Boston - Thursday (Day 6)

Thursday after much discussion and nashing of teeth, we decided to take a day off. We found a movie theater close to the hotel, hopped on to the subway and went to see The Hunger Games. It was kind of chilly, so not a super pleasant day to walk, anyway. After that, we came back to the room, ordered pizza for the kids and Kevin and I went out to dinner at Mossimino's. The waiter was quite dramatic. Wish we could have videoed him! Then we walked aroun Little Italy and passed Mike's Pastrys. So, we had to go in, of course!

I informed the kiddos to get ready, beause Friday is our last day and we are NOT sitting in the hotel room. I think they are done! It's been great, but there is so much to see here and they are just worn out.

Boston - Wednesday (Day 5)

Today we took the subway. We have taken subways before, but this was the first time in Boston. As we were standing there staring at all of our options, a subway worker took pity on us. We were trying to figure out whether to get a day pass or week pass. Anyway, we probably overpaid, but...
We got on the train and had to transfer to get to the JFK Memorial museum and library. Once we got to our stop we had to wait for a bus to take us there. The museum is on the UMass campus, which is in a beautiful location. It's on a peninsula off too itself. There were fake coyote statues all over the grounds. We were tring to figure that out. Kevin said it was to keep the seagulls away. Hmmmm? Will have to check into that.

We arrived at the museum. It sits right next to the water and is beautiful. This first thing that you do is watch a video about JFK's upbringing and his background. They showed him being rescued from his PT boat accident. We think we saw my Uncle Clyde on the rescue boat, which was really cool. The film ended with him being elected. The rest of the museum walked you through his life. There was a section that showed him historically and then Jacqueline Kennedy's behind the scences comments. She was interviewed several months after his death about what it was like in the White House. Those tapes were kept in a vault until after her death when her daughter decided it was time to release those to the public. It was a neat perspective. Not much time was spent on his death. Basically, they showed the news footage with Walter Cronkite announcing it and a small portion of the funeral.

The museum took quite a while, so our plans to go to the Aquqrium feel through. We decided to walk the markets at Faneuil Hall. After that we headed back to the room. Our days out are ending around 6 or 7. I'm assuming that things close early here, because we are here during the off season. Although, I don't know that anyone could really go any longer, after walking all day!

Boston Day 4 - Tuesday

Tuesday we car in the car and drove to Salem. This was a beautiful old church across the street from the visitors center there.

Salem was not at all what we expected. First of all, Salem Village is where the witch hunt began. Salem Seaport area is where all the tourist things are. The trials took place in the seaport area, but all the activity before that was actually taking place in Salem Village, which doesn't appear to esxists anymore. It's called Danver now. We found all this out at the end of the day when we were watching a high quality film on the witch trials. Ha! Itwas very informative, though. Michael told me that he had seen one of the "actors" on another documentary he had seen on the History channel. Another Ha!

The first house that we visited was the witch house. It wasn't acutally the house where a "witch" lived. It's the house where the judge who tried the witches lived.

After leaving there we walked through the Salem downtown area. It kind of reminded us of an older/non-updated franklin with a lot of witch shops, tarot cards and palm readers. yuck!

We walked through there to get to the wharf area. On the way to the wharf we passed the cemetary where one of the Mayflower passengers was buried. There was also a memorial for the 21 people who were hanged during the with trial. Oh, 20 hanged. 1 was pressed to death.

We stopped for lunch at a place along the wharf. Took way too long to get our food! Then we headed to the House of Seven Gables - which now has 4. Apparently, there were 2 additions to the original house, then another owner wanted to make it look more like the style of the other houses and took one of the additions away. Have you ever heard of someone wanting their house to be smaller?!

Right across the street from the house is the 1st candy company in America, so we had to go in! They had a giant chocolate Easter bunny that cost $599 dollars and was 40 something lbs of chocolate. We did not buy that, however, we did get a sampling of their candy.

