Do You Know What I Did Last Weekend?

I rappelled 330 ft. down the side of this waterfall. 

Yep.

An Afternoon Run Along The Charles

It was a really, really great afternoon. I still smile when I think about it. 

*Pictures are from my phone. I don't think they would probably be any better if they were from a camera but any excuse will do, I suppose.


**Sorry that my blog has basically just been one giant photobombing session lately. Maybe a stroke of writing genius will hit me soon... maybe.

Reed Loves the Celtics

 I Love Rondo

I'd say it was a good night for both of us.

Oh, and these guys came, too! So fun to have Rob and Katie here. 

The Bomb Christmas Continued

Ok, kids. This holiday season has been busy so I'm sorry I've slacking on my blogging duties. But who has time to blog when there's so much excitement going on?! 

I was kind of nervous for this Christmas because it was my first Christmas away from home and with no family around. My dad had consoled me with stories of his mission Christmases and assured me that this would be one of my favorites. At first, I was kind of offended that he enjoyed his mission Christmases better than all the Christmases with us! But now i understand. I tried to have a good attitude and just enjoy every thing that I was doing with Reed and not dwell on the things that I was missing out on at home. And it worked! We did so many fun things and the Nixon's were so wonderful to me. It was like being with family that wasn't my family but still felt like it. I've just been so grateful that even though this Christmas was so very different and hard at times, I've been able to have a lot of fun and really enjoy myself. I'm grateful that my parents were so supportive of me staying here and for the Nixon's really taking me in and making sure i felt comfortable and loved.

 Reed's brother, Rob and his wife, Katie have been here for the holidays and it has been so nice to have them around. We have been partying like it's 1999. Just kidding. But really. 

We started off by going to The Nutcracker at the Boston Opera House which was incredible! Boston was beautiful, the Opera House was beautiful and The Nutcracker was spectacular. I felt so Christmasy! You should see Boston at Christmas. No one has lights, but it has it's own kind of feeling that makes it sort of magical. And I've never seen so many adorable little girls in their fancy dresses and pea coats in one place. 

On Christmas Eve, Sheryl treated Katie and me to pedicures and manicures. It's not really my thing but I'm thinking it could become my thing. It was wonderful. We had a delicious Christmas dinner and then read scriptures and sang hymns for the spiritual part. Katie and I opened our Christmas P.J.'s (red footies for me-thanks mom!). We finished the night with Muppets Christmas Carol. A successful evening. 

Christmas morning started at around ten thirty which is super weird and super great all at once. We had pancakes and started the present opening at around 12 and finished at 2! I got wonderful presents from the Nixon's and my family. Everyone was so thoughtful. I'm so blessed. 

On Monday we went to the Wang Theater to see the ROCKETTES! in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular! and man! It was spectacular! You think the Rockettes are going to be lame because all they do is kick, but they do more. They're actually really cool. And the Spectacular ends in the nativity scene with live animals! They even enter the stage through the audience! Not the animals, just the people. It's always a little creepy when they do that, but it was still a good time. 

The rest of our time has been spent playing games, doing puzzles and watching football. We also saw the movie True Grit. I wouldn't recommend it if you get queasy at the sight of blood. Actually, I just wouldn't recommend it. Unless you're Grandpa Fred, in which case, you would love it. 

Katie and I seem to be the only able-bodied pair of the bunch so we decided to take my day off to go sledding. Well, we tried to go sledding. You see, there aren't many hills in the vicinity and ski ward seems to have monopoly on the only good one. You can go skiing or tubing there! The problem is that it costs $20 to go and I just feel like that's a little pricey, yeah? So we heard of this other ski hill, Jericho hill, that had been closed down so you could go sledding for free. We got directions and headed out but, just my luck, we couldn't find it. We were looking for an hour and a half and actually quite enjoying ourselves. We found this bizarre little diner, The Tropical Cafe. You'd never know it existed unless, of course, you were looking for Jericho hill. We got directions from two people who obviously were not from this country and obviously had no idea what we were saying but felt free to lead us on in any random direction just for kicks and giggles, i suppose. After we'd come to the conclusion that Jericho hill doesn't actually exist, we were out of ideas so we just went back to Ward hill. But! the man there told us of a hill not far away that we could take our own sleds to! great! We headed right over there and there was a great place to sled! It just wasn't covered in snow.. there was, however, a nice patch of snow nearby just big enough to do some somersaults and build a sad, little snowman. We got a little wet, talked, laughed and then decided we had had enough. some might say it was unsuccessful, not i. 

