A Spectacular Weekend Visitor (Part 3)

Unfortunately the Sunday of Jennie's visit dawned MUCH colder, but we didn't let that deter us from making the most of her time in Boston. After church and naps in the morning, Jennie and the kids and I boarded the 66 bus to visit Harvard. Brian was slammed with work that had piled up due to his long hours at work the week before, plus he's in the thick of studying for oral boards, so we let him have an afternoon of peace and quiet to get caught up and study while went went on another adventure.

We started out in Harvard's Old Yard, rubbing the foot of John Harvard's statue, chasing squirrels and finding a small dirt pile to climb on. 

We then walked over to Harvard Yard where we saw the library (Jennie did some research and found that it's the largest academic library in the world) and Memorial Church, where the kids used the edge of the stairs as a slide (here I was going to link back to when they did this in September, but then I realized that those pictures never made it on the blog!  Maybe someday I'll go back and post those.)  We then walked to the Plaza where the kids found interesting benches to walk on and a rock "fountain" to climb on.  Next we were heading for the law school when the wind and cold really hit us and we decided that we had seen enough of the Harvard campus for one blustery winter day.  So we turned around and headed toward Au Bon Pain for hot drinks to warm us up.  Nathan and Sarah LOVED the hot chocolate that they split!

After warming up inside and out, we headed back out into the cold and Nathan wanted to climb a tree he had spotted earlier in the day.  The kids had a blast and I was really thankful that Jennie was there with another set of hands since both kids wanted to climb up pretty high. 

Sarah lost interest after a while but Nathan ended up climbing up to where I could only barely touch his feet with my hand.  He loved it!!

And because a video is always fun, here's the one I took when the kids first started climbing in the tree.



The thing I find most amusing is that they kids now consider the most prestigious university in the country a glorified playground!

Jennie and I had talked about trying to get one more outing in on Monday morning before she had to catch her plane, but the even colder temperatures that morning changed our minds.  Instead we spend a leisurely morning around the house, the highlight of which was Jennie drawing pictures for the kids on our little dry erase boards.  She drew butterflies and houses and yards and hearts and animals and on and on.  The kids loved it!  In fact, the next day Nathan drew some new pictures inspired by Jennie's work.  The top two pictures below are people in their houses (surrounded by lots of windows) and the third is the yard, complete with a car, tree, pond, grass and sun!

After lunch the kids and I drove Jennie to the airport and said a very sad farewell.  Thank you so much Jennie for coming to visit us - what a bright spot in our lives at the end of a very long and bleak winter!