Archive for May 2nd, 2008

2 May

Believe it or not, more Boston

Posted by Rebecca in Family.

Saturday was our last night in Boston, and we went out with a bang. Katie took us to the Barking Crab, an open-air seafood restaurant on the harbor. The atmosphere was great–marine-varnished picnic tables, old fishnet lanterns, great local beer and a (very loud) live band.

The seafood was fantastic, too, thought we all agreed that we should never divulge the cost of this meal. After all, we had to crack the crab legs with a rock. That’s right–no tools, just a stone.

I really wish I had a photo of Katie covered with lobster insides–she forgot to cover the lobster with a paper plate before cracking the tail from the body…with the rock, of course. As I was not the one covered in what I can only imagine to be crustacean poop, I thought it was hilarious. Thank goodness for those wet-wipes they leave at your table.

This is the “crab bowl”–three different kinds of crab, some local, some Alaskan. All delicious.

The nice thing about a loud live band is that the kids don’t even try to compete. Olivia was content the entire time; Ava loved the “wobster.”

It was the perfect end to a wonderful trip.

2 May

Wild weather

Posted by Rebecca in Wild weather.

By late afternoon yesterday, temperatures had reached 85. By 6 pm or so, the sky to the north east started to darken and the National Weather Service issued a tornado watch. A couple of hours later, a storm developed to the southwest, though we didn’t hold much hope for rain–a large lake in that area usually causes even the most organized storm to split in two and go around our part of the city.

It quickly became apparent, though, that wasn’t the case this time. Here are a few photos I snapped around 8 p.m.

The storm passed without much fanfare, and we went to bed a bit later.

At 1 a.m., I awoke to a terrible storm–there was near constant lightening, roaring thunder and wind so strong I was afraid our open windows were going to break off. I’m sure my senses were heightened because of the midnight wake-up call, but it was really scary! We grabbed the girls and headed down to the basement. We turned on the TV to find that we were in a tornado warning–there was radar-indicated rotation in our area. We could hear the doors and windows rattling upstairs, and Bryan said the trees he saw on the way down looked like they were going to blow over.

It was all over within 45 minutes, and we didn’t lose a single tree (or window!). Two city residents claimed to have seen a tornado, but the trained spotters in the area did not. The National Weather Service said the storm produced straightline winds up to 80 miles an hour. Incredible!

I saw about seven or eight downed trees on the way into work, but all in all, the damage was surprisingly minimal.