Mystic and Salem

Hello Everyone!  Welcome back to the blog! I apologize that it's been SO LONG - life out here is just so very very fast paced! First and foremost allow me to update you on how our everyday lives are going.  We both keep super busy.  Rich has been doing a LOT of work - his days are crazy busy and he often brings his work home with him.  It's kind of a bummer during the week because I feel like he's got all of these deadlines he has to meet - which he does.  But it's ok because he tries to take it easy on the weekends.  He's just had a very busy last few weeks.

I have officially started my new job!  My official job title is "Cooking Teacher" and I have taught at 3 different schools in Wilton this past week.  The school system is a little funny out here (mainly in Wilton).  They have a K-2 school called Miller Driscoll, then they have a school from grades 3-5 and it's called Cider Mill, then the Jr. High/Middle School is called Middlebrook (grades 6,7, and 8) and then they have their High School called Wilton High.  I taught M-Th this week (assisting my boss Maria mostly)  at Miller Driscoll (MD), Cider Mill (CM) and Middlebrook.  The below pictures are of 4th grade girls (not all of the classes were all girls - this one just happened to be all 4th graders and all girls).

This past week we made recipes with apples because they're in season.  They made a Maple Apple Bacon pizza and Apple Pie Monkey Bread.  They were both SUUUUPER tastey and I can provide recipes upon request!  And the kids LOVED them!   That bottom picture was all I got of the dessert...it was eaten too quickly!  We only have an hour to cook (if the kids are little, then we only do one meal), so it was kinda crazy sometimes!

Also - Maria does classes where the kids get to decorate houses (Gingerbread style) seasonally.  So she is having me help her assemble a bunch of "haunted houses" and this is the first one that I made. (sorry about the messy counter in the background)

I'm just so happy to be teaching again - it brings a lot of fulfillment to my life.  I will be starting a class at the catholic school hear in town (called Our Lady of Fatima) TOMORROW and I'll be on my own (without Maria) so I think it will be fun to manage it on my own and do it kinda my way.

We recently (like.....a month ago) did a sealings in the Boston temple.  It was really pretty and lovely and peaceful and.  Afterwards we went to dinner at Texas Roadhouse which was deliciously familiar (haven't had that since our time in UT)!  I just thought I'd throw that in before I forgot.

Bilbo is doing great.  He turned 1 on August 1st and we adopted him sometime in Sept of last year so he's been our boy for officially a year now.  His most recent obsession that he loves to do indoors these days is stare out the window.

Exibit A: Bilbo stares at the people, animals and unidentified objects that are out in front of our apartment building.

Exhibit B: The dog insists on sitting on the couch to inspect the outside world even after being outside and when slightly wet from playing in the water (hence the towel).

Exibit C: Bilbo falls asleep on towel because his energy has been expelled on all of the mysterious and wonderful things that exist in the outdoors (and because the towel is soft).

He's just cute.  And I have no shame at all in admitting that I'm very obsessed with him (and so is Rich - he's probably actually MORE obsessed than I am).

A few weeks ago I spent a few days tending a little boy (and a few teenage boys) in the ward named Karl.  He was adorable and was constantly watching power rangers.  He also refused to wear clothes (see below).  While I got paid decently for the job it was a little awwwwkward because while Karl was 3...the other boys were 15 and 17 and it was a little weird.  I felt like I wasn't totally needed there because the boys were definitely old enough to take care of themselves.

But hey- Karl's a cutie!!

So yeah I do quite a bit of babysitting on the side.  It's pretty crazy how expensive it is to live out here - it's super uncommon for families to have only one spouse working a job.  And if there IS only one spouse who works - they work in the city where the money is.  One family I enjoy working for in the ward is the Winegar family.  They have 4 sweet kids who are just lots of fun!  I've posted pics tending with them before.  But the week after I tended Karl, I was at the Winegars for a few days tending them.  

Here's a lovely selfie waiting for Rich to come pick me up after the kids had gone off to school.

Rich and I also, a few weeks ago, went to a carnival here Wilton (like 3 minutes away at the high school) for one reason only - to ride the Ferris Wheel.  

