Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays! We are already in what I call the home stretch…2 weeks until break!

While I am very excited for Christmas it has been a busy few weeks. Apart from catching up on all my school work, which is an ongoing work in progress, we celebrated one of my favorite holidays—THANKSGIVING!!

I have not celebrated Thanksgiving in the same place since I got to college and this year was nothing different. This year I celebrated the holiday with Tyler’s family in Lexington. Between all his aunts, uncles and cousins there was 24 people over for the day, quite a full household!

Since I’m a huge fan of cooking I was put in charge of garlic mashed potatoes. Tyler was supposed to help me since they are his favorite. Typical man, he abandoned me part way through, but they still turned out delicious!!

At my house we usually just have one big meal and that’s it. Not at Tyler’s, as all his family is showing up there are munchies and appetizers everywhere. Needless to say I ate my way through the day. By the time the turkeys were done I was already stuffed from everything else. Although, I still managed to eat my whole plate!! I had so much fun hanging out with everyone and watching the DALLAS COWBOYS win!!

The Friday after thanksgiving I went with Tyler’s family and his cousins that stayed over to see Jim Carey’s new movie A Christmas Carol. The movie was great! It is done in 3-D so you feel like you are actually in the movie, especially on the IMAX screen.

Saturday, Tyler’s mom, Leanne and I all headed up to Somerville High School for a craft fair. We have been to a few to try and sell the painted glass we do. After having a fairly successful day, I got to experience a New England tradition, candle pin bowling. Now I love bowling, I’m just no good at it. Usually I play regular 10 pin with bumpers, so when they told me I had to knock down these little pins with these little balls I was rather skeptical. Needless to say I was as just as terrible as I expected, but somehow my team managed to win!!

To wrap up the weekend Tyler and I went out to pick out a Christmas tree. Tyler’s family decided to not put up their big tree because no one will be home for Christmas. So instead of the big one inside, Tyler and I picked out a small tree to put outside on the deck. Picking out Christmas trees is one of my favorite traditions and I especially loved doing it with Tyler for the first time. After looking at tons of trees we finally picked on. Now all it needs is some outdoor decorations!!

I hope your having as much fun so far this holiday season as I am!
There is much more in store before we leave for break so check back soon for all the great holiday fun going on at Stonehill!

Dog Days

Hello there!


I know it has been a while since my last post so I figured I should take the time to fill you in on my long absence. Unfortunately, it is not good nor exciting news. Truth be told I have been sick as a dog. Now I don't normally get sick, but when I do I just can't seem to get over whatever has me under the weather. Even more upsetting is that I missed some of my favorite campus events like freak week and the Halloween mixer. But at least I seem to be getting better. I've been on a few interviews to try to set up an internship for next semester, and I even attended my first career fair. Even though most of the companies I wanted to meet with didn't show up it was still a good time for me to get my resume all polished up and printed. Now I just have to find someone to give me a job after graduation!

Sorry to disappoint, but that's really the only update I have for the past few weeks. But I do have some tips for if you get sick!

1. Stay in bed. Being sick is a great reason to sleep all day, watch TV and be lazy

2. Drink lots of fluids. I love orange juice anyway, but when I'm sick I drink it by the gallon...so delicious!

3. Eat Jello! I know it's an unusual piece of advice but ever since I was little I loved eating jello when I was sick. Peach is my favorite, but how could something so giggly and wiggly not make you feel better? J-E-L-L-O It's alive!

Till next time~

To Home and Back

Well it's that time again when I sit down and try to catch you up on what's been happening. I think I say it almost every time I sit down to write, but I am amazed at how fast time flies!!

The highlight of the past few weeks has been my trip home to Texas! Now I usually don't go home during the semester, but with the economy I was able to snag some CHEAP air fare and spend a few days at home over Columbus Day weekend. I haven't been home since the end of May so I was excited to be back in my own bed and spend time with my family.

Of course no trip home would be complete without doing a few of my favorite things. First off, I have been dying to check out the new Dallas Cowboy Stadium. Over the past few every time I would go home I would go and check out the progress. Let me tell you, now that it is finished--THAT THING IS HUGE!! Not only did I check it out, my brother, Stephen, Tyler and I all took a tour. By the end of it I was tired from walking so much, but you do get to see EVERYTHING from the media rooms, to the suites, and even the Dallas Cowboy's locker room.

There usually is turf, they were just setting up for the U2 concert.

