I Think We'll Go To Boston, Part 3

I love being an auntie. I get to do all of the fun stuff, like mail presents just because I feel like it, and smother them in kisses and tickles, and I get to be the one to hold them during special religious ceremonies, at which I am deemed their Godmother. Yeah. Boom.

Two years ago, I held my Olly-bear through his baptism. This June, I held my Westie-bug through his.

It's probably completely improper to photograph in church...?

My brother and sister-in-law have a lovely church in beautiful Arlington, MA and we have attended so many special moments there with them: their wedding and the baptisms of both of our nephews. The red door and the large historic bricks are swoon-worthy. It's a beautiful place for Sundays and families.

If you're ever in Boston, you must make a short trek to Arlington for Blue Ribbon BBQ. We have it every time we visit my brother because it is amazing! We get really nervous that there won't be enough so we order the meal for 6 to feed the 4 of us and it's always too much -- even though we stuff ourselves to near burst! Just imagine how much my brother ordered for the whole family post-baptsism lunch!? Oh, how it was so good.

Great news, DC friends!!! We recently discovered when my brother came to DC and we went to order Williards BBQ in Dulles that the menus were eerily identical. Turns out that Williard's here in VA, which is two minutes from my house, is owned by the BROTHER of Blue Ribbon BBQ which is two minutes from my brother's house in MA. Does anyone else think thats a super weird thing?? It's like God wants my brother and I to share in the BBQ goodness.

BBQ, y'all. It brings a family together. I had to take a picture.

Remember my mother's day post about my mom's vanity license plate?? Blah x 4! 

After lunch, it's a sort of tradition (meaning, we did it the one other time after Oliver's baptism) to walk to Spy Lake Park. Charlie loves this park and I totally see why! A beautiful park overlooking a beautiful lake with a small, sandy beach for dipping toes and a playground with a zip line! :)

The boys had so much fun!

My boys are really into baseball and Henry loves a good game of whiffle-ball. Mike couldn't resist bringing a bat and a ball to the park and getting all the boys going on a game.

Henry is AMAZING at whiffle ball. Well, at hitting the ball. He almost never misses. But no matter where he hits the ball, he thinks he gets a home run and runs all the bases. And it's so cute, no one dares tell him any different.

And... then the battery on my camera kicked out before Charlie or Olly stepped up to bat. Yay for iphone to the rescue!

I Think We'll Go To Boston, Part 2

My ONE plan for Boston was to go to the Public Garden to visit the ducklings and ride on the swan boats.

On Saturday, all my Bean-town dreams came true! Well, 50% of my dreams, at least. We didn't make it to see the actual brass duckling statues, but I rode on the swan boats, so I'm counting it as a partially successful trip that gives me a reason to go back. The weather was perfect! And aside from it being such a beautiful Saturday in June which brought about 5 billion other tourists all wanting to do the same thing... it was wonderful! The gardens are amazing and tucked right in the middle of the city off CHARLES ST.


My parents flew into Boston as we were down in the city so they cabbed it over and found us just as we were swan-boating under the bridge! Hi, Mom!!!

After the boats, we took the crew over to Quincy Market to have Lobster Rolls for lunch. It was crowded and chaotic -- but uber-delish! And very Boston-y!

The last time we visited the Quincy Market, Charlie had an ice cream cone covered in blue sprinkles. This time, we HAD to have the same thing. We took our cones outside and I, of course, started taking pictures. And then my brother and my hubby made fun of me by taking pictures of me taking pictures.

And being the Saturday before Father's Day, the kids were all over their Papa. Well, they'd be all over their Papa anyway, because they all adore him.

Aside from seeing the sights... we also spend a lot of time on our Boston visits just snuggling and playing with our nephews/cousins. This is definitely our most favorite part of every trip.

I Think We'll Go To Boston, Part 1

Last month, we went to Boston. Yes, I said last month. I'm wayyyyy behind.

My nephew was being baptized {I'm the godmother, boo-yah!} so we decided to fly up a few days before the ceremony to spend time in the city and visit with my brother's family.

The morning of our flight, we were battling with two huge weather systems -- and luckily, our flight was scheduled in between the storms so we avoided delays and cancellations. Unluckily, that meant we had to fly THROUGH both of them which made for a horribly bumpy flight. Like, CRAZY bumpy. I cried. And at one point, I may have screamed that I needed to get off "NOW!" at some sort of 30,000-ish altitude. Mike made fun of me. It wasn't my best moment. I hate flying.

The huge, awful storms also ruined our fab plans to drive down to Rhode Island and see a photographer friend of mine...

