Family Vacation Photos, Part 5: Portland, Maine

Continued from Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4...

To recap:

We had quite a whirlwind trip! I have a trillion pictures, so rather than bombard you all with them in one post, I'll just post over the next few days with them. Since I haven't felt like writing much lately anyways, this will be a good way to ease back into (trying to) write regularly.

In a nutshell: Jerry, the kids, and I flew into Boston on Wednesday, and spent three nights there; we drove to Salem and spent one night there; then made a road trip south and back north and then south again, winding up in Portland, Maine. We flew out of Boston on Tuesday and are home now.

I have a ton of pictures from the trip, so I'll try to narrow it down to my favorites. I have to say, I'm very self-conscious about posting these pictures. It could be the depression making me feel bad about myself, but I feel fat and "exposed" in them, if that makes sense. I almost didn't post most of these for that reason, but one thing that I regret about being 250+ pounds was that I avoided pictures like the plague.

So, even though I'm not thrilled with how my body looks right now (I was up to 143--10 pounds over my goal weight--when we left for the trip. Today, I was up another 5 pounds from vacation weight. I'm hoping to take that off over the next week, since vacation weight is usually temporary water fluctuations, but it still makes me feel bad.)

---

We arrived in Portland, Maine on Sunday evening. The hotel I chose ended up being really nice--the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Portland. When I checked in, I asked the woman at the front desk if she happened to have any rooms that faced the ocean--she ended up putting us on the top floor with an ocean view! It was awesome. The lights were glistening off the water, and I immediately fell in love with it.  

Since it was dark outside, we stayed in the hotel room and watched a movie before going to bed. In the morning, we got ready to get some breakfast and head out. Here was the daytime view from our room:

Several people on Instagram told me that we should try The Holy Donut for breakfast, so I made it a point to do that before our plans for the day. We walked a couple of blocks to The Holy Donut, and we each ordered a doughnut for breakfast. They looked amazing, and tasted even better!

I got the dark chocolate sea salt doughnut; the kids each got the dark chocolate glazed; and Jerry ordered the maple bacon. We all LOVED them. (Thank you for the suggestion that we go there, Friends!)

In the morning, we walked across the street to catch the mailboat run at 10:00. The mailboat run is part of Casco Bay Line ferries--it's literally a boat that brings mail to and from the islands around Portland. Here is a map of the route:

While we waited for the departure, we took some photos. This was Jerry's way of getting us all into a picture, haha:

I love this photo of the four of us on the boat:

Despite the cold, we stayed in the bow pretty much the whole time. The views were amazing!

Noah took this photo of Jerry and me. Jerry wanted to do a "Titanic-style" pose, but I made him settle for a kiss instead ;) It was actually snowing!

At one of the stops, Jerry, Eli, and I got off of the boat. When we were walking back, we noticed Noah on the bow taking pictures of us, haha.

The mailboat was the PERFECT way to see some amazing views around Portland. I loved that it wasn't at all touristy (other than my family, there were only two other people that I believe were tourists). There were about 20 people total on the boat, and they appeared to be locals who used the boat as transportation.

Eli had been dying to fish in the ocean for years. When we went to Virginia Beach a couple of years ago, we planned to let him fish then... but of course, he couldn't fish in a tropical storm! So, for this trip, I told him that we would do whatever it took to get him to fish in the ocean.

We didn't have room in our bags to be able to get a fishing pole there with us, so we had to rent or buy one in Portland. After making about a thousand phone calls, I still couldn't find a shop that would rent a pole, and I only found one shop that sold them! I was so surprised. So, we walked several blocks to a supply shop, and Eli found a pole (we bought it).

We walked all over the city looking for live bait, until Jerry found a commercial fisherman who told us that Portland is all about commercial fishing and it's nearly impossible to find recreational fishing supplies. He was so kind to give us a couple of herring for Eli to tear off pieces of meat for bait.

I took Eli to the pier across from our hotel, and he was able to set up his pole and fish. FINALLY, he was fishing in the ocean! After about 15 minutes, he pulled up... something. We had no idea what it was! It was a blob-looking thing, and it was moving inside. We had never seen anything like it! We were pretty fascinated by it, but he put it back in the water and kept fishing.

