boston.wednesday

Let's just say that this day was one that needed patience.

Before you read this post...if you have 4 minutes...watch this clip. I was trying to keep it all in perspective as my day was unfolding.

1. We woke up at 5:40 a.m. to leave for the airport by 6:00 a.m. for Julie's 8:00 flight.

2. Right before we left, I had to hit that bathroom. Rachel graciously loaded my bag. She, thoughtfully left my purse out so that I could have it with me in the car.

3. I, absentmindedly, didn't ask for my purse when I got in the car. I guess I thought it was in the trunk.

4. We drove to the airport...1 hour away.

5. About 5 minutes before we arrived at the airport, Rachel said, "Where's your purse?" I said, "I thought you put it in the trunk." She said, "&*#%!!! I'm sure I set it on the garage floor thinking that you'd walk right by it."

6. Good news....my flight isn't until 10:15. Bad news....now we have to drive 1 hour back to Rae's house and another hour back to the airport. Stink.

7. Rachel feels really bad....I feel really bad. Double stink.

8. Drive back to Rae's...drive back to the airport.

9. Check in and learn that my flight is delayed until 11:30.

10. Hear my name called..."Ma'am, yes, we don't think you are going to make your connecting flight at 12:30, so we've bumped you back to the 1:50 flight." Stink.

11. Board the plane. Head to the runway. Stop. Announcement: "We've been delayed yet again. Please sit tight. We'll be on our way in about 35 minutes." Stink.

12. Make it on the next flight. Didn't have much time to eat...so I didn't. And should have.

13. Starving Jackie. I do get a teeny-tiny bag of pretzels and a sprite on the plane. I think there were 6 pretzels in the bag...maybe 7.

14. There was a lady sitting one row back with 2 small children (obviously travelling alone). I say, "If you need help with anything while we're on this flight, let me know. I have 3 small children, and I've travelled with them before. It can be crazy sometimes!"

15. She is so sweet, and we start talking. Her little girl (Jassie...not sure if that's how she spells it) is 6, and her little boy (Jason) is 5 months. So adorable.

16. She is on her way from Germany (where her husband plays professional basketball) to come back to the US for a few months while he's off. Wow.

17. So, I ask if her daughter is in kindergarten in Germany. She says, "We home school." Us too!!!

18. Then, I say to the little girl..."Your name is Jassie? My name is Jackie, and it kind of sounds like Jassie!" Mom says, "Your name is Jackie? My name is Jackie!" Now this is just getting crazy!!

19. I make a new best friend....and I get to hold baby Jason while Jackie and Jassie were in the bathroom. He was soooooo adorable. He even giggled once.

20. We finally land. I'm starving.

21. I go to the McDonald's in the airport to eat because I think that I'm about to pass out from lack of food.

22. I order a value meal and eat the whole thing...something I never do.

23. I go to get my luggage which I assumed came in on the earlier flight.

24. The man says, "I've been paging you." Uh-oh.

25. Local time 5:15....he says, "Your luggage got put on the wrong flight, and it won't be here until 6:30." I still have 2 hours to drive home from the airport.

26. I feel tears welling up in my eyes because I've been travelling for about 12 hours straight at this point. I am so tired. Deep breath....composure....no tears.

27. The man says that once the luggage arrives, they'll get it to my house by the following day.

28. Ok, I can live without my luggage for a night. I drive 2 1/2 hours home.

29. The following morning, a man comes to my house with my bag.

30. My coat is falling out of the bag....this doesn't look good.

31. My zipper is destroyed and the back of my bag is torn open.

32. I called the airline right away, and they're still working on it. I guess. That was last Thursday. I got a call yesterday afternoon, and they said they are still trying to figure out what to do.

33. Is it that difficult? I really just want a new bag.

So, on the bright side....Rachel and I got a little extra chat-time in, I made a new best friend on my second flight, and I think I might get a new piece of luggage. Not bad for one day.

boston.tuesday

Rachel and Shawn have a ton of turkeys around their house...Josh would have been in hunter's heaven. They woke me up on Tuesday morning, so I had to go out and take some pictures. I even did my best turkey call at the big tom and he gobbled at me twice.

He was stalking the two hens below all morning, but they really didn't care. He tried to impress them as much as possible, though, by poofing out as big as he could.

