Just a Saturday (or two)

    Last Saturday my house hosted the JVC East Coast region Father's Day party. It was a fantastic blast!!! We were joined by friends and coworkers from here in the 'Cuse and members of four other JVC communities. Even my best friend Emily came from Boston to hang out!

Grilling attempt.

All 7 of us!

Lovely ladies in my life.

Hey friends!

Sittin on the roof, don't worry, we were safe.

    This Saturday, Jacqueline and I enjoyed the day together and took part in many Syracuse summer fun adventures! We had quite the packed day...Syracuse pride parade and festival at the Inner Harbor, Polish festival downtown, productive trip to Goodwill, cheap pizza eaten in the back of the car, and of course...Gannon's ice cream! Oh, we also made time for watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, attending mass, and ended the delightful day with drinking wine while watching The Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood.

Family adventures-Syracuse style

   The Shaver clan took to the 'Cuse! Momma, Dad, and Mags all came to Syracuse for a visit this past weekend. They arrived on Thursday night and after volunteering at my job for our dinner meal (very hectic I might add) I took them to our favorite local bar, Blarney Stone, in the Irish neighborhood. They treated my community and got to meet everyone that I have been talking about for the past ten months.

     On Friday we visited almost everything significant in downtown Syracuse. I believe a list might be best here:

• Columbus Circle
• Armory Square
• Erie Canal Museum
• Taste of Syracuse in Clinton Square
• Onondaga Historical Association museum
• St. Sophia's Greek festival   

     Saturday's agenda:

• Regional Market
• Heid's hot dogs
• Westcott area walking art tour
• Everson Museum Funky Flea Market
• Mass at St. Patrick's
• Kelley's restaurant
• Gannon's Ice Cream

     And Sunday....NIAGARA FALLS!!!! My family and four other members of my community all hit the highway in search of waterfalls, the big ones! We enjoyed the falls and Maid of the Mist while it was overcast and then just before we took the pedestrian bridge to Canada it started raining. We used the complimentary ponchos and told the US Border patrol people "we were in Canada for like 30 minutes just walking around" when they asked us why we had visited. Oh, and by the way you have to pay 50 cents to get back into the US, rude! My family drove home after Niagara and my community came back to Syracuse. I think I can say very honestly that we had a great time together and were all quite exhausted by the amount of walking we did. My crazy wonderful family is back in Ohio and I have two more months here in Syracuse. Here are some photos, a select few of the 100+ I took in a four day time period, as evidence of our adventures!

Katrina, me, Elizabeth, Jacqueline at Blarney Stone.

Classic family, get it together!

At the Erie Canal Museum. We rocked it.

Checking out the Syracuse glass company exhibit at the Onondaga Historical Association.

Love.him.

Heid's hot dogs and coneys for lunch.

At Heid's.

Gannon's ice cream. Delightful!

Community at Niagara Falls. Jacqueline, Paige, Elizabeth, Brendan.

That's us.

Family over the Falls.

Niagara Falls.

On Maid of the Mist.

Ponchos are the new thing.

View from Canada!

Canadian side.

Sisters.

The other Portland-Memorial Day weekend

     I love three day weekends! For Memorial Day the Portland, Maine JV house hosts the party. Elizabeth, Katrina and I piled into the car at 6:30am on Saturday and drove seven hours to one of the cutest cities I have seen yet! We arrived and took to the downtown! They have some of the cutest coffee shops and stores along the main roads which are very tourist/pedestrian friendly. I believe that Portland's nickname is actually Vactionland because so many people come to visit. We walked around and smelled the sweet and salty air; I of course took pictures and dragged behind the group a bit getting caught behind my camera lens. 

     Saturday evening we celebrated Memorial Day early with several of the JVs from the East Coast. Representatives from the communities in Boston, Newark, Scranton, Harlem, Brooklyn, Bridgeport and of course Syracuse and Portland were all there to hang out and enjoy the holiday. On Sunday morning some of us went and had a delicious breakfast at a local diner called Becky's. Apparently Becky is a real person, she started the restaurant, and she still works the night shift there. Sunday afternoon we went to Cape Elizabeth and walked around on the rocks overlooking the second-most-photographed-lighthouse in the US. Before the three of us girls headed out of town and back to Syracuse we made a pit stop at Trader Joe's! Oh how I have missed Trader Joe's.

Fantastic wall art in Portland.

Olivia (Newark JV).

Representing SLU on the East Coast! Erinn and Ryan.

Second most photographed lighthouse in the US.
Fort Williams Park in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.

#portlandmaineportlandlove

    We drove back Sunday evening and therefore had Memorial Day off work and back in Syracuse. It felt so great to sleep in and have a chill morning. Some of us went over to Elizabeth's coworker's house to help her mow her lawn. I was surprised by how great it felt to do some yard work! She repaid us by having us over for a cookout later that day. I totally rocked the charcoal grill if I do say so myself! Overall, a glorious weekend with lots of friends and sunshine!