One More Day In NH

I'm a slow blogger these days and almost a whole week behind in recapping.  I have one last post about my trip to NH. 

Monday morning I had plans to do a run in Jen's neighborhood, but they were ruined when I started getting dizzy while I got ready.  Damn Vertigo....  I decided I still wanted to do something, but walking was probably safer, so Clyde and I set out on a walk.

Jen's neighborhood is really hilly, so it was probably just as well that I did a brisk walk rather than a run anyway.  Hills tend to mess up my hip flexor on runs.

It was a pretty morning.  Sort of a mix of warm and cool.

I'm really glad I got it in because we spent a while in the car right after this, making the drive to my home town about 2 hours away to see Jen's family.  Her parents still live in the house I grew up in, which is across the street from my childhood house. 

On the drive, I got an iced pumpkin spice coffee from Dunkin Donuts.  Sooooooooooooooo good!

It was a rainy day in my home town, so we spent a lot of time inside eating, talking, and playing with the kids and dogs.

Clyde rolled with it.

Jen's brother is a music teacher and plays classical guitar.  He played for us for a while.

It was a really nice, rainy afternoon. 

I remarked to Jen at one point during our visit, that I am glad she and her family still live in NH.  All of my family has moved from there and she is one of the only ties I still have to the area.  I told her she is my NH family.  I love visiting my home state and town.  Nostalgia always overcomes me.







Reacquainting With Portsmouth and UNH

Hello!  If you are catching up on my posts about my trip to NH, you can read the first two here and here. 

On Sunday, Jen's two little boys were visiting relatives so we had the day to ourselves to hang out.  We decided to do one of my favorite things when visiting NH; go to Portsmouth!  I love Portsmouth.  There are great little restaurants and shops and it's right on the water.  It's pretty gorgeous.

It's also not bad in the "dog friendly" department.  I researched it a bit ahead of time and decided we could bring Clyde.

We headed to lunch first, at a little place called Me and Ollie's. 

Clyde seemed to like it.

Or it could have just been that he liked the idea of my turkey and havarti panini with potato salad on the side.

Don't worry, he scored a couple bites.

After lunch we headed towards Prescott Park.  I think I've been here on most of my Portsmouth visits, but it's always a beautiful site to see.

Isn't it beautiful?  You can see the water/boats in the distance in that last picture.  I love it.

I'll admit, I was hoping to experience some fall weather while up in New England, but it was actually a hot day in Portsmouth.  I think the temps were in the upper 80s.  Not that different from Charlotte!

After our park visit, we walked to this area near the water with some more shops and restaurants. 

We had some fun in Macro Polo, which is dog friendly.

It's one of those stores with all kinds of fun and funny things to see and play with.

I got my friend Gibson one of these Rate-A-Date notepads for his birthday.

He's back on the dating scene so I thought it was pretty funny :)

We headed to a Portsmouth institution, Annabelle's Ice Cream, after our adventure in Macro Polo.

Annabelle's is also dog friendly- WIN!  They even gave Clyde his own little cup of vanilla ice cream. 

He loved it.

Mom, I can't look at the camera, I'm absorbed in my ice cream right now, k?

I had the pistacio ice cream, which was not green.  Jen had black raspberry with hot fudge.

They know how to make good ice cream at Annabelle's!

Once we had wrapped up our time in Portsmouth, we decided to take a ride over to Durham, which is where University of New Hampshire is located.  Jen and I both went to college there, but I actually transferred my junior year to Ohio State for a change of scenery.  I still have a lot of fond memories of my time at UNH though.

We strolled around the campus, past "T-hall".

Then past Jen's old dorm. She actually went inside to take a peak!

I waited outside with Clyde.

We walked up to Madbury Road, which is where most of the Greek houses are. 

I was a Kappa Delta in college.  Here's my old house!

Here's Clyde and I in front of it!

Just for fun, here's a couple old sorority pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Homecoming.  I think the long sub bun is from Carl's lunch truck.

Some sorority formal.

I think I made the right decision in growing my bangs out... haha!

