Catching Up!

Hello! Sorry for the delay in a new post. I have been wanting to add pictures to this next blog, but I can't figure out how to upload them onto my new laptop (a birthday present from Jarod!). So I'll just do it without!
We got all moved into the condo just fine. It was a cold, cold, rainy day, but we got everything in. We got a lot of use out of the fireplace in the condo the first night, using it to dry out some of the items that got soaked!
The first weekend here, we had a birthday party to go to in Boston, so we got to see my friends Paul, Erin, and Dan. That was a lot of fun and nice seeing just how close we are. It took us just under an hour to get to downtown Boston! We also have found a great little Thai place I am sure we'll be hitting up often, and a cool little tavern in the downtown area. So far I am really loving it here. I love the change of atmosphere and the change of scenery!
Last weekend, we took the dogs hiking near a fast moving river/stream and that was fun. They were super excited to get out of the condo and explore! I look forward to finding some more places to take them as well! Then, on Saturday, we headed over to the east coast of NH. We found a lunch place down by the water and had lobsters :) yum! Once we started looking at the map, we found out we were really close to the Crate and Barrel outlet in Kittery, ME, so we headed there next. After touring around that area, we drove down to Hampton Beach, just to check it out. I haven't heard very many good things about it, and they were right. It was pretty bad, but interesting to see. We ended the day back in Portsmouth at the Red Hook brewery and pub. We were hoping to do a brewery tour, but missed it by a couple of hours. Next time, hopefully!
Sunday, we tried out a new church in Bedford. It was nice, but Jarod wants to try out a Methodist church next weekend, so we'll see where we end up going to regularly.
This upcoming weekend, we have another birthday party to attend in Boston. I am so looking forward to heading down there. We're gonna leave early in the morning and tour around the downtown area. Jarod has never been to the Freedom Trail or any of the historic sites, so we plan on doing that all day before heading over to the Sees' house. Plus, we have to stop at Mike's pastry (not to be confused with Paul's pastry in Nola, who makes the BEST King Cakes), but Mike's who makes cannoli's that are out of this world. Erin and Dan introduced us to them when we were in town a few weeks ago. It is this delicious Italian bakery in the North End that I have been craving since I finished my last bite the the last cannoli!
There is so much we want to do while here, I hope we can fit it all in! We want to explore NH, ME, and VT some more, plus we'd like to visit Newport, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, NYC, and of course, get to know Boston better. We live super close to the Stonyfield Farms factory, so we'd like to do a tour of that, and also I'd like to see the Green Mountain Coffee Factory and Ben and Jerry's too! So if any of those sound like a place you'd like to visit, please come up and we'll go!
Jarod likes his job so far up here. One of the projects he is in charge of is redesigning the main entrance to the base he is stationed at. He says the base is so tiny! There is only 175 people on it total, and only about 20 of them are military! There isn't even a gas station or shopette on it!
Luckily, they work longer days, so that every other Friday is a day off, so it will be easier for us to do long weekends somewhere.
I have been in contact with the local Easter Seals here in Manchester, specifically their Veteran's assistance department which assists soldiers and their families with deployment cycles and any assistance the soldier or their family needs before, during, or after a deployment. Unfortunately, they have no positions available right now, but they are interested in having me volunteer, so we are supposed to meet up soon to discuss that. Having so many people in my family, and close to me being military, I had been wanting to be involved with the USO for awhile, but there are no locations near me here. So we'll see how this goes!