled!

Friday evening, the Shapleigh girls came over for a girls night. I did my best to play “hostess” and set out snacks and drinks.

IMG_4936

IMG_4937

Our original plan was to go to Rino’s or Prima e Dopo, but we decided we were having too much fun drinking wine and munching on snacks at my place and didn’t want to leave! So, we ordered pizza which did the trick!

IMG_4940

I’ve lived with all of these ladies at one time or another and we all grew up together (Amy’s sister, Sara, is the last piece of the Shapleigh girls puzzle; she lives in NH so when we go home we make it a point to always get together!) so when we get together, it’s basically like hanging out with 3 sisters. We do stupid stuff like have random dance parties and jump contests. Friday was no different as we had a stretching competition to make fun of Danielle for being so un-flexible!

IMG_4943

Clearly the wine had set in at that point so we called a cab and got ready to head into the city.

IMG_4945

Amy had some friends going to Tia’s so we headed there first. From Tia’s, the plan was to go to The Brahmin, but per usual, the line was crazy long so we hopped over to Red Lantern to have a drink while waiting for the line to go down. I’ve never eaten there, but it’s been on my list of places to go for a while now!

IMG_4953

IMG_4958 IMG_4959 IMG_4960

I think this is where things started to go from casual fun to drunken fun, haha I blame it on Amy’s college friend, Andrew, as he could be a professional partier 😉

IMG_4961IMG_4957

I hadn’t planned on going out and/or drinking wine like it was water, but the nights where you don’t plan on going out and end up going out tend to be the best, right?! Saturday night was no different! Any night with dancing is a good night in my eyes 😉

IMG_4965IMG_4966

Needless to say, I did not feel up to my normal self on Saturday, but I made the best of it! I got new glasses, went to the beach, made pizza, watched half of The Great Gatsby (couldn’t stay awake for the whole thing!) and was in bed by 9:30- regular ol’ crazy Saturday night 😉

IMG_4976 IMG_4977 IMG_4984 IMG_4985

What do you think of my new glasses?? I am totally loving them and it’s fun having something so different than my other 2 pairs! They make me feel smarter, haha.

Sunday I got up and felt so much better so I went for a nice walk to enjoy the weather. I met up with my college friend, Pat, and his wife, Colleen for breakfast at Angelas Café, which is equidistant from both of our apartments. I’m SO excited to have some friends within very close walking distance- it’s going to be so fun 🙂 They also took me for a tour of Eastie and introduced me to another amazing park and ‘must try’ restaurants.

IMG_4990 IMG_4991 IMG_4992

Beautiful, right?! I’m excited to run there and use the gym that they have in the park- it’s a little area with all sorts of fun things to use as workout tools.

After the tour was complete, I headed back to my apartment to do laundry and hang up pictures and other random new apartment organizing things before my sister came over for a Target and Market Basket run.

I finallllyyy got a normal sized tv! It’s awesome!
IMG_4999

I also got new pillows for my couch! I’m going for a yellow/gray/white color scheme and I found these at Home Goods and couldn’t resist!

IMG_4996

I made Shepherd’s Pie for dinner, which I’ll post for you later this week 🙂

Questions for you: Have you seen the Great Gatsby? What was the best part of your weekend? Do you know of any “must try” restaurants in Eastie that I should add to my list?

Christy and Jamie’s Wedding

If you follow me on Instagram, then you probably already know that I was lucky enough to go to Christy and Jamie’s wedding on Saturday, which was one of the best weddings I’ve been to in a long time! What made it even nicer was the fact that it was right in the city, so none of us had to travel or rent hotel rooms- win, win!

The ceremony was held at St. Mary Church in Charlestown, MA and since my friends Jessi and Cristina live in Charlestown, they invited us over beforehand. They had snacks and bubbly- two of my favorite things 😉

IMG_4610

The ceremony was at 2pm so we got there a little early to chat with friends and take pictures- duh 😉

IMG_4619

IMG_4637

Big thanks to Jessi’s boyfriend, Chuck, for being the official photographer for us. We must have asked him to take a million pictures 🙂

The church was beautiful! Catholic churches are nothing new for me, but I always love seeing how pretty they are in the inside.

IMG_4621

IMG_4620

Two of our friends, Nikia and Amy, were bridesmaids in the wedding and they looked beautiful!

IMG_4624 IMG_4625

But, no offense girls, Christy stole the show. She was stunning! From the dress to her hair to her flowers to her makeup, she was everything a bride should be! I always watch the groom’s expression when the bride first walks in because I love to see their first reaction. Jamie was literally beaming from ear to ear as Christy walked down the aisle. Look at her, though! So pretty.

IMG_4626

IMG_4628

I was seriously obsessed with her dress. I think trains really make a dress and the lace and little cap sleeves/straps were perfect.

The priest was awesome! He had us engaged and laughing throughout the ceremony (yes, it was a fully Catholic mass- it felt good to be there. I should do it more often). About an hour later, Christy and Jamie walked out as husband and wife.

IMG_4629

They had the cutest trolley waiting outside of the church for them! I loved this idea!

IMG_4632 IMG_4636

Since we had about an hour and a half until the reception started, we went back to Jessi and Cristina’s to hang out and drink more champagne.

IMG_4639 IMG_4640

The reception was held at the Harvard Club of Boston, which was amazing.

IMG_4642

Nothing like a reception on the 38th floor with views like this:

IMG_4645

IMG_4648

Of course we had to take lots more pictures!

IMG_4665

IMG_4664

IMG_4662

IMG_4660

Love all these ladies! The reception hour flew by and before we knew it, it was time to be seated for dinner. The bridal party entrances are one of my favorite parts of weddings. I love seeing what people come up with for their entrance “skit”.