We took like 3 or 4 dorky pictures before I finally said "RICH BE NORMAL" and we got this one...even though it still isn't our best haha.  It was a chilly evening (one of the first pre official Fall) so the air was crisp and refreshing.  The chill kept the crowds down too (which Rich appreciated).  We walked around the football feild at the school when we were done because I couldn't handle going on any of the other rides - which were way too "spinny" - I'd probably die!

Okay - so this weekend we took a quick little getaway trip to SALEM, MA!  I'd been itching to go since I knew we were moving to New England!  It was one of the first places I knew I wanted to visit - probably even more than NYC.  And let me tell you IT WAS WORTH IT!  But before I get ahead of myself...let me back up a bit.  So Salem is about a 3.5 hour hour drive from where we live in CT, so to break it up, we decided to stop in a town called Mystic, CT - where people had recommended we go for the Seaport and history there.

When we got there, we weren't exactly sure what we were going to do.  The Seaport was pretty expensive, but we were feeling "splurgy" and we found some discounted tickets at "The Olde Mistick Village" and decided we could check it out for a few hours.  We didn't really know what it was, but when we got there we discovered that it's a beautiful dock and indoor/outdoor museum.

 Ok so you're probably wondering what the white powder is and what the white block is behind the white powder.  No it's not cocaine.  It's called, as the label shows "Spermaceti" which we learned was a VERY valuable and fine type of oil used to make candles and burned very cleanly in lamps.  Mystic used to be a very busy "Whaler" town - where whaling ships would port and bring in their valuables.  So we learned a bit about whaling (as in Moby Dick style whaling).  The way they would do it is they would go out at sea, spot the whale (usually Sperm whales) from afar, get in smaller boats called chasers (I think) (again...think Moby Dick) and they would take their harpoons (which some of them had explosives in them) and they would go out and butcher/exhaust the whale and then DRAG IT BACK to the main ship.  It was GRUELING work!  Talk about a dirty job, Mike Rowe. 

So then after they would drag it back somehow, they would rip of the bottom jaw, hoist that aboard and then harvest the rest of the whale in pieces.  The Spermaceti oil comes from inside the skull of the whale - which the whale would somehow use to help stabilize the water pressure as it swam deeper.  A guy working at the Seaport told us that we ought to watch the new Heart of the Sea movie with Chris Hemsworth about Moby Dick - he said it portrays whaling very acurately.

Gross right?  There were a lot of pictures of it and it really just looked like the worst job in the world.  Rich and I kept saying to each other - "couldn't do it" because not only would it be such hard and exhausting work, but on top of that, the sailors were at sea for MONTHS at a time...and we both experienced seasickness on our cruise, so I think I probably would have just died.  Ha!  Anyway...now that you know all about whaling....here are some pictures.

So...there's a picture of a Sperm whale...compliments of google.

This is a picture of the restored ship the Charles Morgan or The Morgan.  We took a tour inside.

Captain Rich aboard the Charles Morgan.

If Rich really were the captain of this ship, above would be his wife's (my) quarters.  The real captain had this built on the main deck for his young wife who suffered seasickness.  There was a journal entry which read "I didn't make the entire journey...the seasickness was dreadful and the deck smells of blubber..."  I would hate to be a sea captain's wife....poor Elizabeth Swan.

The following three pictures are of the captains quarters.  It was by far the largest of the quarters.  The crew had to sleep in the TINIEST little cots....blegh.

Anyway...below are some more pictures of our adventure in the Mystic Seaport.

I thought the painting was beautiful but someone had to photobomb...

Rich took this picture of all the harpoons and the different sizes.

We were sitting on the dock relaxing when I noticed this perfect little (and by little...I mean a mansion) house across the port.  

In case you wondered how big an anchor actually is...it's bigger than I am.  And if you look behind me you can see a Sperm whale replica.

Tiny little lighthouse.  You can see the "perfect mansion" in the background of that picture if you look closely.

Rich called this room "the coolest thing I've ever seen".  These are all REAL restored Figureheads from actual boats and ships.  They were all named different things.  

Here's a lovely little stained glass.

After we were done in the seaport we went to Mystic Pizza - which was super yummy and where apparently a Julia Roberts film was made...it was a pleasant surprise to us.  But if you're ever visiting Mystic, CT - make sure to check out the seaport and also Mystic Pizza!

It's a real movie and it's apparantly rated R which is probably why I haven't seen it.