We walked back to the visitor's cener and ended our day with a film about the witch trials. It was called: Salem Witch Hunt, Examining the Evidence. I learned a lot, since I did not love history in school.

We drove back to Boston, via a suburb that we didn't intend to go to. Gotta love technology. Our intent was to go to a Legal Seafood near our hotel. After driving an hour our way we eventually ended up at the Legal Seafood in Boston neat the aquarium. Kevin and Em both had their first whole lobster. While sitting there, I was looking out the window and saw a rat run across the street. Ack! I'm sure that we have then in Nashville, I've just never seen one.

Today, it's the JFK library and possibly the aquarium or Fanueuil Hall. Not getting in as much as we think we can in a day!

Boston on Monday (Day 3)

Monday we picked up where we left off of the Freedom Trail. We walked down to the Trolley Stop at the USS Constitution and hoped off at the Old State House where we ended on Monday.

fF

From there we walked to the Old South Meeting House. This was the church where the people would go after the Town Meetings in Faneuil Hall and continue their discussions that ultimately led to the Revolutionary war. We walked on to King's Chapel cemetary ( I think this is the oldest Cemetary in

Boston) and then on to Boston Common.

The building with the gold dome is the State House. From there we boarded the Trolley again and headed to Cambridge. We had to transfer trolleys and were dropped off at Harvard Square. We went to

Bartley's Burgers (on Diner's, Drive-ins and Dives), met Mr. and Mrs. Bartely and ordered Tom Brady, Mitt Romney and Joe Biden Burgers. Yep. We walked around the Harvard campus. We ran out of time to go to the museum of Natural History. We were bummed about that. The trolley is a great option for getting around, but unfrotunately they stop running at 5 which makes it difficult.

Boston - Day 2

Today was a walking day. We decided to walk the Freedom trail after finding out that a lot of things on the Harvard tour were closed.

We walked over the Charlestown Bridge. It's a metal grate bridge. You can see through it to the water. Emily and Kevin did not like that at all.

Once over the bridge we were in the North End of Boston. This is also known as Little Italy. We toured the Copps Hill Burial Ground.

We then walked down the street to the Old North Church. This is the church where lantern was lit to warn the people that "the British are coming".

After leaving there we kept seeing people carrying "Mike's Pastry" boxes and ended up passing it on the way to our next stop. We have to go in. There was a line out the door, but some kind person had pity on us and told us that there really wasn't a line. Once we got in the door we could just work our way to an open spot at the counter. It was packed! They had 15 or 16 Cannoli choices. The picture is of a peanut butter/chocolate cananoli. Oh. My. Goodness. So yummy. I think we will have to stop by there at least one more time before leaving here.

After eating our cannoli's we went to Paul Revere's house. It was 2 story and appeared to be rather large for a house from that time. Down stairs there was a kitchen and then a large living/dinner room with a huge fireplace. Upstairs there were 2 bedrooms. The master bedroom was rather large. In addition to the bed there was a table and chairs. The room next to that was the mother-in-law's room. Not sure where the children slept.

On our way to Faneuil Hall, we passed the Holocaust Memorial. There were 6 glass tower representing each concentration camp. On each tower was 1,000,000 numbers for each person that died there. So sad. This picture is looking up through one of the memorials.

Next to this was Faneuil Hall. It's a large marketplace with food, shops and Faneuil Hall. Faneuil Hall was where town meeting were held and became the "focus of Revolutionary activity in Boston". We are going go back and revisit that, since the kiddos were starting to wear down.

Our last stop of the day was the Old State House. This is where the Boston Massacre occured and the Declaration of Independence was read aloud from the balcony a few days after July 4th, 1776. They still read it every year from the balcony on July 4th. From here we decided that we were done for the day. Tomorrow we will pick up from here and tour Harvard/Cambridge.