He didn't have any luck catching more than that blob, but he said he was really excited about catching that--even more so than a fish--because it was so unusual. I didn't care what he caught, as long as he was able to finally fish in the ocean!

For our "Maine" event (ha) we had decided that we were going to eat lobster for dinner our last night in Portland. None of us had ever had lobster! I read a ton of reviews on Yelp and Trip Advisor to pick a restaurant, and we settle on DiMillo's on the Water.

It ended up being a fun experience, just to say we did it, but Jerry, Noah, and I agreed that it was overrated and we wouldn't order it again. Eli really liked it, but said next time, he would get "lazy man's lobster" so that he wouldn't have to mess with the shells ;)

I actually ordered a seafood scampi, which had lobster, shrimp, and scallops. I wasn't impressed with the dish at all, unfortunately. (The service wasn't great, either--bummer.) But I had fun helping Eli with getting the meat out of his lobster.

The bill for the meal was insane--I could have bought two weeks worth of groceries for that amount! But I kept reminding myself that we were paying for the experience, and not so much the meal itself. We couldn't leave Portland, Maine without a lobster dinner.

We walked back to the hotel, each of us agreeing that we wished we had more time to spend in Portland. It was SUCH an amazing city--probably my second favorite out of the cities I've visited (after Portland, Oregon, of course!). I would most definitely like to go back in the summertime.

On Tuesday morning, we drove back down to Boston (about two hours) and returned our car at the airport, then had lunch before the flight home. My older brother, Brian, picked us up from the airport and drove us home, which was awesome; and my younger brother, Nathan, brought Joey to us! It was so nice not to have to go out anywhere after we got home.

Joey was completely wiped out after a whole week at Lucky Puppy, his doggy daycare. He slept from the second he got home, and the entire next day. I'm sure he had a blast playing with all the other dogs for a week.

It feels good to be home, and now I'm working on getting back to a routine in the hope that it helps me out of this depression. I'll try to write again soon!

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Family Vacation Photos, Part 4: Ben & Jerry's in Vermont

Continued from Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3...

To recap:

We had quite a whirlwind trip! I have a trillion pictures, so rather than bombard you all with them in one post, I'll just post over the next few days with them. Since I haven't felt like writing much lately anyways, this will be a good way to ease back into (trying to) write regularly.

In a nutshell: Jerry, the kids, and I flew into Boston on Wednesday, and spent three nights there; we drove to Salem and spent one night there; then made a road trip south and back north and then south again, winding up in Portland, Maine. We flew out of Boston yesterday and are home now.

I have a ton of pictures from the trip, so I'll try to narrow it down to my favorites. I have to say, I'm very self-conscious about posting these pictures. It could be the depression making me feel bad about myself, but I feel fat and "exposed" in them, if that makes sense. I almost didn't post most of these for that reason, but one thing that I regret about being 250+ pounds was that I avoided pictures like the plague.

So, even though I'm not thrilled with how my body looks right now (I was up to 143--10 pounds over my goal weight--when we left for the trip. Today, I was up another 5 pounds from vacation weight. I'm hoping to take that off over the next week, since vacation weight is usually temporary water fluctuations, but it still makes me feel bad.)

---

After spending Saturday night in Peabody, Massachusetts (outside of Salem), we got up early (on Easter) to head out on a road trip--hitting six states in one day! Massachusetts was the first one, so that was a given. But since we were so close to Rhode Island and Connecticut (just an hour south) we decided to knock those states off our lists of places we've traveled to.

I spent some time on Google Maps trying to find a very short way to briefly enter each state, so as not to waste too much time; and I was surprised to see a city called Foster, Rhode Island just near the border! Naturally, being the Fosters, we had to drive through it. I figured out a route that would take a couple of hours before we were able to head up to Ben & Jerry's in Vermont.

So, the story with Ben & Jerry's...

Several years ago, when we still had cable, my family would watch a couple of shows on The Food Network here and there. The show I'm thinking of, with Ben & Jerry's, was probably Man vs. Food or something. Anyway, we saw on the show an ice cream sundae called "The Vermonster".