My brother in front of some of his favorite players lockers

Leather heads in the gift shop

Another highlight of the trip was a mini road trip down to Dublin, yup Dublin, Texas not Ireland. It seems like any other small town south of the metroplex but it is home to Dublin Dr. Pepper. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, Dublin Dr. Pepper is the only place in the country where they still bottle the original Dr. Pepper--no high fructose corn syrup here. To get Dublin Dr. Pepper you have to have the old returnable bottles, that's all their machinery can fill, or live with in a 44 mile radius, because that's as far as they distribute. Now the trip from my house to Dublin is just over 100 miles, but it is definitely worth it. I love to go visit Dublin every now and then to drink up the nostalgia and famous Dr. Pepper.

Lastly, a trip to Texas in the early part of October would not be complete without a trip to the State Fair of Texas. While the fair has many claims to fame my personal favorite are Big Tex, and tons of fried food. My whole family headed out to the fair Sunday afternoon. Some people go to ride the rides, or see all the shows and animals, but my family goes for the fried food. I like to think that over the years I have become an expert in fair food. Every year though, they come out with new crazy things to fry. Of course I had to try those, and enjoy a few old favorites. So what all did I clog my arteries with in a mere matter of hours?? Here's the list: Fried turkey led, fried cheesecake, fried bacon, fried butter, fried peaches and cream, fried pizza, a corny dog, some ice cream, and to top the night off frozen turtle cheesecake dipped in chocolate! And that's just what I ate. The fair also offers such delicacies as fried Coke, oreos, snickers bars, cookie dough and so much more. While my food coma came on quickly I still got to enjoy some evening entertainment. One of my favorite bands, Little Big Town, happened to be playing Sunday night for free! So of course my family all stayed around to enjoy the music.

Tyler with his fried pizza...yumm!

Little Big Town put on a great concert

The State Fair of Texas was the perfect way to end my trip home. Since I've been back at school I have been as busy as ever. My senior thesis is currently underway and I spend most days in the library writing away. Even though I love my topic, at this point I just wish it was finished.

One of my favorite theme weeks at Stonehill is coming up and I'll be sure to update you all about freak week and Halloween here at the Hill real soon!

Till then~

Fallin' in Love with Fall

There are many reason I have come to love New England over my four years at Stonehill. Every fall I am reminded once again why I fell in love in the first place.

Growing up in Texas I never got to experience fall like we have up here. As soon as the leaves begin to change I get just a little bit giddy as I wait to enjoy my favorite season of the year. I think fall brings the best weather of the year so I like to enjoy the crisp fresh air by spending a lot of time outside before it gets to cold and I go into semi-hibernation. In the past week I have managed to get a lot of fall fun into my busy schedule.

To start the month of October off, Tyler and I went up to Harvard, MA to spend the morning apple picking. I have to say this is one of my all time favorite fall activities. Not only do you get to enjoy treats like apple cider and cider donuts after picking your apples, I usually end up eat a ton of apples before I even get to the ones I actually picked. This year was no exception. I ate at least a dozen apples, all in the name of finding the best ones. I don’t know why they try to tell you what kind of apples they are; you really have to do a taste test to make sure you have found the good ones. Even though it has been just over a week since our apple picking excursion we still have a huge bowl full of apples…and I don’t know if we will ever be able to finish them.

Found a good one!

This week I also got to go to a Red Sox game at Fenway. I don’t know how it got to be so late in the season before I saw a game but I was glad to go. Even though the game was called in the 7th inning due to heavy rain and the Red Sox lost, it’s always fun to spend time down at the ballpark. The only real sad part for me is that my hometown boys, the Texas Rangers, are officially eliminated from post season dreams. Although, this does mean that I become a full time Red Sox fan going into the post season, so I guess it’s not so bad.

This weekend I got to experience a new fall activity that is sure to be an ongoing favorite. Despite some drizzly weather I headed up to the Topsfield Fair. Even though the rain kept a lot of people away it was nice because you could still do everything without having to fight any crowds. Since I went prepared for the weather, rain boots and all, I enjoyed every minute of the fair. I even managed to eat a whole turkey leg, they are my favorite fair food after all.

This pumpkin weighed over 1,400 pounds

Me and my GIANT turkey leg...I ate it all!

This Wednesday I head home with Tyler to celebrate my Dad and little brother’s birthdays. I also have a list of fall time favorites down there. I’ll be sure to update you on my trip back home when I return, until then there is less than three months till Christmas…but whose counting! ;-)

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

Well hello there everyone. Can you believe the end of September is just days away?