Ward Hill and their money thieving ways. They don't even use real snow.

This is completely irrelevant to Christmas, I've just never had REAL frost on my window before.

Wang Theater. Oh, the Rockettes.

I'd say this has been such a great holiday season. New Years Eve was a little uneventful considering the lack of noise makers, fireworks and screaming children but the idea of it all was the same. Now, onto bigger and better things in 2011. It's going to be a good year. I can feel it. 

GOOOO CRIMSON!

i went to the harvard vs. yale football game a couple of weeks ago. it's a long story so i'll just sum it up for you. thank you, MasterCard.

ticket: $44
toll roads: $6
gas: $15
parking: FREE! just wait..
lunch for me and poor college student i just met: $14
pass to ride the T even though i don't know where i'm going: $5
walking around cambridge for an hour: $my frozen fingers and toes
hot chocolate: $2
getting kellie's car back from the towing company: $64

although the day ended up being annoying, what with misplacing a car and all, i'm glad i went. i've never seen so many men in scarves in one arena. do you think that made the day priceless? why yes, yes it did. super weird. but really, i made some friends and overall it was a good time. go crimson!

I'm Not a Witch! I'm Your Wife!

i heard once that i'm related to rebecca nurse.. creepy, right?

reed and sheryl and i went to salem today and it definitely wasn't creepy but it was really fun. we started off the day by going to a play called "cry innocent" where they let the audience play the part of the jury during goody bishop's trial. it was a good way to get the history side of things and it was really fun. there was a junior high class on a field trip at the show at the same time so things got pretty exciting and hilarious. before the show starts you can follow the actors taking goody bishop into the town hall and act as the mob. the kids were yelling hilarious things like "off with her head!" and "kill the witch!"

next, we went to a magic show that in most situations would've been pathetic and definitely not worth the 10 dollars spent on it, but i guess the whole atmosphere made it pretty fun. there were only three other people in the show so we had ample opportunities to participate. of course, the first question this self-acclaimed vampire asked me was if i am afraid of ghosts because one was about to get very close to me. yes! i am! sheesh..

after we'd had enough witchy fun for one day we went to the house of seven gables which was actually really cool. by really cool what i mean is it's a really old house about a story that i've never read. a good historical stop, nonetheless. and i learned what a gable is. it's different than a dormer.. in case you were wondering. unfortunately, i didn't get any pictures because it was dark. i actually would recommend going there. the story of the house is pretty cool and there are all these secret staircases and such you get to go through.

here, enjoy some other sights from the day!

HAPPY HALLOWEEEN!!! MUAHAHAHA

if i've said it once, i've said it a million times: i LOVE dean park.

Dean Park = Disneyland

last night i got myself all registered to go to a new england young single adult conference in connecticut that happened today. there were speakers (Pres. Eyring included!), a service project, lunch and dinner and a dance! fun, right? it started at 10 in the a.m.. i slept through it. oops! i didn't actually sleep through the entire thing, but it takes two hours to get there and by the time i woke up it just wasn't going to work out. i've been feeling bad about it. not only because it would've been a really spiritually uplifting, charitable, wonderful thing to attend, but also because i suddenly had absolutely nothing to do on my saturday off. great, just great. the problem with having nothing planned is that i usually end up at the mall or wal-mart just spending pennies left and right on things that i really don't need. so, to make up for my lack of participation in more righteous activities, i decided to be responsible! good idea, haley. i took my first trip to rockies ace hardware (not nearly as wonderful as allred's ace hardware, just saying) to get a copy of my car key made. and then that was about as responsible as it got for one day. except, i did do the cross word in the newspaper, which isn't really that responsible, but it's a grown up thing to do and they kinda fit in the same category.

ok, this story is getting too long. eventually, i had been in the house for too long and i was starting to go crazy so i went to dean park thinking i would walk around or something, but as i was going to park i spotted a sign that said "fountain music-97.1" WHAT!? turns out, there's a reason the fountains are always doing funny things. they dance to the music! and when it gets dark enough, there are colorful lights that shine on them! i just couldn't believe it. so, i quickly turned on the radio and playing was a wonderful disney medley! if i tuned out the fact that i was alone in my car, without an ice cream cone in my hand, it actually kinda felt like i was in disneyland!

oh! (this is just a side note) another grown up thing i did was read the newspaper. just the horoscope, but i think it still counts. the first line said "stick to your plans". well, that didn't happen, obviously.

anyway, that was just a really long way of letting you know that i love dean park. it never fails me.