The Vermonster is exclusive to the Ben & Jerry's factory in Vermont. It's an enormous sundae that consists of:

20 scoops of ice cream
4 bananas
3 huge cookies
1 huge brownie
2 scoops of hot fudge
2 scoops of caramel
3 candy toppings
whipped cream

When we saw that on the show, we all agreed that one day, we just had to go to Vermont to get one. Over the next couple of years, we saw it again on TV a few more times, and each time we said, "Someday, we're going to go to Vermont for that!"

When Jerry and I were deciding on a vacation for this year, we remembered the Vermonster, and considering we wanted to go to Boston anyway, we thought a road trip to Vermont would be perfect. We were SO excited to tell the kids about it, and we waited until until Christmas to spill the beans.

Anyway, on Easter Sunday, we forwent the Easter baskets and headed to Ben & Jerry's in Waterbury, Vermont instead.

First, we did the factory tour. It wasn't anything to write home about--the only part I found interesting was watching the factory line where the lids were put onto each pint, and there was a man whose job was to make sure that there was no ice cream that spilled down the sides. I actually saw him throw away a couple of pints in the few minutes I was there! (insert shocked face emoji)

We weren't allowed to take pictures on the tour, so I don't have anything of that. After the tour, we went into the ice cream shop. When I ordered a Vermonster, the girl who was working looked like she came to life all of a sudden, and asked for help from another girl. They scooped out 20 different flavors of ice cream (yes, I tipped them well) and loaded it up with all the toppings.

When I was carrying it to our table, all the eyes in the store were on me--hahaha! Everyone was fascinated by it.

It was delicious! We had no clue what flavors we were scooping out with each bite, but that made it a bit of an adventure, haha. All of us agreed that we should have left out the bananas (we aren't bananas and ice cream people), but we ate everything around the bananas.

It was so fun to make that "someday we'll go there" a reality!

Before we left, we went to yet another graveyard... this time, it was the "flavor graveyard" at Ben & Jerry's (flavors that used to be produced, but are no longer). I was surprised to see it was an actual "graveyard"--I was expecting a wall of fame sort of deal inside the factory.

There were several flavors that sounded so good--I'm surprised that they were a flop! But it was fun to read about each one.

With bellies full of ice cream, we got back in the car and headed for our final destination... Portland, Maine. None of us had ever been to Maine, so it was exciting to see (yet another) state. We got to Maine just as it was starting to get dark, and once we got downtown in Portland, we could just see the lights everywhere--it was gorgeous! (In the dark, anyway.)

Tomorrow, I'll write about our adventures in Portland, in the fifth (and final) part of our vacation series.

To be continued...

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Family Vacation Photos, Part 3: Salem (continued)

Continued from Part 1 and Part 2...

To Recap: We had quite a whirlwind trip! I have a trillion pictures, so rather than bombard you all with them in one post, I'll just post over the next few days with them. Since I haven't felt like writing much lately anyways, this will be a good way to ease back into (trying to) write regularly.

In a nutshell: Jerry, the kids, and I flew into Boston on Wednesday, and spent three nights there; we drove to Salem and spent one night there; then made a road trip south and back north and then south again, winding up in Portland, Maine. We flew out of Boston yesterday and are home now.

I have a ton of pictures from the trip, so I'll try to narrow it down to my favorites. I have to say, I'm very self-conscious about posting these pictures. It could be the depression making me feel bad about myself, but I feel fat and "exposed" in them, if that makes sense. I almost didn't post most of these for that reason, but one thing that I regret about being 250+ pounds was that I avoided pictures like the plague. 

So, even though I'm not thrilled with how my body looks right now (I was up to 143--10 pounds over my goal weight--when we left for the trip. Today, I was up another 5 pounds from vacation weight. I'm hoping to take that off over the next week, since vacation weight is usually temporary water fluctuations, but it still makes me feel bad.)

---

On Saturday morning, we rented a car to drive to Salem. (The Revere has an Enterprise car rental on the 5th floor of the hotel! So convenient.) I'd never been to Salem, so I was excited to see a new city. 

Caitlin and her boyfriend, Joe, planned to meet us there and then have dinner with us afterward. We had planned to go right to the Salem Witch Museum, but after finding parking, we just stopped at a few other places along the way. We stumbled upon the Old Burying Point Cemetery, and of course, I had to check it out! 