So what have I been up to lately? We'll I've been busy, that's for sure. You would think that with a light course load this semester I would have a lot of free time, but that just doesn't seem to be the case. As Stonehill kicked off a new school year I headed down to Rhode Island to do some dogie/house sitting for the weekend. That meant that I missed Welcome Back weekend and all that craziness but I managed to have a great time down in RI. Tyler came with me, so we made plans to hang out in Newport Saturday afternoon. In all the years I have been visiting I have never seen it sooo busy. Apart from it being an absolutely beautiful day while we were down there, the Irish festival that was going on happens to be one of the largest in New England. So of course Tyler and I decided to check it out. We got to see my Irish step dancers, hear some bagpipes and of course have some Irish beer. We checkout all the little stands of people selling all sorts of Irish goodies but got out of there without buying anything.

Unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera down that week, but I did manage to steal a few picts offline.
Another highlight of the last few weeks is a weekend spent out in Western Mass. We headed out to Springfield last Saturday for the day to visit some of Tyler's family. We spent the day outside visiting with his family and just relaxing. The next day a group of us gals headed out to Hadley to try and sell some of our artwork at a local tag sale. It was our first time at one of these but we are headed up to Gloucester in Mid October to give it another try. We sell hand painted glasses, and cards, as well as hand made earrings and bracelets. We just started a website to try and sell some of our stuff. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7399920 After the tag sale we headed to this great farm stand for lunch. I forget the name of it but it was absolutely huge. We all got sandwiches and had a great picnic lunch outside. It was the perfect way to enjoy the very early signs of fall.

working on our crafts

Our table at the tag sale

Everyone enjoying our picnic outside

So you may be thinking that all I do is no work and all play but that couldn't be farther from the truth. This semester I am finishing up my History major by writing my capstone. Everyone, regardless of major has some type of big final project they have to do to graduate. As a History major we get to write a big research paper. We are talking a minimum of 30 pages. Needless to say I spend a fair amount of time in the library. However, the last two Mondays, I have ventured off to Harvard to do some primary research in one of their libraries. After getting really lost the first time I went up there, I have finally got the hang of it. I'm writing about the Women's Army Corp during World War II, so t is really neat to get to see original letters,

As always I'm a busy bee. I hope all your semesters are off to a great start!

Don't Look Now!

Classes started today...well at least for most of the students here on campus. I managed to luck out without having classes because of following a Monday schedule even though it is Tuesday! So with my free time I thought I might look back and figure out where my summer disappeared to.

So where did my summer go?? Here is a little recap! For starters, Tyler and I got in touch with our country side and went horseback riding for the day. Horseback riding was something we had talked about doing ever since we had gotten back from visiting my family down in Texas earlier this summer. So after a little Internet searching I found Bobby's Ranch in Acton. Needless to say we had a great time, although I did pay for it the next day with rather sore legs.

At the beginning of July I flew out to St. Louis to meet my immediate and extended family for my cousin John's wedding. The wedding was really nice, and it was great to see some of my aunts, uncles and cousins I hadn't seen in a really long time. After the wedding my family headed down to Meramec State Park in Missouri. When I was younger my family used to drive up and go canoeing every other summer, but it had been a while so I was really excited to doing a little time on the water and check out the caves that are in the park. After a very busy long weekend I headed back to Stonehill!

Cousin Lynn and I at the rehearsal dinner.

Not quite everyone on my mom's side of the family at the church.

Me with my siblings at the reception--we clean up good!

Everyone after a day on the river!

I also got to spend time in New Hampshire again this summer. My boyfriend's, brother's girlfriend's family has a lake house in Maddison, NH on Silver Lake. (did you follow that?) I really love it up there. It is so beautiful and relaxing, and despite a little bout of bad whether we had a great weekend. Besides just hanging out, relaxing and making homemade ice cream, we got to get out on the boat for a little tubing, and the guys did some wakeboarding...I have no athletic ability so I tend to stay away from these and enjoy my time zipping around in the boat.

To round out the summer I got to spend a week down on the Cape with Tyler's family. Despite that fact that I was sick for part of the week I had a really great time. We went to the drive-in theater in Wellfleet to see the new G.I. Joe moving which was a pretty bad movie but it was still fun to hang out with everyone outside. I even went out on a flounder fishing boat one day. Of course I didn't manage to catch anything other than a nasty skate, but I really love being out on the boat. And of course a Cape vacation wouldn't be complete without some beach and pool time. I even managed to get in a half round of golf...don't get the wrong idea, I'm terrible at golf too but I really enjoy it so I just keep plugging away.

Out on the fishing boat
Enjoying some beach time

I hope everyone is enjoying there fist days of school. I PROMISE to update soon with pictures from convocation and such.

