Thursday, January 3, 2019

Grandpa Joe Life

Hello friends and Happy 2019! I totally intended to keep up with life updates while I was traveling but that was a huge fail. ‾\_(ツ)_/‾ Regular social media updates and vlogging were enough internet responsibility while I was away. I wanted to enjoy spending time with my people instead of spending time in front of the computer. #sorrynotsorry But don't worry - I took plenty of photos so I could to a big life update for you when I returned home! 😁 Let's take it waaaaay back to before Christmas, shall we?

Brett and I flew out of Boston on the Friday before Christmas. It was a pretty standard travel day, aside from the insane landing our pilot tried to pull off when we arrived in Orlando. 😱 It was extremely windy in Florida that day and our plane was swaying and bumping every which way throughout the landing. Definitely had my stomach tied up in knots with nerves through that landing. #yikes BUT we made it safely on the ground, grabbed our bags, and hopped in my mom's car to head home. We were greeted by Kiwi and Mikey as well as this adorable little snowman sign!


On Saturday my parents, Brett, and I all participated in the Run Run Santa 1-Miler, a 1 mile race where everyone is dressed up as Santa Claus! It was really cool and really funny being surrounded by so many Santas. It was basically the most epic game of Where's Waldo and so tough not to lose each other! 😂 I loved being able to run with my parents and especially Brett who ran his first race and earned his first medal! So proud. :')


After the race we headed over to the beach because SpaceX had scheduled a launch that day! My parents live on the "Space Coast" of Florida, near where a ton of NASA and other space exploration missions launch from and it seems like they get to see a launch about every other week. I was excited that this mission (the Falcon 9) lined up with our visit and I had hoped to see it take off! That day at the beach wasn't our day, and they scrubbed it ("scrubbed" = fancy space term for "cancelled") 4 minutes before launch time, due to wind. Stupid wind!

Luckily they rescheduled it for the next morning so we *still* had a chance to witness it, and good news - we did! We watched the launch from the driveway which was so cool. I caught a bit of it on my Happy Vlogidays video, but if you'd like to see the recorded live stream of the launch, you can find that here.

Kiwi & Mikey were happy to have us around - look at those smiles! 💖

After a bit of Christmas shopping with Brett and my dad, all of us went to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Patriots game, have a few beers, and eat wings! We were getting heckled left and right for our gear, but I guess that's the price you pay for supporting winners. 😉 We know it's all in good fun, though, and it was a blast cheering on our team all the way in Florida. There were even a few people there who were also rooting for the Pats!


It was fairly chilly during the first part of our visit (high forties to high fifties), and we had been trying (and struggling) to get the hot tub to a high enough temperature to enjoy. The hot tub at my parent's house has a dip in the wall that connects to the pool which makes it hard to heat when it's colder out, but we managed to get it warm enough to lounge a bit in the tub when we returned from lunch!


Monday was Christmas Eve and we all woke up early to go to our new favorite festive event, Surfing Santas in Cocoa Beach! It's essentially what it sounds like - a beach party where everyone dresses up, drinks at sunrise, and watches people surf in Santa suits. It's always a blast! My mom made this amazing Christmas Punch (cranberry juice/pineapple juice/orange juice/vodka/ginger ale/grenadine) which we devoured and we enjoyed the people watching for a majority of the morning. We made a Rita's stop on the way home, and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing.



Total side note, but earlier that weekend we picked up this awesome IPA called Bear Lasers and the packaging/name/beer was all amazing. Brett pointed out that this IPA may have called to me because 1. it was called Bear Lasers - both of those things being the mascots of my undergraduate and graduate alma maters, and 2. the can was Lasell Laser blue. It was just meant to be I guess! 😂 I cracked into a couple cans that afternoon and was a big fan of the taste, which of course is the most important part. Seriously, though, I could not get enough the packaging! I had to snap some photos. 😂


After dark my parents and I took Kiwi and Mikey on a little Christmas Eve walk to look at the lights in the neighborhood, then went to a nearby park which was all lit up for Christmas. We drove through the light show while listening to Christmas tunes and it put us all in a festive spirit heading into the big day! I don't have any photos from the light show, but I took a ton of video which you can find in my Happy Vlogidays video!

Then it was Christmas Day! We spent the morning Skyping with my sister, who unfortunately couldn't be there with us as she had to work, and cooking and eating breakfast. Eventually we got around to opening stockings and gifts which is always so much fun. I got some amazing gifts which I'm so grateful for, and everyone seemed to enjoy the gifts I gave as well!


-Under Armour jacket
-Christmas leggings
-Socks on socks on socks
-Patriots bag
-Pokemon cards!
-Harry Potter mug
-Candy!
-Gryffindor blanket
-Elephant string craft, made by my mom!
-Decorative plate
-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban necklace
-Harry Potter Funko Pop
-Dog sneakers from Bobs
-Headphone beanie
-Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
-An ornament from my great aunt
-Headlamp
-Hat and gloves


-And this ornament that my mom made!