There were a lot of stones that were hard to read, which naturally happens after 300 years, but I was very interested to read a lot of the inscriptions on the ones that I could make out. The poems were definitely more morbid than stones these days, and I found it fascinating.

This one is hard to read, even in black and white, so here is what it says:

"Stop dear youth remember you must die,
Blooming in health as you, so once was I;
A fair and favourite flower of living friends
But death the unexpected summons sends;
One week in perfect health bright as the day,
The next united with his fellow clay.
Fatal sickness spoil'd the manly form,
And death consign'd him to his kindred worm.
Death is a debt to nature due,
I've paid my debt & so must you."

I especially liked the last two lines, which were kind of harsh!

"Death is a debt to nature due,
I've paid the debt, & so must you."

This next one broke my heart. A nine month old baby who died in 1796:

"Happy the babe, who privileg'd by fate
To shorter labour and a lighter weight;
Receiv'd but yesterday the gift of breath,
Ordered tomorrow to return to Death."

And this one is my favorite:

"Thoughtless wanderer turn aside
And read when Stephen Smith died.
You too must die and lay your head
In this cold lodging of the dead.
If you are young, so too was I;
If you are old, you soon must die.
Then listen to the solemn word
Sinners prepare to meet thy God."

I can't imagine ever reading something like that these days, so I find the old gravestones so interesting! Like I said before, I could walk through cemeteries for hours reading the stones.

We went into a few shops while we waited for Caitlin and Joe, and then when we met up with them, we went to a comic book store. Caitlin and I weren't interested, but the boys browsed for the longest time in there. I don't think my kids had ever been in a comic book store.

Then we went into a video game store, and I actually really found it interesting. They had all the old consoles hanging on the wall, like the Atari and original Nintendo. I was psyched to see the Sega Genesis! I had one of those, and all the kids in the neighborhood envied me, hahaha.

From there, we finally headed to the Witch Museum. I wasn't sure what the kids would think of it (or even what I would think of it, since I'm not a history buff). It ended up being pretty interesting--it didn't go into a lot of depth, but basically just gave the gist of the Salem Witch Trials and explained what the modern version of "witchcraft" is. I don't believe in witchcraft, but I found it interesting, nonetheless.

After the museum, we walked to an arcade called Bit Bar. It had a bunch of old school video games, like the ones I played growing up. The boys all played while Caitlin and I sat at a table and chatted with a couple of girlie drinks (I ordered the "Princess Peach").

After the arcade, we went to Kowloon for dinner. It's the Chinese place that I went to with Caitlin, Joe, and John last year, and absolutely loved. It has such a fun atmosphere, and the food is fantastic.

I thought it was hilarious that Joe and Jerry shared a "Scorpion Bowl" drink, Lady & The Tramp style.

I realized I hadn't gotten a single picture with Caitlin the entire trip, so we took a quick one in the parking lot before saying goodbye.

Jerry, the kids, and I headed to our hotel in Peabody, which is right outside of Salem. The kids wanted to swim, so they played in the pool.

Meanwhile, Jerry and I sat in the poolside chairs and relaxed after an exhausting day.

Overall, Salem was very fun! The main street that we walked in town was lively, and there were lots of little shops. My favorite part was definitely the cemetery, and the kids liked the arcade, of course. We all learned a little about the Salem Witch Trials, and got to explore a unique town.

Next up: A road trip through New Hampshire, Connecticut, Vermont (where we went to Ben & Jerry's!), Rhode Island, and our final destination... Portland, Maine.

To be continued...

Continue Reading...

Family Vacation Photos, Part 2: Boston (continued)

(continued from Part 1)

To recap: We had quite a whirlwind trip! I have a trillion pictures, so rather than bombard you all with them in one post, I'll just post over the next few days with them. Since I haven't felt like writing much lately anyways, this will be a good way to ease back into (trying to) write regularly.

In a nutshell: Jerry, the kids, and I flew into Boston on Wednesday, and spent three nights there; we drove to Salem and spent one night there; then made a road trip south and back north and then south again, winding up in Portland, Maine. We flew out of Boston yesterday and are home now.

