Day 4

On Wednesday I finally knew how to get around by myself so I didn't bother getting up early with Daniel. I slept in and slowly got ready for the day. My plan was to hang out at the mall by Daniels conference and wait for him. That is until I saw the kinds of stores they had at this mall. This is the first time I have EVER seen a Gucci store, but wasn't stupid enough to think I might actually want to buy something from there (or better yet have that kind of money for something I didn't need), so I sat outside and waited..... and waited. When Daniel finished we went to the Chili Duck. A Thai restaurant that we had hear a lot about.

I didn't think I would like it, but I knew I had to try some of the delicious Boston food I had heard about. I was wrong, the pineapple friend rice and chicken was DELICIOUS!
Daniel asked the waitress for a suggestion of something with sea food that wasn't hot. I guess the waitress forgot the hot part because it turned out to be pretty hot and came with shrimp, squid, oysters, and some other things I have never heard of a person eating.

The desert was yummy as well. Mango with sticky rice. (Came strongly recommended so we had to try it out).

That concludes Day 4. I promise, things start getting a little more interesting as soon as Daniel finishes his conference half way through Day 5.

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Day 5

Thursday September 24, 2009


Daniels conference finished at 1:00 so we started taking advantage of vacation time immediately. The duck boat tours is something I wanted to do and since the start was right next door to the Convention center that I met Daniel at, we started there. These Duck boats are amphibious vehicles that were built and used during WWII. The drive on the roads through downtown Boston showing you many of the sights and then they plunge into the river and we saw more sights. This was our boat.




And this is after we were in the water.

Then we headed back to continue the Freedom trail a little further. I had imagined a dirt path out in the country outside of Boston for this "Freedom trail", but as I already mentioned, it goes right through the city. It's a little brick path.We felt pretty touristy out there in downtown Boston with our souvenir Boston sweatshirts on, walking toe to toe down the red brick path with our noses in a map so I made Daniel pose for this to show just how touristy we looked.


Next stop on the freedom trail was another graveyard. The graves were just as old and cool, but I didn't recognize any names from there.
Another kind of funny story: This is called Kings Graveyard. When the British started really coming in to the colonies to start taking back control, they wanted to build a church of England in Boston. Of course, most of the colonists didn't want that to happen so they refused to sell them any land to build the church on. Finally the British took part of this graveyard and said the dead wouldn't mind and they build "Kings Chapel" on the graveyard land. Of course Kings Chapel was referring to the King of England, but when the British were forced out of Boston after the war this became a church for the "King of Heaven."

We walked further down the trail and saw some more sights that I didn't end of taking pictures of (or they just weren't as cool and I haven't gotten to them yet). We came out near the aquarium by the Harbor and when I recognized where we were at, we took a detour and spent some time at the Harbor instead of continuing down the trail.

Day 2 and 3 in Boston

Monday was a pretty lame day for me. Daniel's conference started, and he was up by 5:30 getting ready and left by 6:00 a.m. He was in a hurry to meet up with his coworker, who was also attending the conference and who was going to show him how to use the public transportation system in Boston. This co-worker happened to have lived several years in Boston.

I was tired from our long day flying and since Daniel was in a hurry, we agreed that I would stay at the motel that day and he would show me how to work the trains and subways that evening.

So I slept, read, watched t.v. went swimming, walked around the hotel, and was basically BORED out of my mind. I didn't even have access to our rental car since his work rented it and only put it under his name, so I ordered in pizza for lunch- all alone.

When Daniel got back from his conference he was too tired to show me around, so we ate dinner and went to bed. Pretty lame day right?

Well I wasn't about to sit around the hotel ALL WEEK, so Tuesday I got up at 5:30 and left with Daniel to learn the trains. I had a hard time coming up with activities to do alone. There was so much to do in Boston, but Daniel wanted to do it all also, so anything I did that he wanted to do- I would have to do twice. I thought the aquarium was a good option since Daniel wasn't really interested and I love aquariums. I was thinking it would pretty much take the whole day.

I made it to the aquarium at 7:30 a.m. and it didn't open until 9:00 so I sat at Boston Harbor trying to imagine what it looked like so many years ago when the colonists made their way onto the boat and threw in the boxes of tea. It's hard to imagine how much things have changed in just under 250 years. When I came back to reality I realized I looked a lot like one of those bird people. I had swarms of birds walking around my feet.


When the aquarium opened I went inside and started walking around. I watched a diver feed a shark by hand- Ok she was using a stick, but still!

Watched the seals play and have a training session.