Okay...onto the good stuff.  SALEM.

So we got there at about 6:30 and our tour started at 7:00.  So we had just enough time to take a quick visit to the Old Burial Point (the 2nd oldest graveyard in the US).

 So these were all taken just before we started our Witch City Walking Tours (<---best tour in Salem, MA btw if any of you ever decide to go).  I didn't get any pictures of the Salem Witch Memorial (a memorial to all of the men and women who were innocent and were killed upon accusations of Witchcraft), but it was built right up next to the cemetery.  The memorial faces the section of the graveyard where many of the council members are buried who sentenced them so that they can "gaze upon the innocent blood they've spilt for eternity".  I thought that was an eery and interesting tidbit.  Each and every one of the people killed in the Salem Witch Trials were in fact innocent.  None of them were buried in the Old Burial Point cemetery because they at the time were not seen as "holy enough" to have a proper burial so no one knows where their bodies lie - which is why they have in recent years build the memorial.

Anyway...we started our tour at Old Towne Hall - which in Hocus Pocus is where the parents go to their Halloween Party and dance away the night.  We walked around the oldest streets of Salem where we were told the story of the "Lady in Blue".  She was a young girl killed in the streets by accident by her lover and he and her "master" hid her body in the tunnels under the city.  Her ghost is said to be seen walking the streets to this day.  --SPOOKY--

 This picture was taken the following morning, but that's what the streets in Salem look like.  

These above pictures are of the Ropes Mansion in Salem or "Allison's House" from Hocus Pocus.  At this part of the tour it got pretty spooky...when our tour guide told us the story of Abigail - who when crazy after her sister died and then burned to death on the second floor of the building.  It is said that you can still hear her screaming at night...--SPOOKY-- (I acutally started to get way scared) We were in the back garden and it was super dark at that point of the tour so her story was even creepier!

This is the "Witch House" - where when the home was moved over a few yards  in later years after the trials, construction workers found an entire male skeleton in the base of the fireplace.  They discovered it was the sherriff of the town who was notoriously mean and vicious- he was nicknamed "The Strangler".  His body was hidden there (I can't remember who hid it).  The witch house is restored and is one of the last standing structures left in Salem from back when the Witch Trials took place.  It belonged to a wealthy family - the way the windows are was a style only the rich could afford.

Ok so I lied - I did get a picture of one of the memorials.  This is the memorial for John Proctor who was hanged for Witchcraft.  Rich took this picture because Daniel Day Lewis (Rich's fav actor) plays John Proctor in The Crucible (which is another movie we're planning to watch soon).  You can see that it says "hanged".  On the memorial of Giles Corey - instead of hanged it says "pressed to death".  When he was accused - he wouldn't admit to anything (yay or nay) and kept silent during his trial.  To try to get words out of him, the council slowly put a pounds and pounds slabs of stone on his chest to try to get him to talk to which he would only reply "more weight" and he was eventually PRESSED TO DEATH (the only man in the trails to die of this death).  His dying words were that "Salem town will drink blood" and he cursed the sheriff - the mean, vicious one known as the strangler.  The way our guide told the story - she said that the sheriff stood on top of 700 lbs of stone and jumped up and down until Giles Corey died.  And to this day - there is NO SHERIFF to the town of Salem (they have a commissioner or something instead) because all of the sheriff's since that time all mysteriously died of some kind of BLOOD/HEART disorder!!  (Salem will drink blood) It was pretty spooky stuff!

I took it all with a grain of salt...you never know what is hearsay and what is actual fact.  But it was a LOT of spooky fun and now I just can't wait for all things Halloween!!

This is Max's house from Hocus Pocus.  At the end when they open up Winnie's book the top part all glows....yeah.  Anyway...I think it's just some normal residential house!  It ironically was on a street called Ocean Avenue (<----click the link for your listening pleasure....the song is about a road in California...not in Massachusetts lol).  You can't see in the photo (or in the movie) but just to the right is a big harbor...lots of boats a beach....I guess it's called Ocean Ave for a reason.

Anyway...Rich went to bed and I'm just finishing up and all this spooky talk has made me a little scared!  So I think I will go to bed too after I read a happy Conference Talk or read some scripture!

Loves, Tara (and Rich)