I have a ton of pictures from the trip, so I'll try to narrow it down to my favorites. I have to say, I'm very self-conscious about posting these pictures. It could be the depression making me feel bad about myself, but I feel fat and "exposed" in them, if that makes sense. I almost didn't post most of these for that reason, but one thing that I regret about being 250+ pounds was that I avoided pictures like the plague.

So, even though I'm not thrilled with how my body looks right now (I was up to 143--10 pounds over my goal weight--when we left for the trip. Today, I was up another 5 pounds from vacation weight. I'm hoping to take that off over the next week, since vacation weight is usually temporary water fluctuations, but it still makes me feel bad.)

---

Here goes Part 2...

After the failed whale watching, we went to the aquarium, which was right next door. I was super impressed with the aquarium! It was one of the best I've seen. We started with a "hands-on" sting ray exhibit. The sting rays were so cute--they kept coming right up to us and bumping their heads against us. I had expected them to shy away, annoyed that we were even there, haha.

I didn't take many pictures in the aquarium. One thing I learned over the last several years (especially while going through photos on my computer and organizing them) is that I only really want the photos with people in them. Looking through photos of my trips, the pictures of scenery doesn't really interest me unless there are people in them. So, I stopped taking pictures of "things", unless I have a reason to, and I try to include people in all my pics.

After the aquarium, we went to the original Cheers bar for dinner. Again, this was another touristy thing that Jerry wanted to do, and the kids were all for it. For being a tourist attraction, I was very impressed with their food! I was expecting subpar bar food, but it definitely exceeded my expectations. The atmosphere was fun, and Jerry was able to get a souvenir beer glass.

On the way back to the hotel, we walked through Boston Common (the large park in downtown Boston).

As we stopped to take a couple of photos, we ended up chatting for a long time with a man we saw nearby.

His name is David Pogue, and he "takes care of" the squirrels in the park every day. He's a local college professor with a love of squirrels, and I was amazed at how the squirrels were like magnets to him. He set down his bags on the ground to talk to us, and instantly, there were a couple of squirrels digging around in his bag.

As he was talking to us, squirrels were coming up to him and literally climbing up his leg and arms to see if he was holding nuts in his hands (he brings almonds and walnuts for them). He even taught the squirrels to sit on his head for a walnut (a special treat)!

(I've already heard from several readers how horrible it is to feed squirrels, so I don't need to hear it again; but that isn't what this is about--we simply met an interesting man in the park who happens to love squirrels, and we enjoyed watching him interact with them.)

He told us that someone had made a very short film of him last year, which we could find on YouTube. I looked it up later, and here it is:


We were sitting on a bench, and we didn't know it, but David told us that it was the bench that was in a famous scene in Good Will Hunting. I'd seen the movie, but didn't know the scene he was referring to; regardless, he offered to take some photos of us on the bench, which was nice of him.

(Eli bought the shark hat at the aquarium. Clearly, it made for good family photos.)

As David was taking this photo (similar to the one in the movie), one of his squirrels literally climbed up my leg and started digging through my purse! Hahaha, unlucky for him, I didn't have any treats in there.

 The buildings are my favorite part of downtown Boston. I love how unique they look!

We went back to the hotel to prepare for Day 3.

On Friday, we got breakfast and headed to Fenway Park for a stadium tour. (Again, something I've done before, but I knew the boys would all like it). Since we didn't have a car, I was excited to show the kids how to use a subway. Boston's system is SUPER easy compared to NYC, but since I didn't learn (or even go on) a subway until I was in my early 30's, I loved that I was able to show them how to get around.

As you can see from the photo, they were clearly very interested in learning, hahaha.

Family photo op at Fenway...

Noah took this picture, and I love it!

Jerry was having the time of his life, of course.

The tour was SO much warmer than it was last year when I went with Caitlin and John. It wasn't sunny, but it was nearly 60 degrees outside, so I was happy.

It started sprinkling on the way back into downtown Boston. We stopped at Faneuil Hall, because I knew the kids would love shopping for souvenirs there, but it was closed for renovation! Such a bummer. We grabbed a quick lunch in Quincy Market, and then walked back to the hotel in the rain (luckily, we had umbrellas).

