Boston Strong

Back in October our Boston friends...better described as our Boston family... came to visit.  Scott, Karen, and Matthew are pretty much the best friends you can have.
 

Lucy was thrilled to have them stay with us!  Scott and his dog Bella were pretty much Lucy's favorite things in Boston.

 

As you can see Scott and Karen are the kind of people to get down on the ground and play with and enjoy little kids; ie They're Angels

Jack and Matthew were inseparable all weekend...literally...they were tangled up in wrestling matches  pretty much all weekend long.

Our other great Boston friends the Durazzanis who recently moved to Utah came to join in the fun!
Karen brought Halloween socks for EVERYONE!

We took them to a broadcast of the Music and the Spoken word with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

I had never been before and it was amazing
forgive my vanity and pride...but this picture was soooo 10 pounds ago!

The day the Brown's arrived I tried to think what Salt Lake had to offer in comparison to Boston's Freedom Trail, Bunker Hill, Lextington and Concord...I could go on and on and on.
Adorable twins were the obvious answer!


Well...adorable twins and Mountains.
Not much of those in Boston

We walked around Silver Lake enjoyed the incredible views and had a little outdoor picnic lunch (think Nutella sandwiches)

We ended our Mountain retreat with a trip to Silver Fork Lodge for their incredible hot chocolate!

{NOT PICTURED}
-Lucy very skillfully dumping her entire mug of thankfully no-so-hot hot chocolate down her front...in what seemed like slow motion

-A house full of Red Sox fans jumping up and down watching the Sox win the Pennant and advancing to the World Series...which, in case you were hiding under a rock last month the Red Sox totally dominated!  BOSTON STRONG!!!  (sorry Cards fans...Megan, Grandma Jean...that means you!)

-a mini firework show in our driveway.  Kids + poppers = major fun!

-a lot of sad Pughs when we had to say goodbye to our friends!
Thank goodness for face time!

Dear Boston:

WE MISS YOU!!!

No offence Utah, we love you...and especially the wonderful people we are surrounded by.   Our family couldn't survive this bed rest without you!

But Boston... 

I haven't been able to reset the HOME button on my GPS in my car because part of me will always be at home in Boston.

We miss walks on the Esplanade along the Charles River

We miss Mike's Pastry Shop.  Mmmmm bed rest with cannoli's would be awesome.

We miss Hanover street and all the North End charm

We miss Regina Pizzeria picnics downtown

We miss Jack's fabulous Kindergarten teacher!  

  

We miss Jack's hippie after school drum teacher

We miss cute Miss Sara and her awesome legwarmers

We miss the neighborhood boys (they are really a very happy crew)

We miss our best friends next door

We miss our wonderful neighbor/surrogate mother for Jack, Marian, and Lucy

We miss my violin students!  They were such a wonderful part of our lives.

We miss our Boston Friends (those pictured and many more)

We miss all the beauty and fun that you had to offer

Boston we love you!

p.s. We miss Beantown sports too...but getting rid of Terri Francona and Theo Epstein (and hence a successful Red Sox team) has made it a little more bearable.  Thanks for that.

Sculling

I am in my living room surrounded by boxes and bare walls.  The packers are finishing up in the kitchen and I wanted to make one last post before the internet is cut and everything is all packed up and trucked to storage in Utah for some undisclosed amount of time.


Chad has been wanting to change jobs for quite sometime.  I've told him that he owes his new job to me.  You see the last major thing I had on my Boston bucket list was to take a sculling class.  Just a few days after I signed up Chad had his first interview with his future company.  Coincidence?  I think not.



We live right on the Charles River and so for YEARS I have watched all the rowers and fantasized about learning how to do that.  I can't tell you how much I LOVED the class.   Sculling (that's rowing with 2 oars, not just one and usually only 1 or 2 people in the boat) is powerful, complex, and yet graceful all at the same time.  It was so invigorating to learn something totally new.  I honestly couldn't remember the last time I learned to do something I had zero experience with...and I loved it.    I had to be patient with myself, especially when I knew what the coach was telling me to do and I understood what she meant....I just couldn't make my body do it!  I feel like the experience made me a better mom, and for sure a better violin teacher.

