Boston

Last month I went on a trip to Boston! I haven't been away from my kids since I was pregnant with Wesley (except one night in Colorado when Brian and I went to Estes Park for our 10 year anniversary while my mom kept the kids). I don't like leaving my family very much, but I had a great time. I went with my mom and John to watch my sister compete in the WNBF Bodybuilding Competition. My mom and John flew into Milwaukee and Sullivan and I drove there and we flew to Boston all together! Sully was a champ and did awesome (he did have the full attention of three people, so how could he not be happy?)

We were only there from late Thursday - early Sunday, but we packed a lot in! Friday morning we went to Salem, which is a place I've always wanted to go. The history of the witch trials fascinates me. I wish we could have spent a whole day there!

This was some super yummy tomato basil soup I had there. Mmmmm.

                                                 

After the morning and lunch at Salem we drove to Concord and went to Sleepy Hollow cemetery. It had all kinds of hills and a swampy forest area behind it. Sufficiently creepy for this famous cemetery! We saw the graves of Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson. It was a really old cemetery and had graves for Civil War veterans and tombstones so old you couldn't read anything on them. I think cemeteries are pretty neat, especially old ones.

We went to take a tour of Louisa May Alcott's home, but they had closed 15 minutes before we arrived. I was sad about that, but still glad we were able to see it. Sophie has read Little Women quite a few times so she thought this was neat.

We made a quick stop at Walden Pond right before it closed as well!

Sullivan slept pretty well by  me in the Hotel. Sweet baby.

Friday night we went out to eat with Emily, Paul and Emily's friend Stacy who was there helping her. After being on a very strict diet for weeks we got to watch my sister eat a steak and baked potato with butter! Very exciting stuff. Saturday morning was the competition. We watched the pre-judging show at 9am and it was pretty awesome. The dedication and commitment you need to have to do this is pretty amazing!

Here she is in the morning at pre-judging (in the maroon).

We had to be back by 4:30 for the results show so we walked like crazy and saw all that we could between the shows. We stopped at Quincy Market and there was a huge farmer's market and they were selling raspberries for super cheap, we bought 6 packages and a bunch of Honeycrisp apples. So yummy. Then we walked along the Freedom Trail and saw all that we could.

Below is the site of the Boston Massacre. Boston really is a beautiful place! We stopped at Paul Revere's home, the old North Church, Mike's Pastry and a few other spots I can't remember now... I guess I'll have to go back one day!

It was really weird traveling with just Sullivan! I didn't have to worry about 4 other little people to keep track of! It was a very strange feeling.

The results show was exciting to watch. My sister got first place in the middle weight division and then competed for the overall title. The light weight champion ended up winning that (apparently because her waist measurement was more symmetrical to her other measurements, they get pretty nit picky about that when choosing the winners), but obviously we were still pretty excited and proud of my sister. She's in the turquoise here.

After the show we went out for pizza to celebrate. It was pretty late and Sullivan had been so very good up until then, but at the restaurant he'd had it and was not happy. He cried and cried until I almost went back to the hotel, but then I put him in his car seat with my white noise app and he finally fell asleep. Poor baby!

Sunday morning we had to say good-bye to Naunie and Grandpa. Sully and I flew from Boston to Minnesota and then to Milwaukee and then drove home from there. We got home about 7pm. Kind of a long day but he was so very good! And my mom and John have some good friends in Milwaukee, Connie and Bruce, who were kind enough to let me leave our car at their house and pick us up from the airport. What a great trip!

Huff visit part 2

Some more fun times with the Huff family....

We stopped at a fun children's garden on our way to visit Lake Michigan. It was small and lovely and adorable, with each spot based on a children's book.

Here we are at Kohler-Andrae State park. We were supposed to camp here for two nights but the weather reports were 80% chances of severe thunderstorm so we opted for a day trip instead.

The kids were loving playing in the sand dunes and didn't care about all the sand all over their faces.

Emily and I try to get a picture together when she's here and they never turn out great, this time being no exception. Ha! Oh, well.

Of course we had to go to Ella's Deli for some ice cream and a carousel ride!

We visited the Madison Library that is right downtown. It was pretty nice, but I won't be taking the kids there on my own. I prefer my small library that is 3 blocks away :)

Here we are hanging out in the basement during a tornado warning. A tornado came through a town about 15 minutes away and did some pretty good damage the night we got home from being at the lake all day. The sirens went off and we got messages on our phones at 1 in the morning saying to seek shelter..... and not one person in the whole house heard it! The next morning I saw on facebook that many of our friends who live nearby spent the night in their basements and that the sirens were so loud. I couldn't believe I didn't wake up for it! Because we were all fine I was grateful no one woke up for it though, it would have been quite a party downstairs with all of us in the middle of the night!

Brian always has something funny to watch on the computer!

We were able to fit all 8 kids in our two cars so this was usually the group Brian and I had in the van, with Sophie, Isaac and Lily in the CR-V. Brian and Matt were actually rear-ended up on campus in the CR-V and the back door of it needs replaced now. Luckily it didn't affect how it drove!

Brian and Emily were doing the dishes and Brian was trying to act like he was a kid again and throwing a fit about doing the dishes :)

Feeding all these kids is a lot of work!

The boys played so cute together. Miles and Wesley still say how the wish Owen could come back!

I am sure I'm missing some things that we did (catching fireflies, for one), but this will have to do for now! We loved having the Huff family come and see us. It's so fun to spend so much time together and let the cousins really get to know each other. We can't wait until they come again.