It was rainy, everyone was tired, and we just weren't in the mood to go explore--we had planned on going to the Science Museum, but we just weren't up for it at that point. At dinnertime, we walked a block or two to a place called Intermission Tavern. It wasn't on our radar, but that was probably our favorite meal on the trip! Jerry and I shared a barbecue burger which was delicious, and Eli had the best nachos I've ever tried. (Noah got a burger, too)

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at 7-11 to get a snack for later, and ended up meeting the most amazing man. He was homeless, and holding the door open for people who were entering and exiting 7-11. When Eli was paying for his snack, with his own allowance, he said he wanted to give the man his change on the way out. 

Well, the man thanked us profusely, and while it was difficult to understand him, I could tell he was telling Eli to be good and listen to his mom. It was then that I realized he was deaf, which was why it was hard to understand him.

Side note: I have always been fascinated with the deaf community, and started trying to teach myself American Sign Language when I was just eight years old. (On a school trip to Washington D.C. in high school, we had a free day to roam the city. While everyone else explored the typical teen attractions, I spent my day at Gallaudet University, an exclusively deaf college.)  I've taken several classes through the years, but never enough to really learn the language.

Anyway, I started signing a little with him, and he was so nice! His name is Daryl, and we learned that he was born deaf. He was one of seven siblings, and was raised by his dad until his dad died when he was very young. He wasn't able to get a good deaf education or opportunities, which led to his homelessness. He kept telling Eli to make sure that he learns and listens to his mom who loves him so that he doesn't end up homeless like him. 

Interacting with Daryl was probably the highlight of the entire trip for me. And the kids loved it, too. They wanted to learn how to sign their names, so I taught them that at the hotel later. They also said they wanted to learn ASL, so I think I'm going to look into a way for us to learn it as a family. They even talked about Daryl a few more times during the rest of the trip, so he certainly made an impact on them. 

Being in a city is great--I love that I have met some of the coolest people simply by chance!

To be continued... next up is Salem!

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Family Vacation Photos, Part 1: Boston

Well, I am home from Boston/Portland!

I brought my laptop with me to write while I was gone, but I never even opened it. It's much harder to get any time to myself when I'm traveling with my family. It was nice to focus on just the family instead of worrying about everything else.

We had quite a whirlwind trip! I have a trillion pictures, so rather than bombard you all with them in one post, I'll just post over the next few days with them. Since I haven't felt like writing much lately anyways, this will be a good way to ease back into (trying to) write regularly.

I'm still not feeling great mentally (I was actually very close to having a full blown panic attack yesterday, which was scary), but I'm hoping it will pass soon. The depression I'm feeling is not nearly as bad as it was before my bipolar diagnosis and new meds, but it's there. And it's hard to think positively about it.

But, other than that stuff, here are some photos and a few written tidbits about the trip.

In a nutshell: Jerry, the kids, and I flew into Boston on Wednesday, and spent three nights there; we drove to Salem and spent one night there; then made a road trip south and back north and then south again, winding up in Portland, Maine. We flew out of Boston yesterday and are home now.

I have a ton of pictures from the trip, so I'll try to narrow it down to my favorites. I have to say, I'm very self-conscious about posting these pictures. It could be the depression making me feel bad about myself, but I feel fat and "exposed" in them, if that makes sense. I almost didn't post most of these for that reason, but one thing that I regret about being 250+ pounds was that I avoided pictures like the plague.

So, even though I'm not thrilled with how my body looks right now (I was up to 143--10 pounds over my goal weight--when we left for the trip. Today, I was up another 5 pounds from vacation weight. I'm hoping to take that off over the next week, since vacation weight is usually temporary water fluctuations, but it still makes me feel bad.)

---

Becky, my sister-in-law, picked us up at 5:00 on Wednesday morning to drive us to the airport, which was SO nice of her! If we drove ourselves, parking would have been $150, so it saved us a lot of money. In return, I told her I'd babysit Luke this Sunday overnight--so I totally got the better end of the deal ;)

I wasn't at all nervous about flying, which was awesome. I've gotten so exposed to it over the last several years that I don't even worry about it anymore. I chose window seats for the boys, and Jerry and I each took the middle seat next to them. I sat next to Eli, and Jerry sat next to Noah.

