Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Party Time!

We hosted our 2nd annual holiday party this past Saturday. It was great to have all our friends that could make it in one place all at the same time. After last years Yankee Swap and the Pink Flamingos that pissed Sabrina off, and the 365 day Kama Sutra calendar to which may be to thank for the creation of Sophia …everyone brought some really funny gifts to this year’s event to try to top last years!

A short list of the gifts people went home with
· The “little pisser” booze dispenser with bottle of vodka
· Tissues/KY/ and the Handy Hand Job Book
· Let Fu*&K – a board game
· Candy Bra
· A humping dog USB memory stick
· A Jesus Clock
· Life Suck 365 day calendar
· The light up Salt lamp thing

Andy won the tile of best gift with that Jesus mantle clock, which Sabrina went home with … I think her reaction went “Dam it’s the Fu*%ing flamingos all over again!”

I hope you all had a good time, I know we did and can’t wait to host again next year!

This year I remembered to take a few photos:
Getting the food ready


Chalifour Sibs: Tom, Jill, AJ, & Andy
Eli, Nick, & Greg enjoying some Dogfish 120 min Ale..in wine glasses :-) Spiced Apple Sangria - yummmmy
Jill and Sophia - she likes to nap on her Aunite
The proud Parents of Sophia, Phil & Nicole
Party People
Holly & Aaron

Greg & Sabrina

The brothers
The Yankee Swap gifts

Marci & Nick

I love to decorate the house for the Christmas!

Happy Holidays Everyone! I love decorating for Christmas, it is the only holiday that gets me in this mood (maybe because you can leave the decorations out for a month or two and no one things you are weird or lazy). So I am taking this opportunity to show off my décor with you all and show off my new china cabinet that I love so much!


You will note there is no tree... with the limited space and two crazy cats, and the husband that won't let me get a fake tree (and yes I would much rather a live one myself) we are going to have to go without this year (I can't deal with the mess, the one that the cats would made dragging needles to every corner of the house, and Maverick most likely thinking it was something to clime up rather than to sleep under like good cats do).









Sunday, December 7, 2008

SNOW! and Cats!

We had the first official snow fall today! Greg and I went for a walk around Wenham lake (short walk from our house) and it was beautiful to see all the trees covered in white show and the clam quit sound of the woods. I kept saying I wished I had grabbed the camera and gotten a few photos to share. Turkey meatballs are now simmering away in the crock pot, and this great weekend is coming to a close.

Friday was the Baupost holiday party. We got to drink great wine and eat great food and got to talk with some of my co-workers and get to know their wife/husbands/girlfriends/boyfriends. Saturday night we went up to York ME to our friends Melissa & Eric home for a small holiday gathering (the big party had to be canceled due to Eric falling off his friends roof and breaking his heel, ouch!!).

I don't have any action photos to share of our recent activities so I will conclude with some funny photos of our cats Trot (brown tiger striped) and Maverick (gray and white) taken recently.

Both Mav and Trot like to sleep on Greg and I like to take photos of this...

Sunday, November 9, 2008

November 1, 2008: Tom & Pa have birthday celebrations

Last Saturday Greg, Andy, and I drove down to the lovely neighborhood of Jamaica Plain to go on a tour of the Samuel Adams Brewhouse in celebration of Tom now being old enough to enjoy these kinds of pleasures. It turns out the tour is really just an excuse to drink some free beer! They toss in some beer making know how in the beginning, but the most of the tour is in the tasting room.Our tour guide - he knew why we were all really there..
Tom, Andy, Greg, & Jill with our free tasting glasses trying out some pumpkin beer that was a test case only, they admitted they made it just for an employee party but we all got to try some and we all agreed it was tasty, even Andy and Tom who are not pumpkin beer fans.