Ok, no more time for words...just pictures.

...ok a few more words...I also loved that two mornings a week I got to start my day at 6:00am (just goes to show that with the proper motivation I could be a morning person).  Starting the day with the sun and the birds (and no crying kids) is such a beautiful way to begin the day.   I can't stress enough how beautiful the mornings on the river were.





 

Can we survive school vacation? Chapters 2,3, and 4

Day 2:  The Eric Carle Museum 

Jack was the hero of the day!  What was supposed to be a 90 minute drive turned out to be a 3 hour trek into rural Western Mass...which is apparently undergoing major road construction.  Thankfully Jack was working hard to keep his sisters happy. (the car DVD player deserves a big thank you as well.  My no-tv for school vacation rule doesn't apply to road trips)

When we finally got to the museum we ate our picnic lunch and the kids ran around for a while and I practiced with my camera.

 

 

 

 

 

The above pictures do a pretty good job showing how much the girls adore Jack.

jumping off the wall brought endless amounts of joy for Jack and Marian

 

The actual museum collection was pretty small.  A few interesting exhibits on how Eric Carle does his art work (Brown Bear Brown Bear, The Very Hungary Caterpillar etc...) but other than that we got through it pretty quick.  We watched the Emperor's New Clothes puppet show, but the highlight for the kids was the craft room.

Lucy is pretty free spirited when it comes to art...

Jack takes it more seriously.

I didn't get pictures of Marian in there- but she really had a great time in the play area.  They had cool puzzles, books, and music toys which she LOVED.
Horrendous traffic aside, Day 2 was a success.

Day 3: Bunker Hill Monument

Lucy was perhaps the only person who really really had fun at Bunker Hill


the fact that she didn't have to climb any of the 294 steps to the top probably had something to do with it.


Marian climbed the entire tower by herself.  A fact that brought her (and me) great joy.

Jack of course bounded up the tower no problem...well there was a little problem actually.  He was so excited to take pictures at the top with his camera.  The only problem was he left his camera in the car!  As much as I would have loved to lug Lucy up and down the monument a second time, my shaking legs made it clear that was going to happen.  I even agreed to let Jack and Marian go up again by themselves with Jack's camera but the guard said "No way".  Poor Jack was devastated.

Jack finally cheered up when he got to take pictures of these beautiful pink and purple trees.



LOVE the gardens in Charlestown.

Day 4:  the day things kind of fell apart at the Museum of Fine Arts

The MFA is one of my favorite places in Boston.  I've taken my kids there several times and we usually have a good experience. This time I think it is most accurate to say we had a learning experience.  At least I did.

We were plagued by horrible traffic again.  This time thanks to the Fenway Park open house.  Really? Is 100 years of Fenway Park really that cool?  Ok yeah, it probably is. But it made me a little bitter when our normally 15 minute drive to the museum took 45 minutes.  We literally prayed our way into a parking spot.  Then three starving kids and a mother who was trying to act like her rowdy brood actually belonged at a classy art museum, high tailed it to the cafeteria.  Oreos and Capri Suns are blessings from heaven.

Then we headed to my favorite area of the museum- the Impressionist wing

This picture totally captures the day.  Jack and Marian were pretty on board and excited to see the art and copy their favorite paintings in their notebooks.  Lucy was more into yelling.

Marian's favorite

Jack's favorite

My favorite

"Really mom?  We couldn't have gone to a park or something?"

The trip ended with me shoveling oreos into Lucy's hands in an effort to get a few things I'd admired for years in gift shop.  By the time we left, both Lucy and Marian (who didn't get a flashlight she wanted) were
screaming!!!

Plans for Day 5 are looking a little more low key and relaxed right about now.