B-irthday cele-bro-tions!

it was aaron's birthday on thursday!

i had a plan.

thursday, september 20

thursday itself was pretty meh, unfortunately. aaron ended up going to a lecture with corey + gail, while i went and did my own thing at the gym. turns out, as much as i wanted to spend his birthday with him, i wasn't so much interested in a computer science lecture. apparently, i didn't miss much. i met up with them afterwards in david square and had dinner at the foundry. here, i also would not have missed much. the food itself was decent. i definitely enjoyed my wild mushroom flatbread. unfortunately, the service was mediocre at best. the waiter seemed to have forgotten about our table for awhile, he completely forgot about the appetizer that was ordered, and then seemed completely disinterested in helping us out upon realizing that we weren't there to booze it up. lamesauce.

friday, september 21

shenanigans begin! we went to work as normal. what i sneakily hid was the fact that i was going to be leaving work early to pick up aaron's birthday surprise - one andy spaghettios!!! :D this would've worked a lot better had we not then found out that someone back in madison (who shall remain nameless, but i am still quite angry at) had revealed the secret surprise to aaron a few days before hand. bull. shit. a month's worth of ninja secrecy work, down the drain. brought andy back to the house and opened the door to, "andyandyandyandyandyyy!!!". cue thumpthumpthumping of the birthday boy running to the door. it was adorable. much hugging ensued. corey came over for some pre-scheduled throwing and drills, before we all showered and headed back to cameron ave for dinner and hang out time.

did andy get shorter? | markma.

also, andy got aaron a slap chop for this birthday. first experiment? fortune cookies.

saturday, september 22

my present to the birthday boy - alpine ziplining!!!

up in the white mountains, we went and took a ziplining tour through canopies and down the mountain with the longest zipline spanning about 1600'. it was fantastic. this specific tour also had dual ziplines for you to race each other. i lost the first time to winston. i blame the fact that i got completely preoccupied with the flying part and totally forgot about the "curl up into a cannonball to fly faster" part. don't worry. i got it right the second time when i raced aaron. we flew pretty even - had i had longer arms, we could've higfived - until about halfway. cue the tiny asian cannonball. i won. and celebrated. fistpumping and all. winning!

on the way back, we stopped at the tilt'n diner again. had [too much] delicious food. had a waitress continuously give andy shit throughout the meal. ha.

andy found this cookie on the way - it was bigger than my head.

this is manny.

this is andy licking manny. 

katie zipping away!

the ktoads racing!

andy getting ready to fly. 

birthday boy coming in!!! 

here comes katieeeee!!

sunday, september 23

started the day watching moulin rouge just because, for some reason, we were all in the mood for it all weekend. we soon had to drop andy off at the airport so he could get back to madison. :(

we then went and hung out with john soh who was in town for the weekend with the cmu fifth year trip, and showed him around cambridge/mit. we got all nerdy visiting eero saarinen's mit chapel.

birthday shenanigans ended with a birthday/rosh hashanah dinner at the magic's, more cake and happy family time - a lot of which was spent watching baby phin's antics around the dining room.

i think that can be called a success. take that, "meh"!

next zipline excursion has already been planned for next march, ie. my birthday. interested? hit me up. :)

in case you need persuading, here's video i took during the longest zipline on the tour. enjoy!

test post.

from my new blogg app.

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computer edit: blogg app could use text effects...

twenty-one miles, two wheels, a picnic lunch and mancala. and puppies.

a la the outdoorsy fix from the last post, aaron and i biked the minuteman bikeway today. we started at the bike stop in arlington, ma and traveled down to arlington center for town day, and then biked back up and past the bike stop to the end of the bikeway at the historic bedford depot. we then stopped for a relaxing picnic lunch of sandwiches we'd made this morning, bacon chocolate and a few rounds of mancala. we then wandered around historic bedford for a bit - they're apparently big on trains - before getting more air in my tires at the bikeway source and heading back down.

total mileage: 21 miles. as a first attempt, i'll take it. there were actually quite a few bikers out and about today, as well as an impressive number of rollerbladers. people seriously still rollerblade nowadays! who knew?!

it was pretty fun. a nice, short trip to make while getting exercise and going somewhere new. i hadn't really used my bike past commuting places, so just riding it for the sake of going for a bike ride was a different experience. but it's something that i've been meaning to get into, and what better time of the year to try it than the end of summer? with the weather cooling down, but before it starts to turn gross and gray, i figured, why not?

plus, going to arlington's town day also meant seeing a bunch of cool stalls, buying a new handmade ceramic mug and seeing a ton of puppies.

overall, it was a nicely productive, but still relaxing day.

quote of the day
[at a lemonade stand set up on the side of the bikeway in lexington. (yes, kids still do that nowadays, too!)]
(quite young) kid #1: "one cup of lemonade for a dollar!!!" (what happened to 25 cents?? stupid economy...)
(even younger) kid #2: "two for twenty cents!!!" (um...)
(much older) aaron: "quick! they're having a fire sale! let's turn back before it's too late!"

loved it.

the minuteman bikeway through the lexington depot. wikipedia.

tomorrow's agenda
brunch with danny + becca at the painted burro in davis square. i'm excited.
cleaning the apartment, like whoa. seriously. it's like all of our belongings just exploded everywhere. and seeing as next weekend will be quite busy, and someone actually has to try and sleep on our couch, we should probably clear the shit out of the there...wish us luck.

hello, fall. i'm doing it wrong.

so, recently, now that summer is over, my brain has inevitably chosen this moment in time to go on an outdoorsy kick.

and i'm loving it.

the past month's outdoorsy agenda
+ ran my first 5k race as part of the cube 3 studio team. somehow ended up with a decent time and being the fastest woman in the office. i'll take it. for now.
+ get my rickety old schwinn fixed up and good to go for bike rides to alewife/friends' houses/anywhere to minimize car usage whenever possible.

i love my crappy, old bike. :)

+ spending labor day weekend on the cape with friends and just enjoy the sun, sand and (five bajillion) snails. no really. they apparently just cover the entire bay floor. it's a little gross.

pretty...

+ going camping up at dolly copp in the white mountains, nh last weekend with liz morrison, aaron and liz' friend deb. pretty fun considering the downpour that decided to come down that night, and the bear warning for the area that weekend. we drove up saturday morning, somehow taking six hours to get there. stopped at the tilt'n diner on the way (deliciousness). got there, set up came, made camper's stew (more deliciousness) and (obviously) s'mores (even more deliciousness). i learned that hatchets are friggin' awesome. made more nommage in the morning - eggs, hash brown, coffee/hot chocolate - before packing up camp. we then hiked up to lonesome lake for a picnic lunch before heading home.

lonesome lake.

upcoming outdoorsy agenda
+ taking my fixed up, old schwinn (my bike needs a name), fixing up some lunch and biking the minuteman bike path to the end in bedford with aaron.
+ as a special birthday treat for aaron, going ziplining up in the white mountains on a canopy tour with alpine adventures. i'm super excited for this one.
+ hopefully, more biking adventures. i like having it back and functioning. it's a little sad that i don't work somewhere i can just bike back and forth from. as much as i like driving, the 40-min commute to an from work (on a good day) is just not what i pictured doing as part of my first real-person job. plus, it would just mean working closer to cambridge/somerville/home, in general.

as much as i could do without the ridiculous bug bites i got out on the cape, i really do like being outdoors.

sunset at sunken meadow beach | eastham, ma (cape cod)

so many (dead) horseshoe crabs!

walking with the birdies. :)

mmm...campfire...mmm...s'mores...

low-tide sunset with five bajillion little snails.