The Big East Coast Trip! Part Three - Boston!

The Friday of our trip, we headed out to Boston to visit Steve's college roommate Christian, his wife Tara and their little boys Daniel and James.  The last time we saw them, was literally in the hospital when Jilly was born (they happened to be visiting WA that weekend, since Christian's sister lives near us.)  We've each had another baby since then, and Tara is pregnant with #3 too, so it had been a loooong time.  We had a great two hour drive and arrived at their cute little house for lunch.  After lunch, we loaded up and headed into Boston proper.  We parked at The Common and explored the park for a bit.  Man, it was beautiful!!  The kids hit off right away and Jilly just loved Daniel.  When she'd be getting cranky and refuse to walk, I would tell her "You gotta go catch up with Daniel!" and she'd take off after him.

This is how a lot of the day went.  Daniel would run off to check out something.

Jilly would chase right after him.

James would come along as well.

And all three kiddos would check out whatever it was.

Sometimes with amusing results. 

Jilly was more adventurous, with Daniel and James to lead her, than she often is.  It was really fun to watch her really playing with other kids and exploring more.  They spent a lot of time at this fountain.

There were these cool people that looked like statues.  When someone would tip them, they would move.  It was slightly creepy, but mostly really cool to watch.

We headed out of The Common and along the street.  There were so many pretty churches everywhere, often nestled between two high-rises.

This is the Freedom Trail and you can follow it all around Boston (I think it's like 3.5 miles or something) and check out lots of cool things.  We didn't have time (or the legs) for that long of a walk, but we saw a little of it.

We went into the graveyard where quite a few of the key players in the American Revolution are buried.  It was so cool!!  This was my favorite headstone.

They were just lined up everywhere.

This is Mother Goose's grave.  Apparently, she would tell the stories to her kids and it was either her son or grandson who wrote them all down. 

I can't remember who's grave this was, but someone important.  ;-)

After the graveyard we headed to "The Ducks".  Steve and I thought we were going to feed actual ducks, which was cool, because Jilly is all obsessed with ducks lately.  Little did we know, we were going to metal statues of ducks! We hadn't heard of "Make Way For Ducklings" before, but we learned about it then.  It's a children's book about a family of ducks in the park.  The statues are of the ducklings from the book. 

The kids were flocking around the ducks, sitting on them and having a good time, while us parents hung back and watched.  Then this conversation took place:

Steve: Hey Tara, I'll pay you a dollar to go sit on a duck.  ::snicker::
Tara: Okay!!  ::runs over and sits down::
Steve:  Uhhhh....Aimee, do you have a dollar?  I didn't think she'd do it.
Aimee: ::laughing:: Yeah.  Tara, I'll give you the dollar.
Tara: That's okay, I would have done it for free! 

Daniel made sure to climb up on the big mama duck at the front.  Cute boy!

After hanging out at the ducks for quite awhile and having a snack, we moved on to see a few more Boston sights.  We stopped by Cheers (but did not go in to see if everyone really did know our names. ;-))

Again, more beautiful churches.  There were just so many! 

I could have taken pictures of them all day long.

We walked back through The Common as we headed to the car.  I just loved these fun purple flowers. 

After touring Boston, we decided to go to Jordan's furniture store for dinner.  They have a Fuddruckers in there, which was yummy, then we took the kids over to the "liquid fireworks" show (fountains with lights and music- pretty cool!).  It was getting late, and the kids were tired, so we went back to Christian & Tara's house.  We just had to get pictures of everyone.  First off, the roommates reunited. 

Then all the kiddos.  They are a really cute bunch.

Then the first attempt at the timer on the camera.  Less than stellar.

Attempt #2, much better. 

At last, young love.  Seriously, Jilly loved Daniel so much.  She just followed him everywhere and was so happy to be with him.  We all decided that it was perfectly acceptable for them to get married in 20 years.  :-D 

We had to leave at some point though, and by the time we got on the road it was 10pm.  Luckily, the kids slept pretty much the whole way back to Connecticut.  We had such a good time with the Hahns.  They are so awesome!  We made "plans" to all be back in Texas by the summer of 2012.  We hope it works out, because these kids need to grow up together!

Overall, our trip back east was phenomenal.  It was a lot of work to travel that far with the kids, but it was definitely worth it.  We had a lot of fun with everyone we visited and it was fun to have a vacation.