Boston for Spring Break

This year for Spring Break, we let Michael choose where he wanted to go, since Emily gets to go to Italy this summer. :) Since there is so much to see here, I am going to blog after a 2 year hiatis. LOL!

So, Saturday morning started at 5:00 AM. We got up and headed to the airport for a 8:00 AM flight. Our tickets said that our flight was non-stop, but found out that we were flying to Baltimore first. Fortunately, we didn't have to change planes. So what do they put on your ticket when you don't really stop?

We left Tennessee 70 and 80 degree weather and landed in a misty, snowy 39 degree Boston. Some of us were not very happy about that. I'm guessing you know who!

We got our rental car and headed to Residence Inn near the Nort End of Boston. We are very close to the USS Constitution and Little Italy.

Our room was not ready so the lady at the front desk suggested that we go on a Trolley Tour of Boston. So, we bought our 3 day pass and went in search of food.

We ate at lunch and people watched. We saw lots of runners and families out walking. We saw lots of dogs! Gotta love that! And we saw a group of teenage boys smoking a joint. Yep.

After lunch we walked to our trolley stop and got on the Upper Deck Trolley Tour. Our tour guide's name was Bill O'Brien and he is a native Bostonian. He was awesome. He reminded us a little of Cliff Clavin from Cheers.

The tour was around 2 1/2 hours longs. He passed along many facts about Boston. He also had a typed up list of things that we should see while here. Love it!

Some of the interesting facts from our tour....

-Apparently, Dunkin' Donuts is huge here. We saw 17 stores on our route. I'm sure we missed a few.

-He told us about the Great Molasses Flood. It killed 21 people and injured 150. Crazy. There's a book about it called Dark Tides.

-He loves the Red Sox, but it's a shame that it costs so much to go to a game now. It cost a family of 4 $300- $400 dollars with parking and food. He really lamented that!

-Apparently, there are only 2 Republicans on the whole island of Cambridge. So we doubled that while we were there. Ha!

-Paul Revere was married for 15 years and had 16 children. wow.

-Observation - drivers in Boston are not very patient. Just sayin'

Our favorite "Bill" quotes:

-"That person must be in a coma" referring to a driver in front of us.

-"This used to be an ugly, rat infested place"

-"Know what I'm saying?'

-"Look here"

- "Ladies and Gentlemen"

After our tour, we headed to our room. Michael and Emily fell asleep and Kevin and I watched the Cats and Cards play in the Final Four.

We ordered in food from a restauant in Little Italy. It was called Paolo's Trattoria. It was yummy!

Today is the walking tour including Faneuil Hall. High of 51 today.

Summer 2010 - Week 3

This was the Kids On Stage week. Emily had been looking forward to this since last summer. I spent the week driving between home and Leiper's Fork. It's a beautiful drive, but by Friday, I was done. She spent the week in Song Writing and the Elite Vocal Jazz Ensemble. She loved camp and really enjoyed the Jazz Ensemble, even though she wasn't sure about it initially. I can't get that song to upload, but here's the song that she and the girls in her song writing group wrote called "Wake Up". It's very catchy.

First 2 weeks of summer

The first two weeks of summer, we had nothing planned. It was nice. I started organizing the house, we visited the pool, worked out at the "Y" and I planted a small garden on a very hot day. I had to remove the sod, build the box (it was a kit), break up the dirt, put more soil in the box and plant. I planted 2 tomato plants, 1 cucumber, rosemary, basil and a jalapeno plant.

This picture is about 2 weeks after the initial planting...

The last day of school!

The picture on the left is from the first day of school for both. It's the first day of middle school for Michael. The picture on the right is from the last day of school and the last day of middle school for Emily. Time flies...

6th grade Awards ceremony

Today was the 6th grade awards ceremony at the middle school. Michael got an award for all "As" for the year. His best bud from church got one, too. As you can see, he dressed up for the occassion!