Tom went back to another city almost as nice as JP where he goes to school to take a nap before his 21st Birthday Party was to take place with his friends at Fitchburg State that evening. Andy Greg and I went straight to our grandfather's (Pa) 80th birthday party. Here he is getting ready to blow out the candles on his ice cream cake!
Auntie Nancy made us write down stories about Pa to be shared with everyone. I got the pad first and told Andy's and my favorite memory. Pa bought off my Dad our first home computer, and IBM, because he wanted to use it for his TV repair business. This computer took those huge floppy disks, and it came with one game for kids called Gertrude’s Quest. It was a learning game, math, spelling, etc and even despite that fact Andy and I loved paying it. Pa kept the computer in the basement of the house (Essex Street), a very old house with a very damp, dark, scary basement that was full of old TVs, radios, and whatever other electronics Pa was fixing up. Every time we were over Nanna and Pa's we made Pa bring us down to the basement and set the game up for us so we could play. He would always set it up for us no matter what. What I forgot to mention was how when for the majority of my life when I would visit with my grandparents I would go to say hello to Pa and this was always what followed...
[Jill] Hi Pa
[Pa] How is my beautiful granddaughter?
[Jill] I am OK
[Pa] No you're beautiful!

Floorplanner.com

A few weeks ago Greg, Andy and I were talking about how we would expand our home to give us all more space as well as increase the resale value of our home. Greg and I would love to get more space as that would make our current home a place we could stay for a long time, which would be great. We love the area our home is in, we have a nice big lot, and sharing a two family home with Andy is great and easy really. The only negative beside our portion of the home being on the smaller side is the main street our home is on, street traffic can get loud with our home almost sitting right on the street with only the sidewalk separating us. Well I digress.... after kicking around some ideas, I found this great website though a blog I read call floorplanner.com where you can design your own floor plans. I had some measurements of our house already from a class I took this past summer and from the plans that were made when we ordered the new kitchen cabinets and created our existing floor plan of our apartment on the 2nd floor (Andy's layout is very similar on the first floor). Then from there I came up with a floor plan with the addition we talked about. Here are the results of my hard work...

Current Floor Plan
Possiable Addition Floor Plan
Click on the photos to make them larger, use the back button to get back.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Time for an update!!

Ok so we got behind on what we were hoping this blog would be, so let’s try to get back into that.
One week ago today was Halloween and it was a BIG day! Sophia Regina Sauk make her début! Congratulations to the proud parents Nicole and Phil!

Sophia weighed in at 7 lb 15 oz and is 18.5” long.

Here are the photos we took the next day when we went to visit.



Greg and I got to go see Blue Man Group that night! It was so fun to have a date night out in the city. We first got some cheese fondue at the melting pot, then after the show got some lettuce wraps and other yummy appetizers at PF Chang’s. Since it was Halloween and I assume most people were off at house parties we walked right in to both popular restaurants without reservations and got seated right away! All in all a great Friday!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Crazy Weather!

Some crazy weather hit Beverly yesterday. In Boston we got a quick downpour, and some thunder and lighting, but Beverly go whacked, and Greg went home early to make sure we did not have any damage to our yard/home (there was none) after we got text messages from my Mom and Brother that depicted a tree that was uprooted from the side of the yard onto the street at my parents house (only a mile away from mine)!

Poor tree! We will miss you.

Friday, June 20, 2008

June 14th – 20th – Vacation on the CT waterfront at the Chagnon Family Cottage

Greg and I recived as a wedding gift from his extended family a free week at the family beach cottage on Long Island Sound in Madison, CT. It was a great week composed mostly of relaxing! We read books, cooked dinners, went on a few bike rides (saw 10 bunnies at the State Park), and took care of Shadow. We had good weather for the most part, and more than a few night time thunder & lightening storms. Marci spent the weekend with us, and Sabrina came down from RI for a few days too. The only bummer was we missed the kitties back home.

Here is a few photos from our week at the cottage...


Saturday May 31st: Greg and AJ’s Graduation Party




My parents hosted a joint graduation party for both Greg and AJ in the backyard. We battled a few rain showers, but over all the party was a success. At the end of the night I was playing beer pong with my Uncle Phil as my partner (he stunk). We lost but I did not mind, Uncle Phil was not to happy about our lost and wanted a re-match. Mike and Nikki came down from NH with baby Xavier, who did not like me holding him at all. Greg was happy that Shadow came up to the party from CT with Jim.

