We left right after he got home on Friday night and drove until about 10. We stopped somewhere (an hour and a half out of Boston) for the night. It was a great decision. The next morning we had a not-so-great, but free continental breakfast and were on our way.
We started off at the USS Constitution. The tour was mediocre, but the weather was perfect. We parked near there and had a four hour window, so we hopped right on a ferry to start the Freedom Trail. Well, we almost hopped right on. Unfortunately we missed the ferry by a few minutes so we decided to eat our bagels while we waited. As soon as we started eating the seagulls started swarming. They had this super distinct call, and the minute one of them let it out, 20 more birds would come and circle us. Most of you probably know that I'm terrified of ducks specifically, but any sort of fowl in general. Brad was off parking the car, so I was the only adult around to scare away the birds and I was lousy at it. Brad got back saw/heard me panicking, and I'm pretty sure I embarrassed him. He denied later, but in the moment, he sort of hissed at me that there were people around. :) I'm afraid that I inadvertently passed my fear of fowl onto Annie that day because today when we were walking into the store, Annie saw a seagull and said, "Those seagulls were swarming us in Boston. They wanted our bagels!"
The Freedom Trail was really fun despite the fact that we'd both walked it before. I love our country and I love thinking about its founding. And, have I mentioned it was a beautiful day for a walk? Just cold enough to justify a caramel apple cider from Starbucks. :) However, by the end of the trail, the kids had had it. We headed to our hotel and checked in just in time to realize the hotel had whatever channel the BYU game was on. We watched a few touchdowns (go Cougs!) and headed out again.
My wonderful cousin Emily works in Boston, so we hit the town with our own native Bostonian. She was cracking us up with her driving. She kept telling us that you just have drive a little aggressive in Boston, and showed us how to do it. Love it! We tried to go to this restaurant that my brother recommended in the Italian district, but they didn't take reservations and the line was FOREVER long, so we tried the oldest restaurant in America, but their wait was super long too, and they weren't super keen on kids, so we bagged those ideas and went to a GREAT pizza place Emily recommended.
This turned out to be quite the experience! We had the rudest waitress I have ever encountered. So rude it was comical. As soon as we were seated, she came over and asked if we were ready to order. We said that we weren't quite ready, and she said, "You're not ready yet?" and rolled her eyes and walked away. She came back not two minutes later and was again disgusted that we hadn't figured out what we wanted yet. After that, we were on the black list and she didn't come back for about 1/2 hour. When she finally came back with the food, she handed us about 10 paper plates (there were 5 of us), 3 cups and 3 sets of silverware. We didn't dare point out the discrepancies. I got a serious case of the giggles about her. So glad we got some true Boston attitude while we were there.
The next day we went to church (stake conference - what bad luck! You should never have to make your kids sit through someone else's stake conference!), and then met up with our friends Aaron and Alaina after. They were so nice and invited us over for lunch! We had some great pumpkin chili soup (email me for the recipe - I made sure to get it), wonderful conversation, and one rousing game of Uno (Annie's new fav game). It was so great to catch up with them! Brad and I were both friends with Aaron at BYU and we think Alaina is fantastic!
That evening we got into that restaurant from the Italian district that my brother recommended and it totally lived up to expectations!
The next day Brad was planning to spend all day at the conference, so I took the kids into Harvard Square (made significantly harder due to EVERYTHING being shut down because of the tiny bit of rain and wind) to the only Curious George store in the world. I thought this would be SO fun for Annie because she LOVES that monkey, but instead she spent most of the time throwing a gigantic fit because I wouldn't buy her 3 books, only 1. James loved it though. When we got back to the hotel Brad called to say that his conference (and hence presentation :( ) was cancelled for Sandy. We left immediately. The drive home was SO scary! I was really grateful we left at 2 and not 7 like we'd planned. It was so rainy and windy at that point. Brad did a great job getting us home safely!!! And as Annie told our friend a few days later, "God protected us!"
(Only picture of Annie in the Curious George store because she was too busy running around crying.)
2 comments:
Sounds like a fun trip! I wish I still had you with me to get me to laugh about rude people instead of get mad at them. :)
I had no idea you were in town. If you are ever up here for a conference again, let me know. I'd be happy to show you around.
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