Once we got around, we had crepes!!! Yes, Sarah, I'll post the recipe :), we headed to a coffee shop called Armeno. I bought some coffee for Josh which he loves! They roast it right there in the place. We were able to walk through and see the roasters.

Then, I saw this, and I almost didn't purchase the coffee....

Puke.

Then, we headed into Boston to go on a Duck Tour....so much fun. We got to see all kinds of great historical buildings and sites. There is so much stinkin' history in Boston. I told Josh that we HAVE to go back when the girls are older.

We saw the site where the Boston Tea Party took place as well as several other sites involving the Revolutionary War. While our Duck was in the water, we saw the island that was shown in the book Make Way for Ducklings which I've read to my kids several times. Picture below...I had to take it for the girls even though the weather was kind of dreary that day.

All of the kids on the Duck got to take a turn driving the Duck while it was in the water. Then, I got to drive the Duck as well!!! How cool is that?

Then, we took the subway to Regina's Pizza....

and had lunch with Leo....

It was great.

Then, we went to Mike's Pastries....if you ever go to Boston, you MUST go to Mike's Pastries. Seriously, this is what we bought: gelatto, strawberry cheesecake, an eclair, raspberry almond something or other, and cookies.

Thankfully, we didn't eat it all at once, but we did eat it all that day. I took one of the cookies home to the girls. It was about the size of my face.

I had to take a picture of the Black and White cookie for Josh. Seinfeld anyone?

"The key to eating a black and white cookie, Elaine, is you want to get some black and some white in each bite. Nothing mixes better than vanilla and chocolate. And yet, still, somehow racial harmony eludes us. If people would only look to the cookie. All our problems would be solved."
- Jerry, in "The Dinner Party"

We ended the evening with a little Biggest Loser. Fun, fun day.

boston.monday

I found a way to copy and paste...it took a little work, but yay!

This is the Boston Marathon....do you see the floods and floods of people running (in the next picture)? Craziness. They just kept coming and kept coming and kept coming.Not being a runner (yet...I have huge aspirations...just ask Julie and Rachel), I didn't know that some runners write their names on their shirts so that you can cheer for them.

So, if you're watching a running race, and you see a big "SUSAN" on someone's shirt, that means that they want you to yell their name and cheer them on.Needless to say, I cheered for a lot of people that I didn't know.

We were watching for Rachel's cousin, Erica, but we didn't see her. We did, however, see one of Erica's friends that we had met the day before. That was kind of exciting, and we cheered loudly for her!

We were around mile number 4, so everyone still looked pretty peppy when we saw them. I'm guessing that by mile 22 they would have looked like a whole different group!

Later that day, Rachel had to take her hubby to the airport. Julie and I ordered a Netflix movie on demand off of Rachel's computer.

***On a side note, I guess that you can be a Nexflix customer for like $8 a month and get a ton of movies on demand AND still get them in the mail too. I'm not a huge movie fan, but if you were renting more than a couple of movies a month, it would totally be worth it. They just hook their computer up to the t.v. and voila...instant movie.***

Julie and I ordered Bella and talked through the entire movie. We didn't watch any of it. We both decided that it LOOKED like a good movie. We'll have to catch it another time.

So, after Rachel came back home, we went for some pedicures. Julie got a manicure because she had just gotten a pedicure a week earlier. So, she snapped a shot of Rae and me.

The evening ended with a little shopping where I purchased a couple of cheap gifts for the kiddos. I thought maybe if I brought them something home that they would want me to go away more often. :)

And we ate dinner at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant called Harry's where the waitresses wore shirts that said, "Fried is a Food Group". I had crab cakes. Yummo. And we had dessert.

Julie and I decided that this day couldn't have gotten much better! So true, so true.

boston.sunday.pics

boston.sunday

I apologize ahead of time for not having any pictures for this post...I'll have them soon, but not yet. I didn't take my camera to Fenway, so I'll post Julie's pictures once she sends them to me!

The morning started with breakfast with some of Rachel's family. They were in town because her cousin was running the marathon on Monday. Rachel had made quiche, poppy seed bread (recipe to come), Rachel Ray spinach/ham/egg things (recipe to come), and Shawn cooked up the thickest bacon I have ever seen in my life.