IMG_4658

From that point on, I knew it was going to be a really fun reception. We started dancing before dinner was served, which is something I’ve never seen at a wedding. It was awesome! I’m glad we did end up sitting down to eat, though, as the food was delicious. Crabmeat stuffed shrimp?! Amazing!

IMG_4651 IMG_4667

I didn’t get many pictures of Christy, mostly because she was dancing the whole night! I think it’s so fun when the bride and groom spend as much time on the dance floor as everyone else!

IMG_4669

Big props to Christy and Jamie for not doing any cheesy wedding songs or games- they just had a phenomenal band (literally, I was obsessed with them!) and let people dance! And dancing we did; the dance floor was literally packed the entire night, which I think is the number one sign of a good wedding, right?! We had circles and dance offs and trains. They had a box of leis and fun sunglasses so by the end of the night it looked like we were all going on a Hawaiian vacation!

Christy and Jamie organized a post-reception gathering at Carrie Nation, which was a bar I’ve never been to. I think it’s such a great idea when there is a post-reception party because I’m generally not ready for the fun to end when the reception ends! I didn’t stay long at the after-party, which was probably a good thing. I had had enough to drink at that point 😉

All in all, the entire day and wedding was wonderful. Christy and Jamie- thank you so much for having me be a part of your special day! You two have something very special- here’s to many more memories!

Questions for you: Have you ever been to the Harvard Club of Boston? What’s your favorite part about weddings? If you had to pick a signature drink to serve, what would it be?

Memorial Day Weekend at the Gagnon’s

Hey everyone! Who else is feeling a little bit of a let down after the long weekend? I was so happy the sun finally decided to come out yesterday, but where was it the rest of the weekend?! Thankfully, we had loads of fun inside and really didn’t notice the gross weather too much. Since my weekend in Maine was filled with so many fun things, let’s get right to recapping them!

Saturday

Danielle and I met mom in Springvale for lunch at the Springvale Publick House (clearly, we love that place). Dad dropped mom off and took Chuck home so he didn’t have to sit around in the crate for any longer than necessary. After lunch, we grabbed Dairy Queen and puttered around Ocean State Job lot and the Dollar Tree and decided to grab margarita’s at Fresco Mexican Grill. Holy Yum! I had the Pineapple Mango Sage infused margarita with dry ice- such a fun afternoon treat!

014 013

After drinks, we came home and got going on our homemade pizza on the grill night! Dad made his homemade dough and we split it into 6 pieces so that we could have lots of mini pizzas. I made a caramalized onion, zucchini and fresh mozzarella cheese and I think it was the best out of all of them!

019 025

We had such a fun night filled with lots of laughs, good food and wine (duh!).

Sunday

Since we were going to 11am mass, we had plenty of time to hang around and relax when we got up on Sunday. And, with rainy/gross weather, being lazy was totally ok. After church, we all went to Lowe’s and Wal-Mart to get plants and whatnot. By the time we got home, I was STARVING and couldn’t wait to dig into the left-over pizza! Late afternoon, before our BBQ, mom, Danielle and I went for a 1/2 hour walk which felt great!

Sunday night, we hosted a Memorial Day BBQ for our close family friends. There ended up being 15 adults and 2 babies! So fun!

003

005

My mom obviously has lots of friends, but she has 2 best friends that she is always with: Jean and Jeanne, aka “The Jeans”. One cannot do something without the other two, so it is no surprise that when the Jean’s went shopping earlier in the weekend, they had to get mom a matching shirt!

007

It was an extra special party because Matt and Courtney came and brought their new baby boy, Alexander! What’s really neat, is that they are letting people choose their own nickname for him: Alex, Xander, Al (although, I wouldn’t call him Al since that’s what my dad’s name is and that would be weird).

010 011

And no Maine post is complete without a picture of one of our favorite babies… Emma Jean! She is getting SO big and is so much fun.

012 014

Sara, as you remember, is so very pregnant at this time! She is due on Wednesday and could give at any moment. It was fun to see her with the babies and know that she will have her own so soon! Come on out, Zeke, we want to play!!

016 Sara baby pose

As always, the food was delicious! Asian salad, broccoli-cauliflower salad, pasta salad, hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, steak, pork, and so many desserts!

018It was really so fun to see everyone, and even more fun that everyone was referencing Burpees to Bubbly! I love to hear people say “let’s get a pic for Burpees to Bubbly”. Music to my ears:) This pic seemed only fitting since we were most definitely drinking bubbly!

019

We are so blessed to have so many wonderful friends around all the time! Never a dull moment at the Gagnon’s 😉

Memorial Day

I woke up to a bright, sunny sky and immediately decided that it would be awesome to go for a run! As I was running, I realized how quiet it was compared to the city running that I usually do. No sidewalks, no cars, no people, just my music, the pavement and a sunny sky. I really focused on being present and enjoying the moment, something I should probably do more often!

021

I made my run more fun by adding in strength exercises after every mile- I’ll post it later this week!

Here are some pictures of “Shapleigh Corner”… I am from a very small town and this is the “center” of town. A whopping blinking light!

022

023

024

028Yup, you’d call this Maine, small town living!

The rest of the day was filled with LOTS of planting and gardening with dad and visiting with our cousin, Karen, who is visiting from Michigan. Always nice to visit with family!

And now we are back to the grind! This week got a little busier when I agreed to sub back-to-back classes tonight (Kickboxing followed by SHRED at the South Station BSC).

Questions for you: Best part of your weekend? Did you have or go to a BBQ for Memorial Day? Are you from a big city or small town?