2015: First Quarter Report

I can't believe that it's already March! We are almost one quarter through the year. Daylight savings begins tomorrow, which hopefully will be sunshine, spring and WARMTH very soon!

I thought that I would report back on the last couple of months, since there was a lot of excitement to start 2015. 

First and foremost was mine and Crisp's Holiday 2015 Roadtrip. I had never been to Florida before, but we had some family from California visiting the Sunshine State, so the day after Christmas, we hopped in the car and headed south. We didn't research or prepare for the trip too much; we just packed our bags and had some loose plans and anticipated timelines for the trip. It took about two and a half days to get there, and what an experience!  I had never traveled further south than North Carolina, and I thought that South Carolina, Georgia and Florida were beautiful and so different than anything I was used to!

Impressive bridge over the Delaware River!

 

Funny texts with Mom from Virginia

 

We needed a place to stop for lunch on Day Two.
Fayetteville looked like a big city on the map.

This sign was literally the most exciting thing downtown.

 

I'm the World's Worst Roadtrip Photographer,
but this sign says "We're Glad Georgia's On Your Mind"

 

Again, stellar photography, but we made it to FL!

Views from where we stayed, featuring a little resident gator!

 

 

After a couple of days in the sun, we had to say goodbye to Florida, but we were enjoying being on the road so much that we changed up plans for the trip back. There had been SO much traffic all along Interstate-95 during our trip south, that we looked at an alternate route a little further west... so we added a pit-stop in NASHVILLE for New Year's Eve and convinced our familia to come along!

 

Crisp drove the entire way from Sarasota to Nashville in one day, and the trip through western Georgia and southern Tennessee was VERY interesting...

 

I'd never seen confederate flags before!

Nor had I seen signs welcoming concealed-carry permit holders...

... at a pizza restaurant/gas station/convenience store.

 

 

But boy, oh boy, was Music City an experience! We spent about two days in Nashville and got to celebrate New Years Eve on Broadway with a live, free Gavin DeGraw and Lady Antebellum concert. There was a gigantic music note that dropped at midnight, and so many great restaurants and bars with more live music.  I absolutely loved it! It's truly a city where dreams come true.

 

 The entrance to Broadway NYE festivities



Music note before midnight and with about 10,000 people!

 

 

On New Years Day, our family got their plane back to California, and Crisp and I had the most peaceful and scenic drive up through Tennessee, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. There were so many mountain views and wide open fields, and we literally saw thousands of cows. My camera couldn't capture the actual beauty of the surroundings, but it is a great memory. 

 

We stayed in Maryland for our last night on the road, and then rolled home on January 2nd.  The last day of the trip yielded the funniest sign:

Yikes!

 

All in all, it was so great to explore new places and to enjoy some warm sunshine in January... which made it all the more painful when Boston began getting hit by blizzard after blizzard mid-month and into February. 

 

Here are a few views of the city during the storms. 

About 8 hours into the first blizzard...

...and 12 hours later, the streets were impassable.

As the blizzards continued, cars became buried.

Snow mountains covered the sidewalks.

Finn was the only creature in Boston who loved the snow!

After the last storm, the snow in our back patio was waist-high!

 

 

Of course a barrage of blizzards won't stop millions of New Englanders from celebrating a Patriots' Superbowl victory. The rolling rally ran right down Boylston Street, just a short walk from home.

Tom Brady!

 

 Now that the thrills of snow storms and sports success has past, I think most of us are excited for the mountains to melt and the temperatures to climb. My coworkers were giddy over 40-degree weather this week. Imagine the euphoria next week when the temperatures might reach 50-degrees...

 

Come on, springtime! We're ready!