The food at this house was grand. I think food tastes better when you don't have to cook it yourself. Anyway, so breakfast was great.

Then we got on the train to head to the Red Sox game. The best part was that they didn't charge us for the train tickets. I guess when there are so many people on the train, they don't bother....isn't that crazy?? You'd think they would DEFINITELY charge then. It was packed.

Anyway, so Fenway Park has pretty much an entire festival going on outside of the stadium. It sounds and smells like a carnival. And there are people EVERYWHERE and they're pretty much all dressed the same.

Thankfully, Rachel outfitted us with some Red Sox hats. We totally fit in. Thanks Rae. And thank you to Shawn and Rachel for paying for our tix. So generous. My favorite part was watching the guys sell peanuts, popcorn, coke, hot dogs, and clam chowder. Yes, they sell CLAM CHOWDER up and down the aisle ways. "Chowda Here!! Getcha Clam Chowda!!" Thankfully, they don't toss those out like they do the boxes of popcorn and peanuts.

After the 6th inning (because that's all the baseball that non-baseball people can handle), we headed out to walk around town before our train left.

We went back to the house for yummy leftovers. And I forgot to mention yesterday that we had a fabulous chocolate torte made by none other than Rachel herself (recipe to follow as well). It was good the first day, and even better the second!

boston.saturday

My flights went extremely well on Saturday with the exception of the worst earache that I have ever had. I'm even inclined to say that it was the worst pain that I've ever been in...including labor. I told Josh that I thought it might have been worse than labor (which he didn't believe me), and I said, "Well, at least I expected the labor pains! This was completely unexpected!!!"

So, I bought some extra strength Tylenol while on my layover, and all was well for flight #2. I arrived in Boston at about 12:45 on Saturday afternoon. Julie had gotten in just before me, and we all headed to Rachel's house! Yay!

Since we were going to the Sox game on Sunday afternoon, we spent Saturday afternoon watching Fever Pitch to get us in Sox mode. It's a pretty cute movie.

Saturday night, we were served this for dinner:

Can I say YUMO?!! Shawn (Rachel's hubby) is a fantastic griller. He has his own burger recipe (that includes a little Colon Cleanser....not joking). It was sooooo good...Colon Cleanser and all. ***Colon Cleanser is actually a brand of hot sauce, and Shawn puts just enough in to give the burgers a little kick.

The grilled veggies were so great, and I ate fennel (I think that's how you spell it) for the first time. Fennel is similar to onion, and he grilled it up with the other veggies...mine is under my asparagus. The asparagus was the best.

Julie and Rachel and I then cut up fruit for a fruit salad the next morning:

Julie was excited that Shawn had taken this picture with the vase of flowers in front of her baby bump, but I think she's crazy. She looks so adorable, and I was excited when I got to sit beside her and feel the baby kicking around on Saturday. She's due in 6 weeks. Yay!

More tomorrow!

 

boston.in.april

I'm back!!!

Can I tell you how much fun I had? Well, I will.

Friday night, I headed down to my sister's house since she lives closer to the the airport. All went well until we decided to stay up until 1:00 in the morning talking...surprise, surprise. I had to get up at 3:40 AM to be on my way to the airport by 4:00 AM so that I could arrive by 5:00 AM because my flight was leaving at 6:30 AM.

Let's just say that I didn't get enough sleep the night before. I told Jill that I wasn't going to talk to anyone on the airplane because I wanted to read. She didn't believe me.

I didn't say more than "I'm sitting there" to the man that I sat beside on my first flight. (He was Japanese and didn't speak English.)

The second flight found me sitting beside a little girl who was travelling by herself. She was 11 years old and in the 5th grade. I told her that I used to teach 5th grade before I had kids. She liked that answer, and pretty much talked the entire way to me. She told me all about the books she was reading. I think she spent 20 minutes just on one of them. Thankfully it was a pretty short flight. She was cute, though, and I was glad that it was me that she was sitting beside instead of some crazy person...well, crazier than me.

If I was a parent, I would want someone like me to sit beside my kid. :)

I will post a day-by-day schedule of Boston events over the next few days. I'll post the Saturday post in just a bit, and I'm going to see if I can get some of Julie's pictures to add for the other days.

I had such a great time, but it is good to be home!!