I certainly made the right choice, because Jerry was in the perfect spot to massage my shoulders! hahaha

Surprisingly (to me), Eli was nervous about flying. And because I know what a horrible feeling that is, I knew just the right things to say to him. I didn't quote all the stupid statistics that people love to say to a nervous flyer--I just told him the things that I wanted to hear when I was nervous: the plane gets a little (or sometimes a lot) bumpy when going through the cirrus clouds (thin and whispy ones), so you know to expect that, particularly after take-off; that the noises the plane makes during the flight are usually from altitude changes in order to find a smoother ride; if you lift your feet off the floor when it's bumpy, you barely notice the bumps; and some other things.

Also, the napkin I was given with my coffee was made just for me:

Caitlin, very good friend from Boston, generously picked us up from the airport and hung out with us for the day! She even brought us this amazing gift basket that I forgot to take a picture of before my kids started inhaling it--lots of snacks, including homemade cookies and Rice Krispie treats.

The first thing we did (mainly to get it out of the way, because it was really just Jerry's thing) was go to Sam Adams for the brewery tour. Jerry loved it, and it was only an hour, so we were cool with that. Then we went to Doyle's for lunch--Eli and I are both obsessed with fried pickles, and Doyle's has some amazing ones, so I wanted him to try them.

After that, we walked the Freedom Trail. Our hotel (the Revere Boston Common) was just about two blocks from Boston Common, so we had a fantastic location to walk the city. It was fairly cold outside, but definitely not as bad as I was imagining it would be. Thank goodness!

Funnily enough, our favorite site along the Freedom Trail was the cemetery. I've always loved walking through cemeteries, and could literally spend all day reading the gravestones. The kids loved it, too, so I was glad that I didn't feel rushed.

A couple of years ago, my older brother, Brian, gave Noah a nice Nikon camera that he didn't use anymore, and Noah has LOVED using it. He took it with us everywhere, and got some very nice pictures. I thought it was cute to watch him find the perfect photo ops ;)

This was actually his photo, not mine, but I found it interesting to see that this was a very common figure to be found on headstones. It looks creepy to me, but it was on a LOT of them--there was also a variation of it, with a skull instead of a face.

Another of Noah's pictures. I was very impressed by this one! It looks awesome in black and white.

I totally forgot to get a picture of our desserts from Mike's, but of course we stopped at Mike's Pastry along the way so I could show the family what all the hype is about. We sat down at these benches to eat, and Noah took some pictures of the birds.

The Freedom Trail took up the better part of the afternoon, and we were exhausted by 6:00. We went to the hotel so that the kids could swim in the hotel's pool. It was a nice first day!

On our second day in Boston, we had reservations for a Boston Harbor Cruises whale watching tour at 10:00. We were so excited for this! I have always wanted to see a whale in the ocean, and I couldn't wait for this tour. We got a quick breakfast of bagels at Panera, and then walked to the waterfront.

On the way to the dock, Noah kept exclaiming how much he loves the city--not just Boston, but "city life" in general. He thought it was so cool that we could walk wherever we wanted to go. I can totally see him moving to a city when he's older!

It was COLD on the boat. The boat traveled at 35+ miles per hour, and when it's already cold outside, the open ocean makes it feel twice as cold. I'm wearing three layers here: a long-sleeved warm turtleneck, a windbreaker jacket, and then a heavy sweatshirt on top. A hat, gloves, and even a Buff around my neck. It was super windy, so we had to hold on tight. And here, Jerry was blocking the wind for me, hahaha.

Noah is now at the age where he is "too cool" to smile and act goofy like his parents (he says he hates his teeth, so he won't smile showing his teeth at all).

The whale watching tour was a big disappointment, because we didn't see a single whale! From all the amazing reviews I read on Trip Advisor and Yelp, I was SO sure this was the perfect thing for us to do, and that we would see whales. But no such luck. Since whale sightings are "guaranteed" for the company, they gave us passes to use in the future--they never expire, so if we should go back in 20 years or so, we can try again ;)

... to be continued. There are way too many photos to post in one go!

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