Boston!

Matt and I went to Boston last week, and the kiddos stayed with my parents.  They had a blast, and we did too.  Reese spent the mornings out at Matt's parents house and had adventures to tell me about every morning when I called.  It was so cute to hear about all of the fun she was having.  I was really worried about leaving Charlie because he's such a mama's boy, but he did great too.  I'm pretty sure my mom was happy to have us home though.  These kids will sure wear a person out. :)  

I know it's pretty boring to look at someone else's vacation photos, but.....tough.  Here ya go. :)

The first thing we did when we arrived in Boston was meet up with my sweet friend Rose.  (Remember the girls we went to NYC to meet up with last year?  She's one of them.)  Rose lives in Manhattan now, but she grew up just outside of Boston, and she helped us so much in planning our trip.  We had lunch and a couple drinks, and she was our personal tour guide and trip advisor for the afternoon. :)

Boston is a great historical city.  Boston commons is a huge park in the middle of the city--it was the site of public hangings back in the day, so that bit of information will give you the warm fuzzies.  It's pretty gorgeous now though. 

There's a large pond in the middle of the commons, and they have swan boat rides, which looked pretty charming.

The Boston subway system is the oldest in the U.S., and it was pleasantly easy and efficient!

Our hotel was perfectly located in the heart of the city.  And it had free wine from 5-6, so it was also in a special place in my heart. 

We hung out in the North End each night, which has a nice European feel, and a crazy amount of Italian restaurants.  Delicious.

We were told that we HAD to stand in the crazy long line to get cannolis at Mike's.  I'm not typically really a fan of cannolis, but I have to say, I would fly back to Boston just to get another cannoli from Mike's.  They were amazing.

Boston is well known for the Freedom Trail.  Basically, a 2.5 mile walk through the city that takes you to several historical sites. 

This huge well looking thing was in the middle of the burial ground.  We couldn't figure out what it was, but it was really cool looking, and seemed to be an endless hole.  We came up with a few really interesting ideas of what it could potentially have been.  We came home and googled, and discovered that it is a...subway vent.  But don't tell too many people, because it makes this photo a lot less cool. 

This was the site of the Boston Massacre.  Crazy.

This was a street performer in front of Quincy Market.  We watched his super entertaining show, which ended with him riding a 10 foot tall unicycle while juggling knives and playing the bagpipes.  How does someone figure out that they can do that???

This is the home Paul Revere raised his family in.  It was about $2 to go inside....so we didn't.

This is the organ in the oldest church in America.  The pews were in little booths, and they still had the signs to indicate the families they belonged to.  Families like the Adams, Franklins, and Reveres.  

We climbed to the top of Bunker Hill.  You can actually climb to the top of the monument, but....we didn't.  We were pretty tired by the end of the Freedom Trail!

This is the entrance to the monument.

The USS Constitution.  You can actually tour the ship...but we didn't.  Man, I'm realizing we're kind of lame.  In our defense, there was a crazy long security line because it's still considered a U.S. Navy base.

We went to Chinatown.  It was lame. 

We went to a Red Sox game on Thursday night.  We had both wanted to see Fenway for so long, and we were super excited.  The park was awesome, but the Red Sox were having a rough night.  We ended up leaving in the 9th inning when they were losing 7-1.  I mean, there's no way they were gonna come back for that.  Or so we thought.  They ended up rallying in the 9th and winning 8-7.  We were SO mad at ourselves for leaving!!!!!!  

We ventured over to Cambridge and visited Harvard.  The campus was beautiful.  It was kind of hard to get photos because it was just really expansive and there wasn't anything specific to photograph.  So just trust me, it's really pretty.  And now we can tell our kids that their parents went to Harvard. :)

This is one of the bridges connecting Boston to Cambridge.  We sat here awhile and watched the sailboats and enjoyed a nice view of the city.

We spent an afternoon on the Long Wharf and enjoyed really pretty views of the harbor.  Notice the giant camera around my neck...as someone takes a picture of us with my phone.  I guess I don't trust people. haha

\

Our hotel was right around the corner from the finish line of the Boston Marathon.  

Lobstah!

Ok, it's kind of lame that I'm including these photos, because we didn't actually take the tour.  We took the really long subway ride there, got in line, and then decided we didn't want to wait 1.5 hours and then go on an hour long tour.  So we took some photos of the brewery and ditched out. :)

I don't know if I'm obsessed with subway stations, or if I just found myself standing around in them a lot with nothing better to do than take photos.

Our final night was so much fun.  My friend Cristina made the 3.5 hour road trip from New Jersey with her hubby, Peter.  We hung out during the afternoon, enjoyed a delicious dinner and some cocktails around the city.  The funniest part of the evening was when Cristina and I came down to meet in the hotel lobby wearing the exact same shirt in different colors.  We live many miles apart, but apparently we share the same brain. :) 

Well, that pretty much sums up our trip!  

But I can't end this without including at least one photo of the kids.  We have been trying to wean Reese off of her afternoon nap because bedtime has been rather difficult lately.  But it got the best of her today, and she crashed on the couch while I was nursing Charlie.  She looked sooooo sweet.