Goodbye East Coast...

So we spent almost 2 months in the New England area. We got to see lots of beautiful country and visit lots of friends… some more than once!

April was pretty much filled with dinners/get-togethers with friends and family... and of course Ethan was able to get a few tournaments in at FoxWoods and Mohegan Sun.

May we had a bit more time to play.

I was lucky enough to get to see a little bit of Boston while up in the NE area. My best friend, Lindsay, and her boyfriend, Elliott, met us in Boston and we got to walk around the city to see the sights. We ate dinner at The Salty Dog in Quincy Market and topped the night off with a couple of cocktails at Cheers.

BTW – no one knew our name.

We were able to spend Aunt Phyllis’ birthday with her too!

It was nice to help her celebrate with a wonderful dinner by Chef Ma, some presents and a few balloons.

Later that week we went back into Boston for dinner with Ethan’s old Dimension Data co-workers friends. It’s always a good time with them.We had a wonderful dinner at Fire & Ice, which was a new experience for me. (Not the ‘wonderful’ part, the ‘Fire & Ice’ part.) At this restaurant, there is no real menu. There are all different types of food on ice, salad bar style. You go around and choose what food you’d like. Steak, broccoli, scallops, pasta, rice, chicken, peppers, potatoes, etc., then you take it over to the large round skillett area where 2 or 3 chefs are standing and they cook your food as you have light conversation with the person next to you. Then go back to your table eat and repeat. It’s pretty similar to Hibachi… except better.

The next weekend we drove up to Shelburne Falls, MA to camp with Dave (E’s childhood best friend), his girlfriend Cheryl and family. We did the usual camping stuff. BBQ’d, made a fire, hiked, drank beer, played horseshoes, got rained on and apparently dodged a tornado. That’s right – tornado. It was so windy that our camping buddies lost their awning on Saturday night. The weather could have been better, we had a wonderful time, and definitely a camping experience we’ll never forget!

That next Thursday we left the pups with Pops and headed to The Big Apple for another weekend with Lindsay and Elliott. We took a 4 hour train ride from Springfield, MA to Penn Station, which was another first for me. Turns out, the train is a pretty cool way to travel. Our trip to NYC was nothing short of amazing. Besides getting to spend time with my best friend twice in one month, we were able to stay in Rob & Risha’s apartment in Chelsea. For those of you who aren’t familiar with NYC (this includes me) Chelsea is the right in the city, near the Empire State Building and apparently is the gay district. What did this mean for us? Everything we needed was within walking distance, there was enough people around to make us feel not so tourist-like and there was quite a few fu fu puppy boutiques for me to drag Ethan into.

In fact, so close to the ESB that this is the view from the roof of their building.

We walked around a lot in New York, just checking out the sites. We did get to have a picnic in Central Park, ate at a few delicious restaurants (including the Foulkes family favorite Pio Pio) and have a nice brunch on Sunday. But the highlight of the trip was going to Fuerza Bruta on Friday night. This show was amazing. It’s about an hour and a half of pure craziness. It was kind of like an amped up Cirque du Soleil show, with audience participation and gallons upon gallons of water…and lots of strobe lights and techno music… and a clear ceiling that became an overhead stage as it moved up and down. Lets just say that I walked out of there dripping wet from head to toe… it was awesome.

So pardon the long (and long overdue) blog, but we were busy. We are officially headed back to Las Vegas. For how long? Who knows. Ethan will be playing the WSOP and all its surrounding events… in the meantime I’ll be playing catch up with friends in our city –

it’s been an interesting 5 months of life on the road.