I think my two favorite gifts that I was giver were the dog sneakers and the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban necklace! I'm seriously so obsessed with the sneakers. I've been wearing them a ton over the last few days and being ultra precious with them. They're already a bit scuffed on the toes and I want to clean them!! I've never felt this way about shoes before 😂 And the necklace is just so beautiful and intricate! If you open it up there are actual excerpts from the story. Love it! I took some close ups of each of these gifts - click to get a better look!


We did our Christmas meal in the afternoon, full of all of my favorite holiday fixin's - turkey, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce! I don't think you can ever go wrong with that combo during the holidays. Shout out to my dad for doing most of the heavy lifting on this meal! We ate and chatted outside because that's the only way to do Christmas in Florida if we're really being honest. 😉



The rest of our time in Florida included a lot of lounging, a 5-6 mile bike ride with Brett and my mom, and a run across the Melbourne Causeways - the same route I will be running during the Florida Marathon next month(!!!). It was so cool to be able to run a section of the course *before* race day, which I've never had the opportunity to do, so I'm happy to have some knowledge of what to expect on race day!

Pre-run selfie with the FL Marathon sign! See you soon!



Post-5K victory selfie with my mom. We crushed it!
Pssst... I also helped my mom set up her very own blog, so go and check it out!!!

Then it was time to head up to Pittsburgh to spend the last few days of 2018 with our good friends Erin & Cullen! We got into PGH around midnight on Thursday so we came back to their apartment and quickly jumped into pajamas, but couldn't go to bed before showing them the latest episode of SMACKDOWN! We were going to see Smackdown Live that Saturday so Brett and I were doing some educating on what to expect from the WWE. Basically, just a lot of ridiculousness.




We spent most of the day Friday lounging, catching up, and hitting up our favorite Pittsburgh eateries, including Baby Love Tacos and Industry (which has an amazing giant pretzel that is basically the pretzel of my dreams). We also stopped by GameStop to pick up Mario Party for the Switch because we knew it would be an amazing party game for the four of us to play. I also found a Baby Funko Pop, so Erin suggested I put her in a corner.

I don't think anyone got this joke on my InstaStory haha
Saturday was SMACKDOWN DAY and omg... it was amazing. Unfortunately I was feeling quite sick before we left for the event, but I managed to power through and ended up having an amazing time. We got to see so many of our faves - The New Day, Jeff Hardy, Naomi, and my ultimate fave, Becky Lynch, tagging with FREAKING JOHN CENA!!! I can't believe we were able to be there for that match. It was awesome. We were a little bummed that we only got to see a backstage clip of The Miz, but that just means we gotta go back to Smackdown again in the future. If you want to see the whole show we were there for, you can watch the episode on Hulu. 😉









Sunday was another lazy day that was complete with what we starting to call "Grandpa Joe"-ing. Essentially, Erin & Cullen's couch was pulled into a bed the entire time we were there and the four of us would watch TV under one giant blanket together and we felt like the grandparents from Charlie & the Choloate factory. It became sort of a lifestyle for us during the trip. 😂 We spent the whole day watching football and playing Mario Party, which was the perfect lazy Sunday after a crazy night at Smackdown. 😂

Grandpa Joe Life

OBSESSED with my dog shoes

Then it was New Year's Eve! I spent most of the morning scrambling to get book #150 of 2018 read (which I successfully did!) but in the evening it was party time! We had originally planned to go to a particular bar, but when we arrived there was no space, so we instead headed to a local dive and wound up having SO MUCH FUN playing pool! We even came up with lightening round pool where each player gets 10 seconds to take their shot which was amazing and had me dying laughing. 😂





After a few hours we picked up a whole boatload of Chinese food and headed home to (you guessed it) play more MARIO PARTY! Seriously, it is such a fun game and we spent a majority of the night playing it. We rang in the New Year with drinks and laughter and it was the perfect way to say goodbye to 2018 and hello to 2019! I think it needs to be an annual tradition.




New Year's Day was SUPER lazy, as it was designed to be. We were headed home to Boston that day, so we just hung out and Grandpa Joe-d it up. Erin and Cullen showed us Overcooked on the Switch which was surprisingly fun and a game that I would love to get and play more for myself! Our flight home got delayed until 11:15 (x_x) but it was good to have some extra time to chill with our friends before heading home.


Aaaaand now we're back to reality, but not for long for me because tomorrow morning I'm back on a plane. This time I'm flying across the country to a conference in southern California. It should be really great and educational, but I'm not gonna lie, I just got a taste of my own bed last night and I'm not super pumped to be leaving it again tomorrow. 😂 I will be vlogging my trip to California and of course taking photos for the blog, so stay tuned for updates on my trip! Also make sure you're following me on Twitter and Instagram for real-time updates as well!


I hope everyone had a fantastic ending to their 2018. 
Let me know how you rang in the new year in the comments!


LINKS I LOVED THIS WEEK

Guinea Pig Olympics from Parry Gripp
100 Babies Challenge from Buzzfeed Multiplayer
Triangle Solo from The Florida Orchestra
Have one on us this holiday season from Humans of Higher Ed
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