It was a nice nostalgic trip to the campus.  We went back to Jen's house for dinner and she cooked baked stuffed shrimp, squash casserole, and salad.

Yum!

We watched The Dilemma before heading to bed.  It was actually pretty funny.

It was a really great day in NH.  Portsmouth and UNH both brought back a lot of memories.  I haven't been to either place in quite a while.  At one point while we were walking through the campus, Jen and I wondered out loud if we were passing for students.  We kind of looked each other up and down and decided, no, probably not!  We're old now!! 

Have you been back to your college/university?

Dinner, Wine, and Conversation at Surf

After a fun, yet sort of overwhelming day in New Hampshire with many kids, dogs, food, and running around, Jen really wanted to go out to dinner- just the two of us.  She reads my blog and commented that she envies my frequent nights out with friends.  Now that she's a mom of two and life has changed a lot for her, she kind of misses the nights out on the town.  I kind of thought it was funny, because I was totally willing to hang out at her house with the kiddos, but I could tell she was all about having a night out. :)  Her husband graciously watched the kids, the dog, the cats, and did the dishes.  Rock star!

Jen and I headed to Surf in the heart of Nashua.

We sat outside because it was such a nice night!  I had what else but a Malbec.

Cheers!  To old friends and being back in my home state!  Live free or die!  (State motto of NH for those that don't know).

Jen had some kind of tropical martini that ended up getting a little bit diluted with water after she discovered it was really strong!

We opted to split a side salad to start, which was graciously split for us before being brought out.  Love that!

For entrees we chose to split the Shrimp Vindaloo: Shrimp Vindaloo: Shrimp sautéed with garlic, ginger, scallions, house curry, coconut milk, onions, peppers and tomatoes; served with jasmine rice

It was great- a little spicy and I loved the complex flavors.  The shrimp was tender and I love me some Jasmine rice.  Delicious.

We also split a swordfish special.  It was served with mashed potatoes, carmelized pearl onions, and yellow beans.

I think the consensus between us was that this was actually our favorite of the two dishes.  I don't eat swordfish that often, but it's just so good when i do.  I love the firm texture and it's great with mashed potatoes, almost like a steak.  I was happy to enjoy it while I can, as I'm hoping to get pregnant again soon, and swordfish is on the no-no list.

It was a great night out with lots of conversation.  I'd say Jen is probably my friend I have the best, most interesting, deep conversations with.  I think it's partly because we've known each other all our lives and have an established comfort level.  She's one of those friends that I know I can say something to and she's not going to take it the wrong way and will still love me unconditionally.  She's basically the sister I always wanted.  :)  Even with the distance and the time we spend apart, I always feel like we pick back up again and it's always still the same friendship.

Do you have friends like this?



Old Friend Reunion

Last Friday night, Clyde and I took a late flight up to New Hampshire and arrived in Manchester at close to 1am.  My friend Jen is a night owl and said that it was fine with her to pick me up then.  We were both pretty tired when we got back to her house, so we called it a night.  The next morning I dove straight into toddler town, with her two sons keeping the place pretty lively.  Before long, my friend Alyshia, her husband Greg, and her daughter Maggie arrived to hang out with us for the afternoon.  We took the party outside.

Clyde did pretty well with the youngsters.

We grilled out and had chicken, with orzo salad, fruit, and chips and salsa.

Alyshia lives near Boston and brought amazing treats from a bakery in her town.

The kids had the cupcakes with the animals on them.

I had about half of this Boston cream cupcake before I had to quit!

The kids got some chocolate on their faces...

Before Alyshia left, we got a few pictures of us together.

I've known Alyshia basically since birth, since our parents were friends before we were born, and Jen since I was about a year old, since we grew up across the street from each other.  Old friends!

Just to prove our long standing friendship, here's a picture of us at one of my birthday parties when we were little:

(Jen is on the far left, I'm in the middle in the sailor dress, and Alyshia is on my right in the blue dress)

Life long friends I tell ya :)

More to come on my NH visit!