On the Road Again

Hello everyone! Sorry it’s been a while since I updated you on my summer. What can I say…I’ve been busy!

I realized I left y'all hanging out in music city and never finished up the rest of Tyler and mine’s road trip. Well you know that we made it back safe and sound but we saw a lot before we got back to MA.

After we left Nashville we headed north towards Louisville, but made a pit stop at Churchill Downs. We had tried to make it to the Jim Beam Distillery but were too late so we decide that it would be neat to see something else. Lucky for us there were no races that day so the whole place was pretty much open. After walking around outside for a while, someone told us we could go inside and check out where they do simulcasting of other races across the country. I thought that’s all we would get to see, but next thing I know we are headed outside towards the track. We got to walk right up to it; I don’t know if we were actually supposed to be down there but no one stopped us or told us otherwise. It was really neat to get to see the famous racetrack up close. Once we left we drove to our hotel which was actually across the river in Indiana, so we can say we made it though another state. The next morning we crossed the river again and went to the Louisville Slugger Museum. I had been a few years before, but this was Tyler’s first visit. It was as cool as I remembered. We spent some time in the museum before taking the tour of the factory. While in the museum Tyler got to hold a game used bat of David Ortiz and while we were taking the tour itself got to hold a bat they had just finished making for Dustin Pedroia!

We got back on the road to make it to Wild Turkey Distillery. Since we hadn’t made it to Jim Beam we really wanted to visit at least one distillery on the Bourbon Trail. The tour at Wild Turkey was really cool. We got to see everything from where they ferment the grain in huge vats to the rick houses they age the bourbon in. Unfortunately, since we stopped there we landed up driving really late into the night in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania where we stayed the night. The late night drive was all worth it when we pulled into Chocolate World in HERSHEY Pennsylvania. We learned all about how Hershey makes there chocolate and tried plenty of it ourselves! After a few hours at Hershey we got on the road and headed home. By night fall we were on the Mass Pike and home safe and sound.

All in all it was a great trip, my little '99 Honda made it with no problems, we got to see beautiful parts of the country, and we have hundreds of pictures to remember it by. I don't know if I'll be making that drive again anytime soon, but this time around, it was definitely worth it.

The New Science Center

For those of you who are incoming science students or any one thinking of studying science here at Stonehill I have great news for you....the new science center is absolutely AMAZING! I myself try to stay as far away from science classes as humanly possible, but the new science center is making me reconsider my usual inclinations. I had the opportunity to go and check it out for the first time the other day. In the last few weeks the students participating in the SURE program, a summer undergraduate research experience, have had a chance to begin using the building. Taking a walk around the building you can tell there are still some little things to be finished, not all the classrooms are set up completely, and there is still some equipment to be unpacked, but you can tell the students LOVE being in the new space.



Like I mentioned before the building is just as beautiful as it promised to be. Construction just started on the new south quad and seems to be moving at a surprisingly rapid pace. In August when all the constructions is finished everyone who returns to campus in August will have a great new space on campus to enjoy.



If you haven't seen pictures or plans of the new science center you can check out the original renderings of the building by clicking here.


I hope you're all enjoying the summer....I promise to finish out my cross country adventure with another blog post soon!

Mile Marker One and Music City

I had a great time at home with my family. I never get to spend as much time at home as I would like, but that makes my visits all the more special. After a few days it was time to hit the road. Part of the reason Tyler came to visit was not only so he could finally meet my family, but also to help my drive my car back up to Mass. We visited AAA got lots of maps and books and had planned our route so early-ish Wednesday morning we hit the road. The first days was the longest. We drove all the way from my house in DFW to Nashville. We made little stops along the way but 12 hours later, by the time we arrived we were tired!

Just one of the many scenery picts we took!

We made it!!

Since had limited time and wanted to make the best of it. So we freshened up and headed out to see and hear what we could. We stayed on Music Row which is a street full of funky little bars and shops. The next day we headed to the Country Music Hall of Fame! If you haven't guessed, I'm a pretty big country music fan, so this was a small dream come true. The Country Music Hall of Fame also has a pretty cool museum in it. After spending the morning poking around the museum we headed back out to Music Row for some lunch before hitting the road again!

Music Row
The band playing at the bar--They were really good!Not a bad view of the city out of hotel window

Country Music Hall of Fame

The actual Hall of Fame

Clearly we were having plenty of fun and this was only our fist stop of many! I'll be back working in the admissions office next week but ill be sure to post more of our cross country road trip soon!