Monday - Spent the morning at home with the kids, catching up on laundry and cleaning and so forth. That afternoon the kids and I went to meet our friend Bekah from North Carolina who was in town for a work conference. We took her downtown and walked the first part of the Freedom Trail between the Boston Common and Faneuil Hall. The kids' favorite part was sitting up on the donkey statue in front of Old City Hall and then listening to a street performer playing music while dressed up as a bear (he was standing below the balcony of the Old State House where the Declaration of Independence was first read and also the site of the Boston Massacre). Nothing like the juxtaposition of past and present here in this city! Brian was able to get off work early enough to meet us at Quincy Market for dinner. I had the most delectable Lobster Bisque for dinner... I'm almost drooling thinking about it! It was super fun to be able to spend the afternoon with an old friend!
Tuesday - The kids and I went for another round at the Children's Museum where we did a few "new" things. For the first time the kids were interested in playing with the train table in the little kids' room...
... and BOTH kids did some major climbing on the big tower. Neither kid had ever shown any interest in climbing above the lowest level before, but Nathan suddenly decided that he was going to climb up pretty high and then (of course) Sarah decided she needed to try too!
Nathan is towards the top here...
...and this is after he came back down and climbed up with Sarah a little ways.
We made a detour on the way home and stopped by Trader Joe's to pick up some peanut-free walnuts and pecans. We gave Sarah walnuts Tuesday night and pecans Wednesday night and both are good to go! Next up: almonds and pistachios! (And I'm loving having nuts back in the house!)
Wednesday - I had my yearly physical so the kids and I strolled 20 minutes down the street to my new physician's office. It would have been nice walk if it hadn't been so cold that morning (wind chill was in the 20s). On the way to the office we passed a new park, so I wanted to check it out on the way back home since it was a pretty day. Nathan was pretty reluctant at first (he hadn't wanted to put his hat and gloves back on so I think he was a little cold), but after we rounded the corner and saw a cool new climbing apparatus, he changed his tune. Sarah had fun playing in the sandbox for a long time...
...but Nathan was entranced by the rope climbing tower.
After a while, Sarah decided she wanted to climb up and sit in the seats too, so I gave her a boost. We ended up having a great time. And the temperature? 37F with a windchill of 30F. Never in my life would I have expected to voluntarily be on a (crowded) playground at those temperatures!
Thursday - Library day and then picked berries on the bushes outside the library again. That's all I can remember...
Friday - I had thought about taking the kids to the zoo since the high was supposed to be in the 50s and I figured it would be our last chance until warmer weather came in a few months. But rain showers squashed that idea! So the kids and I ran to Target to tackle a long shopping list instead. Sarah and Nathan loved carrying their umbrellas on our walks to and from the car.
Saturday - We stayed home in the morning, trying to clean and get the apartment ready for Gran and Pawpaw's visit. After nap we took the kids downtown to Faneuil Hall for the lighting of the Christmas Tree. I read that last year there were 30,000 people there, but couldn't find a number for this year - but there was definitely a huge crowd! We slogged our way through Quincy Market to get dinner (lobster bisque again for me!) and when we finally got outside and ready to eat, we realized that Sarah had dropped her hat inside. So Brian went back in to futile search for the hat... we ended up buying her a new one. After dinner, Nathan really wanted ice cream for a treat even though the temperature was in the low 30s! But it killed time before the tree lighting, so we indulged the kids. Then at 7:00 we found some good spots to view the lighting of the 80 foot tall Christmas tree (the largest in the NE - even larger then the one in Rockefeller Center in NYC!). Unfortunately I thought the lighting was supposed to be at 7:30 and actually the televised event was from 7:30-8:00, which meant that the tree didn't get lit until about 7:55, so Nathan sat on Brian's shoulder for almost a whole hour!
We all enjoyed the lights show set to two songs, but ended up waiting around for another 5-10 minutes after it stopped because we were sure there was going to be more! Nathan's favorite part was the "fake snow" (actually confetti) that they blew into the air. There was quite a wait for the T getting home, and when our train finally came and everyone started crowding on I had to somewhat aggressively push people to keep Nathan from getting squished against the open doors of the train. Once we had made it safely on the train, two people graciously gave the kids and me their seats, but Brian was left to get squashed since he was standing up with the stroller. It was another memorable Boston experience, though Brian and I agreed that we wouldn't exactly have called it a fun night. And we've crossed the lighting of the Boston Common tree off our our "to-do" list - one tree lighting was plenty for us this year!
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