Sunday June 8th – Nicole & Phil’s Wedding

I spend most of Saturday helping with wedding prep. I got my hair colored, we (Nicole, Mari, Alli, & me) all went to have mani’s & pedi’s, and a early dinner. Then we sent Nicole off with Alli for a massage, and I helped Mari put together the floral centerpieces. Sunday morning I was off to the salon again where Stacy made us all pretty. We got ready at Patty Rooney’s home, and then it was quick limo drive to the Danversport Yacht Club. Nicole was stunning in her gown! The ceremony was performed by their friend Paul, and he kept it short and funny (thank god because it was HOT out). I gave the toast at the start of the reception. I did not get nervous until I was standing up in front of the whole room. I did not mess it up, and was told by many I did a great job, I was glad that was done (and not on video tape!). We ate dinner and did out best to dance the rest of the party away (it was hot inside too).

May 24th – 27th- 1st Anniversary trip to Bar Harbor, ME

We received gift certificates to bedandbreakfast.com from the best men Nick and Chris for our wedding last year, and decided that getting away for our first wedding anniversary would be a great opportunity to use this great gift. We chose the Primrose Inn in Bar Harbor, ME as our destination. On Saturday we stated our drive, stopping in Freeport, ME to go to the LL Bean Store

where we purchased a new camping tent (lot more space than Greg’s old tent), and had lunch before finishing up the long drive up to Bar Harbor. It was a littlie cloudy and we drove though a few showers and spotted a few rainbows.

GPS guiding the way


Our room at the Primrose Inn was perfect.

The Inn had added this room just the year before, it had it own private entrance,

air jet tub, and small gas fireplace, and as it turned out a brand new king mattress only a week old. It was decorated simply with NO fugly floral wallpaper and lacy curtains it felt more like a nice hotel room and less like a stuffy B&B, perfect!

Dinner on Saturday was at the Chart House. Greg got the backed stuffed lobster, which was great, my scallops left much to be desired

(Cousin Robert has ruined me for good I will only eat your scallops from now on). The view more than made up for my dinner not being the best.

Sunday we headed to Arcida National Park for a bike ride. We missed a turn early that would get us lost and messed up later on, on what we would later describe as a too ambitious bike ride for our first time out this year. Greg would wind up heading back to the car on his own and coming back to pick me up (fail). We did see a lot of beautiful sites along the way (including one wide turkey). We drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain and could see all of Fisherman Bay and Bar Harbor down below, before heading back to the Inn.


















View from top of Cadillac Mountain
Dinner Sunday night was at a Cuban restaurant “Havana’s”. Rated Bar Harbor’s best restaurant it did not disappoint! We had the mussles for an appetizer and could not get over how great they tasted! I had the pan seared tuna, and Greg had strip steak for dinner, both meals were awesome! It was a fitting way to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary (since we got married on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend).


























On Monday we packed up the car and headed back to Arcida to see all we missed when we missed that important turn on our bike ride on Sunday. We stopped at Sand Beach,

and Thunder Hole (missed the right time to come and see Thunder Hole thunder)

where we ate lunch on the rocks, then we continued on the long drive back home.

Tuesday May 27th our actual anniversary Greg made a yummy dinner

after work and we drank a bottle of champagne. Our cake vendor, Cakes for Occasions, gave us a free cake

for our 1st anniversary, and we decided to take it down the street to Nicole and Phil’s new home, they had closed on the house that morning, so we could celebrate together.

I have had a lot of people ask how the first year of marriage was, and the answer was the same each time: “Great! It went by so fast!” Our wedding day was everything we dreamed and hoped it would be, and marriage has been a great adventure. In the past year we went on a wonderful Honeymoon to Jamaica, I found a new job, we renovated our kitchen almost completely on our own, added a second kitten to our family, and said I love you to each other at least once each day! We love being married to each other, and it just can’t get any better than that!

May 27th 2007

Photo credit: Karl Blaser Photography