Massachusetts in a Week.

welp, this last week my mom, dad and brother ben came to visit me. we did all sorts of things and it was so fun. so fun that i don't even really know how to write about everything we did! they came on sunday and stayed at the nixon's house with me until wednesday. we hung out with the nixon's on those days and then on thursday i got to go with my family to do whatever we wanted for the rest of the week! so many days off. ahh. so i guess i'll just put pictures up from the highlights because we really did way too much stuff for me to write about it all. i'll expound where necessary.

we started off on monday with a tour of a cemetary. sounds weird but it was actually really amazing. we could've spent hours there.

this is us at havahd yahd. that's john harvard in the background. i touched his shoe.

mark took us on a guided tour of concord, lexington and cambridge. this is at the minute men monument. can you tell that ben was really interested? haha

we went to walden pond at the end of the day and put our feet in. (this is one of only three photos that dad is actually in. i promise he was there.)

on wednesday we started at 6:30! in the morning and did some of the freedom trail. i loved it, but i can't wait to go back and see more.

this is us at the top of the green monster during batting practice. it was way cool except i was afraid for my life the entire time! i'm pretty sure they were aiming for me! haha not really.. none of them actually got that close to me, but i was still scared. ben, on the other hand, was just laughing at my mom and i screaming and clinging to one another.

before a game, there is this street with all these fun things to do. ben had the youth record for a while! but i'm pretty sure he threw faster than a lot of the adults we saw, too. oh, and he got that cool hat that he left in my room. oops.

this is ben at his first red sox game! (that's not really where are seats were-he's a cheater)

he's good at baseball, but no good at pre-18th century games. this is the plymouth plantation where all the people dress up in period clothing and speak in funny accents and pretend they don't know what t.v.'s are.

this guy was way cool. it was amazing how they could keep their character and answer so many different questions about the time.

welcome to p-town. yikes. we thought it would be cool to drive all the way to the end of the cape... nope. turns out, provincetown is a gay community. SURPRISE! it was kind of the most frightening experience i've had in a while. i don't know who this gem of a woman is, but we took a picture of her.

here's another scary sighting of the day. don't worry, there was a furry pink tail on the back to top it off.

it was actually a really pretty place. a very scary, pretty place.

it probably wouldn't have been so bad had we known what we were getting ourselves into. but we didn't. the closer we got to town, the more suspicious we became and then suddenly it hit us! we walked up and down the street for a while because the architecture was really nice. but, after walking into a few "antique/collectibles" shops and having to cover ben's eyes, we decided it was time to go. oh, also, just to make things awkward, my mom and i were wearing matching sweatshirts! isn't that cute? i didn't walk next to her haha.

this, however, is newport, RI. and it is pretty. we went on a cliff walk next to the ocean and all along were these huge "summer cottages" what? they were mansions. and they were everywhere. it was really incredible.

this was day one at the beach! we actually went here after our little mishap on p-town. we needed a refresher haha. we even saw two sea lions, otis and spunkmeyer.

day two at the beach! we body surfed for a while, but i've watched a little too much discovery channel lately because i was REALLY afraid of sharks.

on the way home, we stopped at some places from my grandma eldredge's childhood. she grew up in the town next to where i live right now so that's way cool.

this is where she went to sixth grade.

and this is where she lived! it was white then and not as big. and cuter, if you ask me. it was neat to see where she grew up and read the stories she sent for us. i really look up to her and admire her for keeping so many records of her experiences. it helps me get to know her better and makes me want to record my experiences for my grandchildren. she's an amazing person.

to top of the week, we went to church. that was fun, but i was sad because after church i was going to have to leave them and i really REALLY wanted to stay with them. my dad gave me a blessing, though, and i'm so grateful for a wonderful daddy who is always worthy to help me through anything. i love my family so much and i'm certain they are the best family in the world. they always support me and make me feel loved. i'm sad i don't get to be with them right now, but i'm happy because eventually i'll come home and then we get to be together for eternity! all in all, it was a great week!