Saturday in Boston

I have been avidly following the news on Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" and because the concept behind it perfectly fits my political viewpoint I felt inclined to participate in the Boston "Reasonable picnic to Restore Sanity" satellite rally.  Of course, true to the concept Aaron couldn't come because he had stuff to do (paint the house...pictures will be coming eventually) and since he had to be in Cambridge later that day (and we only have one car) I decided that the girls and I would make a day of it.  We took the bus into the city, a dream come true for Tessa...for the first 15 minutes.  After that she developed the glazed commuter look and started to wonder what was the big deal about the bus.  I started to get motion sick because of the driving of our rather angry bus driver.  We transfered to the subway, which Tessa liked and eventually ended up at the Boston Common.  The plan in my mind was a picnic in the park- but it was COLD and so rather than drag the kids to Burger King, then back to the rally location we just ate in the store and showed up at the rally 45 minutes late.  Once again, things to do. 

Honestly, there wasn't much going on.  No live feed from DC or any speakers or anything.  Mainly just people with funny signs.  I borrowed one (too busy to make my own) and this picture is priceless!

Those kiddos kill me with their cuteness.  At one point the group of about 200 people decided to march to the State House...well sort of.  Someone suggested it "Lets march to the State House" and others shouted "We are still eating"  Response - "Okay then, in 10 minutes."  Tessa and Meg really got into the march - chanting and singing to their own drummer whilst the rest of us walked along in a reasonable manner.  Then we left the group and hit the really awesome playground in the Common.

Fall in New England is such a blessing!

 

 

Tired baby.  Hours past her nap.

Then...

DUCK!

 

Tessa walked the whole day, all around the Common then down Charles Street to the subway stop.  She wanted to walk across the bridge over the Charles River but had a tiny little meltdown out of shear exhaustion.  Some Dunkin' Donuts helped perk her up and she didn't even fall asleep in the car on the way home.  She is really not a baby at all anymore.  Sigh.

Photo Catch-up - May

It is August and not a rain cloud in sight. However, back in May...

We donned our rain jackets and headed into Boston to meet our friend Maria H and Audrey. Not that I have any pictures of Maria and I together... oops :(

Before we met our friends the girls and I snuck down to the public garden to visit the "Make way for the duckling" sculpture.


Daddy caught up to us just a bit later. He dropped us off then went to find a parking spot.*
This is the only picture I have of the friends we met...just the kiddos.


I guess in this case the lack of pictures indicates I was just too busy having fun.

*Aaron is a Westerner at heart and HATES paying to park. So, even though he had to leave in the middle of dinner to go move the car he counted this day as an immense success because it only cost $1.86 to park in Boston for 6 hours. Boo-YAH!

Mommy and Daddy time

While it is undeniable that Tessa and Meg adore each other there is still something wonderful about getting your Mommy and Daddy's full, undivided attention. Generally this happens when one kiddo is asleep and the other awake (ie, Meg gets the early morning attention and Tessa gets the night attention). They both glow when they are nestled between us reading stories in bed.

And speaking of that, Meg did get to go on a fun "date" with Mommy and Daddy in October (yes, 3 months ago...I'm behind) that I must brag about.

Because our stake lacks a stake center we have had all sorts of arrangements for stake conference. Its a good thing our stake center will be finished soon because it would be hard to top this last stake conference. With Elder Ballard slated to attend the crowd was expected to be huge - so - the adult session (held Friday night, to avoid Halloween) was held in...

...Trinity Church.

I can't tell you how cool that was! When I found out the location my first thought was "I hope Aaron enjoys his time with girls while I attend stake conference." Okay - truthfully it was :

I'M GOING, I'M GOING, I'M GOING.

Since Aaron's thoughts were pretty much the same we instead got a babysitter for Tessa and toted little Meg along with us.

(Complete with Halloween jammies)

Do I even need to tell you how great it was? The space was beautiful and historic. And acoustically - vastly superior to the gymnasium.


