Musical interlude

I think I told you she's started to play trumpet.

We will come back to tales of Boston soon.

Red dress (Photo of the week 47/52)

Boy am I behind. I owe you Friday in Boston and lots of other stuff. Right now, this is Saturday (11/26) in Chinatown. (My brother Rob came to visit for Thanksgiving. We played tourist with him.) Kira loves her new red dress.

I think one of this is photo of the week. I think I might like the second one best. What do you think?

Nat eats a brownie marshmallow sandwich

Thursday I was with my class. Natalie had to amuse herself all morning. She joined us for lunch; then, in the afternoon, the class went to the Boston Museum of Science and Natalie came, too. (Hrmmm...I think I have some photos from the museum. I'll see if I can find them and post them.) After the museum trip, the class went back to work until 7 pm.

When I was finally done with the day, I gave Nat her choice of where to go for dinner-- she'd earned it! She was very good all day--made me proud. She chose the chocolate factory (where we'd gone on Tuesday for dessert).

She and I ate dinner, then had fondue and roasted marshmallows again. Here she is eating a marshmallow between two brownies. Heee!

Wednesday in Boston

A little less busy of a day on Wednesday. KJ and her kids went home and Nat and I hung out. Wednesday morning, we ate breakfast with one of the professors from the University. We had a late breakfast and hung out talking until who knows when. Then we went for a walk. We went to Boston Public Garden. We met some very friendly and hungry squirrels. (They were very fat--getting ready for winter!)


They liked the fruit and nut pack we brought. They were used to people feeding them because if they saw you had food, they'd come bounding up to you. They looked like little dogs running for a treat!



So did the birds. Nat had fun throwing a nut or seed and watching them all fly towards it. An explosion of birds is what it looked like. It looks like Nat might be cold, but it was a GORGEOUS day. It was around 65. I'm not sure why she had her hood up.

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More park and squirrel pictures

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I love the make way for ducklings statues!

After our relaxing afternoon stroll in the park we went back to the hotel and said hi to my class. Another professor was teaching and we just waved. Then! My friend Linda D from High School came up to the hotel with her 3 kiddos and we swam and had dinner. I only took photos at the pool and they are a little blurry with kids moving quickly.

It was super to see Linda. Both she and KJ both live near Boston! It's a little crazy, my two best friends during h.s. both live on the east coast--go figure! (KJ actually arranged to surprise me with Linda coming up to the hotel on Monday night when I arrived. It was a super surprise! I'm so glad she did it! Yay, KJ!)

And that was Wednesday.

More Tuesday

Okay, we're still on Tuesday. I had planned to blog each day this week but WOOOOSH, the week went by. Here's the rest of Tuesday. We ate dinner at a fun Italian restaurant in the North End. Here's Sam and Nat at dinner. Nice picture, eh?

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Then we went to the Apple store because we LOVE Apple.

They had this cool spiral staircase made of glass.

We took pictures on it!
KJ even bought something!

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Then we went to a drugstore to buy some stuff... (cough syrup and toothpaste I believe). No photos were taken.

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Next was a chocolate factory restaurant for dessert. Fondue and flames. The kids roasted marshmallows at the table. Nothing is better than a kid with a flaming marshmallow on a stick (quote of the day by KJ).

They even had syringes full of chocolate that you could squirt into your mouth... (You can see how Happy Sam was with his!)

After this, you'd think we would be tired, but then we went back to the hotel and went swimming for a second time. And that ends Tuesday. W-F soon.

Tuesday (or Tourist day) in Boston (part 1)

This is a long one! We hung out with my friend KJ and two of her four kids. We crammed a LOT into one day and this is just part 1 of the post. Super fun crazy day! Thank you for coming to see us in Boston, KJ (and Sam and Lily)!

We're at the top of the Prudential building looking out at the view. The building lets you see 360 around Boston from about 700 feet.

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Then we went on a Duck Boat Tour. We learned a ton about Boston in 90 minutes. Our guide was great.



We saw beautiful leaves....




the statue for the 54th Regiment




The best part was when we went into the water...






and Nat got to drive the boat! (All the kiddos did!)



More beautiful views...



And a piece of the Berlin wall.

Finally, a picture of the duck boat (we're in it) in a reflection on a building.

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Then we went back to the hotel and swam.

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Then we rode the subway to dinner in the North End. Yummy Italian food for us!

More pictures from Tuesday coming soon because we did a lot more. Look for Part 2 soon.

At the airport... heading to Boston

Nat and Judi head off for an excellent adventure and a business trip. Judi will teach her students for a day and 1/2 and Nat will accompany her to learn stuff you can't learn in school.

She's starting with a pizza at the airport in preparation for the long flight. This was the only photo we took Monday because most of the time we felt like a sardine in a tin can--oh the airlines have squished the seats together even more.

Trip was 11/7 - 11/11... We're blogging a week in delay.

We're still not done with Halloween Photos... + photo of the week 43/52

Here are some from the pumpkin patch last weekend.

We're making this one of Kira and her pumpkin Photo of the week for week 43.

Nat versus her cat

Vote for Photo of the week for week 44...

the bottom one in this post

or

this one of Nat carving her pumpkin.

At the dinner table, the fourth kid

Doesn't it look like it's HIS chair and he's waiting to be served?

I think I might like the photo even better with this iPhone effect on it. (Clarity from Camera+)

Pumpkin fun (Photo of the week 44/52)

I probably should have posted this before the already carved photo.

Antlers

In the neighborhood. There were two of these bad boys. They both had big antlers.