The Fermatas

Emily at Rocketown

Emily along with 12 others performed at RCKTWN on Sunday night. It was students of Emily's voice teacher and Kid's on Stage. The band was awesome and it was one of the last show's at RCKTWN before being torn down. :( They will be moving to a new location that is not in the way of the new Nashville Convention Center.

Page Middle Band concert

The middle school band had their Spring Concert on April 15th. They played 4 songs. This is one of them...

Day 4 - Costa Rica Spa Day

Day 4 was our day to relax. It started with a walk on the beach, then we went to the pool and planted ourselves. Then we had appointments at the spa. I got a 75 minute facial - fabulous! Kevin was going to get a facial, but he changed it to a pedicure (his first) and I think he kind of liked it. After that, we went back to the pool and stayed there the rest of the day plotting how to get the kids shipped down to us...

Day 3 - Costa Rica: The Zip Line

Day 3 started out much like Day 2. The birds and monkeys started making noise about 4:00 am. This time, I woke up early. After Kevin got up, I took some picture from our floor and then we went for a stroll on the beach.

I thought these were monkey footprints, but now I'm thinking they belong to a raccoon, since we saw one on the beach the first night.

The cacti were scattered on the hills.

We really didn't see many shells on the beach. it was mostly rocks and coral. I was going to bring some coral home, but then read later that it was illegal to remove anything from the beach. I really didn't want to end up in a prison in Costa Rica!

After our walk, we came back to the room and had breakfast delivered. Can I just say that their version of skim milk is...interesting. It did not taste right. If it came from the skinny cows that we saw on the way to the resort, I can understand why!

This was our day for the zip line. The day that Kevin has been dreading for two months now - ever since he picked the activities that we would participate in for the trip. For those of you who know him well, he is terrified of heights! He started plotting ways to either avoid or survive the adventure. Some of those included "maybe it will rain that day" or "maybe I'll ask for some medication from the doctor to help me through it". Neither of those happened.

We headed up to the lobby to meet up with the group. When we got there, we were asked to sign a waiver releasing the resort from any injuries that we might incur on the trip. Nice! Then we loaded up the buses and drove about 20 minutes to Witch's Rock Canopy Tour. As soon as we got there, we were sent to the office to sign another waiver, saying we wouldn't sue them if something happened to us. Kevin was feeling pretty confident at this point!

After signing our life away for the 2nd time, we were sent to get our gear on. It was extremely attractive and quite comfortable.

They geared up everyone, which took a little while and then said "is everyone ready to rock and roll?" Uh, are they going to give us any instruction?! We hiked up a hill and when we got to the top we got about 3 minutes of instruction - you brake with your right hand, hold on to the straps with the left, and don't put your hand in front of the thing on the wire. We felt confident and ready - ha! They snapped a shot of the entire group and we began. Check out the expression on Kevin's face. It's classic!

At about the 3rd zip, they took the individual pictures.

Kevin took this picture at the beginning of the longest and highest zip and then again about half way through.

There were a total of 11 zip lines, 2 suspension bridges(very difficult for Kevin), 4 ladders to climb and a lot of hiking! It was definitely a workout! You'll have to ask Kevin about getting stuck at the first zip and then taking out one of the workers towards the end. He did it, though! As you can see from the picture, he was very relieved when it was all over! I loved it! I am already researching places to zip line around here. I'm thinking it's going to be a girl's outing.

We went back to the Four Seasons and were very happy to lounge by the pool the rest of the afternoon. With the helmet and equipment and hiking, we got pretty hot - not to mention the fact that is was 90 something degrees.

There was a market on the beach where I bought some more "authentic" handmade items for the kids.

That evening was the Awards dinner. It was held at the golf course clubhouse. It was dark, but what we could see was beautiful. After dinner, they introduced each person and told of their accomplishments for the year. They also announced the next trip planned for 2012. Needless to say, I will be encouraging Kevin to qualify for that trip. It will be at the Four Seasons Resort in Nevis, West Indies. Can you blame me?!