Oh yes, and the message. I'd like to think that I would have made it such a priority to attend if the only draw was Elder Ballard. Yes - I think I would have. But I'll never really know because I was so pumped about having a service in such an amazing space. That said, I did really enjoy his message and the personal level at which he spoke to us. He said many things - but what has impacted my life the most since then is advice he gave that is applicable to anyone.

"Take time out daily for quiet moments of reflection."

Hannah

I'm skipping over all Christmas good times for the moment to post pictures of Baby Hannah's visit to MA.

Laura and Connel are crazy. They took at 10+ hour drive with a newborn. Laura asked (via txt) if they could come for New Years only 5 days before them came. I thought about it for about .217 seconds. YES!

This kiddo grew up over the weekend while we had a baby in the house.

Tessa got older as well - holding, talking to and helping Baby Hannah.

She even helped her find some friends.

Auntie brought these matching shirts.

As you can see, Tessa made good friends with Uncle Connel.

A nice family snapshot taken at the JFK Library/Museum.

This is after we told Tessa to look at the camera.

Classic self timed photo with camera perched on the stroller...everybody squeeze in!

Thanks for coming...I hope the drive home wasn't too bad. (See that stormy weather behind them? That is what they are driving home in as I type.)

Brewster Beach

Day two of our annual Cape trip (2008, 2007)we decided to check out the beach on the inside of the Cape. We've always gone to the National Seashore which has great waves that crash into the beach. Its fun, but not exactly kid-friendly.


Truth be told, Tessa doesn't like the beach. It might be the waves, Daddy swimming in the waves, the hard-to-walk-on sand, or the bright sun. I say that because this none of those things were at this beach and she had a blast. At low tide the wet, firm sand stretched out as far as the eye could see, which wasn't far with the cloud cover.

Second truth be told, people as white as we are shouldn't be seen in full sunlight. Go ahead and agree, we aren't offended. (Unless the fear of seeing one of us in a bikini is the real reason our friends all decided not to join us on our camping weekend...hum?)

(Its a good thing I have Aaron around to do the really tough things, like ask the locals tending their oyster beds to take our picture - locals love that)

The video below makes me laugh so much. But you really may have needed to be there. Daddy and Momma had great plans for the architectural wonder they were going to construct. Tessa had a great time smashing any attempt (just like a little planning and zoning board). Aaron challenged me to stack the small bucket on top of the large bucket. At 0:10 seconds notice my attempt to distract Godzilla/Tessa.

Museum of Science + Mommas favorite purchase of the year

Yucky Economy = grossy
Daddy Working 80% = grossy
Daddy having Fridays off = Sooooooooooo Cuke
Free passes to the M.O.S. for Salem residents = Soooooooo Cuke
New (to us) Stroller = Soooooooooo Cuke

Here is a picture of the stroller (and eager occupants) when we got to the Museum of Science.


And on the way home...


What the pictures don't show (because sometimes you just need to live the moment, not watch it through a viewfinder) is how amazing it is for a two year old to be able to push ANY button SHE WANTS, as OFTEN as SHE WANTS.

Or that Momma's amazing craigslist purchase can be steered with only one hand AND cost 1/5 the price as the other strollers I've been eyeing. Okay, continue to eye. In fact, eyed while at the museum and realized that I GOT A SCREAMING DEAL on a great stroller. This is easily my favorite purchase in recent memory. Granted, I can barely remember this morning...

(At the risk of sounding materialistic...my 2nd fav purchase is my new phone (free with rebate...and lifetime servitude to Verizon). The 1st picture was taken with my in-phone camera - the second with Aaron's. The resolution on mine totally eats his for breakfast.)

Poaching

If I were to blog right now (which I'm not, so don't get your hopes up) I would do so by uploading photos taken by my sister...

AND ---

Since she already posted them on her blog, I'm just going to send you right on over to Laura's Blog.