And my personal favorite for this time were the jellyfish. They had the biggest jellyfish exhibit I have ever seen. Big ones, tiny ones, polka dotted ones, etc.


And that took about 2 hours. It was not 11:00 a.m. and I had walked through the whole aquarium, and most of it TWICE! I wasn't meeting up with Daniel until just after 6:00 p.m. I didn't really have any other plans or know where to go, except Boston Commons.

Keep scrolling down for more.....

Day 3 continued.....

Boston Commons is a big park in the middle of Boston (Ok- I don't really know if it's in the middle, but it's definitely downtown with all the big buildings.) It also happens to be a public area that the colonists used for public things. Including get togethers and, of course for those days, hangings/public punishment.

It also marks the start of "The Freedom Trail." The Freedom Trail is a 3 mile loop that takes you through part of downtown Boston to see some very neat historical sights that are mingled in with the bustling city.

*Quick side note:This is a close crop of the other pictures because I wanted to show that they actually do have dog walkers in the city. Not just on the t.v. shows. This guy had 6 dogs he was walking.

I started my way down the Freedom Trail so I would have everything figured out when Daniel and I could find time to come do it together.

This is a statue of Mary Dyer. The pilgrims came seeking religious freedom, but it turns out they only believed in THEIR religious freedom. They fought to make sure other religions didn't come in to play in those early days. Mary Dyer was a puritan turned Quaker. She was banished from Boston a few times for defying a law that banished Quakers. She finally was hung on Boston Commons for this same reason.
There were many cool things on the freedom trail, but this had to be a highlight for me. This is the Granary Burying Grounds. These old graves are clear back from the colonial times. I've seen graves from 30 years ago in worse shape than any of these graves.

This grave caught my eye. The bottom half reads: "Stop here my friend and cast an eye. As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, so you must be. Prepare for death and follow me."


This is a monument dedicated to Paul Revere.
and this is his actual grave.


This grave belongs to Samuel Adams.


Also buried here are 5 victims of the Boston Massacre, John Hancock, Benjamin Franklin's family (but not Benjamin himself), and Mother Goose. I never did find Mother Goose's grave, even though I looked for an hour.

It's an indescribable feeling, standing and looking at the graves and final resting places of so many great men who lead this country through a nearly impossible situation. Men who had faith in what this county would become. Truly indescribable, so I won't continue to try.

At this point I had been on my feet from 5:30- 2:30 and was tired. I didn't want to continue the freedom trail and have to do it all over again, and I didn't know what else there was to do alone so I went back to Boston Commons and sat for a while. When Daniel called I told him I would meet him back at the hotel and we would have dinner out in Woburn. I went back and rested my feet in the hot tub:)

First day in Boston

Sunday September 20, 2009

You may or may not want to hear about our Boston trip, but here it is anyways. And for the record, if your wondering why our faces look funny in some of the pictures, it was the camera lens. I chose to use that lens in some cases even with the distortion because in a hurry I could just reach my hands out and take the picture without having to set it up and use the remote.

After a 4 hour 15 minute plane ride, that seemed like heaven without fighting Chase, we finally arrived into what they would later tell us is one of the busiest airports. It was crazy. We had to get on a hertz shuttle to get to the rental car place, which proceeded to drive us through a maze of airport roads and convinced me we would NEVER find our way back to return the car. After two hours of waiting we finally took off with an Infiniti luxury car due to their mistake. It was way fancier than we knew how to use, so we left the fancy stuff alone.


We got there shortly before dark and much to Daniel's dismay I snapped a couple pictures. (That's what I mean about the face distortion).



The leaves were just starting to change and were beautiful. We stayed 10 miles outside of Boston and there were tree's everywhere. This was outside of the motel we stayed at.

Glad to have him home.

When I found out we would be going to Boston for a week and that my parents were willing to watch Chase for us I was thrilled. I couldn't imagine how hard it would be to let him go, until the day of.

We decided to do something fun for him so hopefully he would miss us a little. So we took him to McDonalds for his first happy meal, and spent time playing on the toys.

We had a lot of fun in Boston just by ourselves, but missed him alot. I did ok until the plane ride home- there was a little boy with blond hair and blue eyes.

He had way too much fun in Moab and didn't really care that we were there to pick him up yesterday, but we are glad to have him home.


I think we will probably be ready to leave him again in a week though :)

Bath time

We're still here... I hate getting behind on the blog because just as I would with a journal, I feel the need to catch up, but don't have time.



This is what happens in our house if you can't get the bath ready fast enough.

Dirty shoes and all. It could have been worse- his diaper could have been poopy at the time, and the shoes could not have been crocs.

Next time I'll hurry a little faster.