Sitting here enjoying a grand battle between pigs and birds. Note my stellar structure. Guessing that will be destroyed in just a few seconds.
I've also been in the presence of a pirate this morning.
And we got some learning in, which is good. Dada was all worried our brains would turn to mush if we did nothing but have fun every day.
Madam F wants to know why the hell these kids are here all the time now. She needs her private time.
While the boys are playing quietly, let me tell you about another Boston day. I have a lot to say and they wont be quiet that long, so lets do it. Day four we left the city and headed south to Plymouth, MA, to Plimoth Plantation. Yes, it spelled different, but on purpose. If you don't know, Plimoth Plantation is a historic site that has a native american village and a pilgrim village, and we going to explore both. Along with approximately 200 school kids.
First stop was the native american homesite. We checked out their winter dwellings.
It had a certain earthy and smokey smell to it that really took our boys by surprise. They were quiet here.
And just did not like the smokey smell.
It was a hot day and only getting hotter, so we feasted on banana on our walk to the pilgrim's village.
Oh! I forgot about the craft house. Here tradeworkers made all the items you saw in Plimoth Plantation. The wooden furniture and pottery all came from this site.
I could really only stand and stare at the guy whittling away before I needed to rally the troops to move on. 1700's village, here we come.
The boys were really into this section. They wanted to enter every house and noted the differences between the houses.
I rather liked the drapes around the bed.
Though I would not have liked to cook over this open fire.
This little guy loved the gardens and livestock area. We got inspired to do an herb garden at home. That inspiration has not yet manifested itself into an actual garden, but let me finish putting away this damn laundry and then maybe.
Back there was an animal of some sort, an ox, if I remember correctly.
Off to see more houses and hear and see people speak in period tongue. That just freaks me out by the way. One must not talketh to me in such a manner!
This house did not have a "please dont smack the hell out of our armor" sign, so I hope this is ok.
Our cheeks are red and we were looking a bit peaked, so you know what that means. Snack and water time. And look who Cole spots...
"that man from the little house", the governor. The poor governor was trying to get away but those schoolkids are persistent.
We rested and we got moving back up the big hill in the oppresive 90 degree humid muggy heat.
And headed north, past Boston.
Our drive was a bit over an hour, and we had spots of restlessness in the car. Some calm.
And some of whatever this is here. Intimidation stare? Goofiness?
Ooooh, and we drove through a tunnel! Love a tunnel. This is the I93 tunnel that was created in Boston's Big Dig project. We were driving right under downtown Boston here! Cool. I took a few pics until Keith reminded me it was probably not a good idea to be taking pictures in a tunnel in a city that recently had terrorism. Right-O. Putting the camera down.
The tunnel lulled his dude into a good 30 minute nap. That's good. The big boy needs naps as much as his momma does. Takes a lot of energy to keep those big Bothma heads going, you know.
And we got to Danvers, MA, where our new hotel was. A little relaxing in the AC with our bears first.
And then we geared up for the indoor waterpark! The whole reason for this hotel being selected was the indoor waterpark attached to it. Here is Goofy and Goofier. Ironic that our ladies man picked a bathing suit that says no girls.
I have no idea what this guy was communicating here. Oh wait. I see a leg up, this is clearly a ninja pose.
And a good smile from this guy.
At the water park K and I both wanted to be in the water as much as possible with the boys so we chose not to take the camera in. We had a great time, aside from a little altercation I had with a teenage lifeguard. Mrs E don't take no sass! His little attitude led to me making my first ever complaint to a manager. Thanks for that, buddy. If you want to see what the park was like, you can check it out by clicking here, then scroll down. It was pretty cool.
Now, we are off to run some errands. I am in the midst of intense negotiations: I want to go to 3 stores, the boys want 2. Who will get their way?
Ahhh. Back home. Vacation is great, but so is climbing into your own bed. Especially when you have no real tasks to accomplish the next day. Except those 4 loads of laundry, putting all the travel things away and that huge list of to-do items you saved for summer. But none of those have a start time, and none require me to get up at 5:00am, so I like I said....Ahhh....
Now, remember, I was telling you about this great day we had. This was day 4, and we spent the morning at the Children's Museum. And we snacked. You with me? Ok. So then, all fueled on cookies and treats we walked a little over a mile to our trolley stop. And hey, look what we saw again. "that place where the people got killed". Ie. the State House where the Boston Massacre happened. We have two sharp little minds with us. Right where the person with the black sweater is walking is the site of the massacre.
And we walked on a little more and found our trolley stop. The plan was to ride the trolley to get our tickets for another tour happening later. We waited, never saw a trolley and decided we could walk to another stop that we knew was the homebase for the trolleys. Which we found and got comfy in right away. We had a long ride ahead of us.
Some of us got more comfortable than others.
Our plan was to ride the trolley to Fenway Park, which should have taken maybe 30 minutes or so. And it would have without the First Lady's visit to Boston. Her visit gave us a little extra time on the trolley and in turn extra time for me to adore my family through the lens because the trolley really wasnt moving. Good thing we had a lot of snacks. Bananas, goldfish, if it was in the backpack, we ate it.
Here are my views while we waited for traffic to move.
And finally we made it to our destination, Fenway. We were to tour the ballpark. K and I had done this tour before several years ago, but we were excited to see how much interested our little t-ballers would show.
This tour was a fast moving one, no time to stop and smile at the camera.
It was apparently too much to ask a certain someone to look at the camera. But at least my hair looks good.
This tour was non-stop walking and some of the topics were a little abstract to the boys. I was nervous about their stamina, but they did really well.
Judging from this picture they might have been pretending to be ninjas in their minds the entire time. So while were hearing "...and Fenway was built...", they might have been hearing "be on alert for ninja attacks at all times"...
Not sure if this family pic is better or not.
So here we get to the press suite. It sounds all exciting, but its just a row of benches and chairs with a great view. And this dude had no idea what this was all about. I tried to explain what it was used for, and he thought for a minute. And looked out, and admired the view. And then turned to me and said, "so where's the computer in this place?".
Next stop after the computer-less press suite was atop the Green Monster.
At this point I was almost a little over the tour, and I was hungry, and I was thinking that they were hungry too. I estimated another 10 minutes till the tour ended, which can seem like an eternity to a hungry little one. Or their parents. Time to bust out the secret weapon. Worked like a charm.
After a long day of tours and walking and seeing new things we all needed a bit of calm and comfort. and food, we needed a good warm meal where we could color.
And be mesmerized.
At what, you ask? These. He was so happy watching sports.
You might think our day was done, but nooooo, we had more! Our lunch ran a little longer than anticipated, so we made a mad dash, Amazing Race style, to the next tour. I kid you not that we sprinted into and out of the subway stations. The boys thought it was hilarious.
All that racing was for nothing, we had to wait 15 minutes for the tour to start.
And our guide was amazing. His tour was the highlight for many of us, he was funny and knowledgeable and good with kids.
We saw where Mother Goose was buried. Right by all those other people-Franklin, Otis the elevator guy, etc.
We jabbered the whole way.
And then we went from land to water. Oooh, we loved this.
The biggest of the boys maybe liked it the most?
We weren't the only ones on the river.
Our vehicle was almost empty, so we could each have a whole seat to ourselves.
Lots to see.
And because there were not many people on board, our guys got to steer!