3rd Annual U** Family July Wagamama Lunch

Right now 95 % of you are asking "What? What? What is Wagamama?" Its a yummy international noodle chain with a restaurant in Boston. We first went to in London in 2006. Then they opened their first US store in Boston July 2007. We took Tessa there on one of her first big outings.


For some reason we went again in July 2008 (I think to celebrate Aaron's offices switch to summer hours - it doesn't take much to warrant a celebratory lunch around here).


This year we went on July 1st. Aaron, always the romantic, invited me to come into eat lunch on the 9th anniversary of our first date. We were also celebrating his LEED accreditation (if you are asking "What? What? What is LEED?" then you missed this long and detailed post). As you can tell from the picture we had other people with us (hi Nicole(also LEED AP), Jenny and Josie) , which is why Mommy gets to make a cameo in the picture. Sadly this picture was taken inside because of the incessant rain.


There, did you see what I did just now? I blogged about this, thereby firmly embedding this outing into U** family tradition. I'm gonna go ahead and put this standing date on my calendar for next year.

And speaking of expectations - Josie...Candy?

Family Fun

I'd love to post about the fun time the family had at the Museum of Science on Saturday...but I didn't get to go. So... read about it on Alicia's Blog.

Good times.

October Fun - Part 4

The next visitor to stop by was a good friend from high school (pause for dramatic effect)

Christin! (Applause....)

The really great thing about having friends from the distant past (10+ years...geez!) is that you can just jump right into activities and conversations without that whole "So where did you grow up?" and "What did you major in at college" conversation. I was immediately able to ask her about...well...stuff...you know - gossipy girl stuff.

We had a lot of fun. This was her first visit to New England so I got to go back to the old-school tourist stops.

We had some fun times in Concord, MA.

Christin was such a fun playmate for Tessa! She was like a completely overqualified yet still amazing nanny! The three girls had a good time.

And the next day we traipsed around Boston.

Daddy bought this rose for Tessa...he haggled the seller down by 50% and the seller sealed the deal by "recognizing she was a girl..." as in "for this beautiful girl, half price..."

This is when Christin and I were papparazzied by Aaron - I feel violated.

You'll be surprised to find out that we went to Marblehead on Sunday (perhaps old age is making us predictable?)

Tessa has become incredibly fond of doing her own walking, particularly if she is holding the hands of people prone to swinging her on the count of three. While we were walking around Marblehead she was just tromping along and would not let me pick her up. When we got back to the car we discovered that she had been walking for who knows how long with her hat like this...can anyone see a trust metaphor in the making?

The big deal of the trip was HaLloWeEn (same day we went to Concord)...and we had so much fun.

Christin made a rocking Goldilocks costume...Aaron teased me for checking the stitching on the sleeves but they seriously looked 100% store bought!

Our pieced together bear costumes were a bit shabby in comparison but still super fun.

I know this post is about Chrisin's visit but I have to do a Tessa side note:
While we were getting dressed Tessa was cruising around the house laughing and chattering. She obviously had no idea what was going on but still got all caught up in the excitement. We trick or treated down the fancy street a few blocks from our house. Tessa and her entourage.

I am not kidding - this was one of the funnest nights I've had in a long time. Tessa got a LOT of candy for someone who weighs 22 lbs...but since we all helped we didn't feel guilty eating as much as we wanted.

Christin and I headed back out to walk around Salem (sans wallets unfortunately...with no abandoned cottages with porridge to be found). While Daddy was putting Tessa to bed she remembered the candy and be-bopped out to have a snack.

This is a picture of Mommy letting Tessa break the pretty strict family rule that "pretzels are NOT a snack!" Poor kid, I'm pretty sure all the adults were sneaking Snickers behind her back...wait, was it only me?

Hum...what other highlights of the trip might be of interest...

Oh yes - Christin got roped into making us dinner. I had meant for it to be a "cooking together" experience but she did all of it. However, it did fulfill one of my fantasies about participating in one of Christin's fabled dinner parties. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of the 3 game hen roasting, bum up, in our oven. It was delish!