But the airport and the airplane were super fun for two little boys.

Jet Blue has personal TVs... perfect. I was terrified. They were watching tv.

The next day we decided to head into the city and see an IMAX at the Science Museum. But when those plans were squashed due to a sold out viewing {darn school groups who ruin EVERYTHING!}... we changed it up and hopped on the T to find our way to Fenway Park.

The subway in Boston is called the "Charlie Train", which we love! The boys thought it was lots of fun -- even when we got lost, just a bit -- and realized we were on the wrong train.

We decided to get off the train at the next stop and walk through the city towards Fenway (it was a GORGEOUS day). We didn't know exactly where we were but just a few steps from the subway, we saw the Boston Marathon Finish Line painted across the street.

It was a very strange realization to find ourselves where we found ourselves. We knew we were walking down the same street where only a few weeks prior, such horrible, cruel, senseless violence had occurred. As we continued our walk, we passed by the restaurants and the mailboxes that were still surrounded in piles of flowers for the souls who were lost there... and my heart melted. The little boy who died there looked so much like Charlie. And I just felt so much pain for his family as I held my boy's hand, ever so more tightly. 

We found Fenway and Charlie was thrilled. He's quite obsessed with baseball and loves Babe Ruth -- so Fenway was quite the place of awe. We walked around and stopped in a shop to buy Charlie a Boston cap {and Henry, too, since he flat insisted that he do whatever Charlie does.}

I had wanted to take a tour of the park but we found The Bleacher Bar instead, which is a bar that overlooks the Fenway field. Beer AND a view?? DEAL! We bought the boys some custard and found a perfect little booth in the perfect little pocket of light and enjoyed some amazing chill time together.

I was pretty obsessed with the pocket of light coming right into the corner of our booth. I shot all of these on my "baby DSLR" instead of Princess Consuela. Since I hadn't dusted her off since upgrading to the Full Frame, I was actually thrilled that Baby McNikon and my off-brand lens could rock the low light so hard.

Also, I love that Henry always has to shove himself in a tight spot so that he's as close to his big brother as possible. I know it's annoying to my big guy, but gah! I just eat it up.

Lessons Learned: Thoughts on Sand & Water Tables

I caved. I've gone NINE years without a sandbox. And then, a few weeks ago while in Charlotte, my BFF, Mandie, convinced me I needed a sand/water table. I pushed back saying that they always looked like muddy, dirty messes...

"Just put sand in it," she said.

"Don't add any water," she said.

"It'll stay clean that way," she said.

"My girls play in it for hours," she said.

Hours of outdoor entertainment so I could feel less guilty about my time on the computer sounded like a good deal to me... and no mess? I could probably get on board. Just don't add the water to the sand and water table. Brilliant. I could handle that.

To Amazon Prime I went. Two days later, I had a brand new sand and water table delivered to my door. Just in time for my nephew's visit, too! Woot woot!

Olly and Hank LOVED it. Chuck rather liked it too. They played and played... pushing cars through it, filling tiny buckets and dumping them into "mountains", and burying their hands.

And then it happened. Exactly what I knew would happen. The tiny buckets of sand started being dumped on the porch. And then down over the deck. And then it became VERY funny when we told them no and they did it more sneakily (which, then, we found hilarious - stinkers). And then it started tracking inside the house on the bottoms of little feet...

I'm not a total neat freak so everything seemed alright at this point. A round of sweeping was well worth their happiness. We were outside after all. And they're boys. Boys need messes.

"I'm a good mom," I told myself. "If cleaning up is all I have to do, then let them make a little bit of a mess. No worries here." Can't you just hear all the other mom voices in my head giving me a golf clap for this thought?? Awesome mom dot com right here, y'all.

And then...

"Can we please have water too?" Charlie begged. "We won't make a mess. I promise."

Liar.

So I added water. Because they're cute. And it couldn't be that messy, right? Maybe a little muddy in the water side, I figured. Mandie is usually right about stuff but she can't ALWAYS be right. Maybe my kids would just keep the sand and the water sides separate...? And they're really cute. Caving was kind of my thing with this stupid sand & water table already. It was a theme. And I'm a good mom with my own cheering section in my head for times just like this when I let go of things... I had to go all in.

Y'all...

I'm.an.Idiot.and.a.Sucker.

Sand Mud was everywhere. Faces. Hands. Clothes. Deck. Ground. And when Henry took a handful and threw it in the house... they were D-O-N-E.

Lesson learned. Never add water to the sand & water table. Mandie is always right. 

Air & Space Museum with a Canon

I had never been to the Air & Space Museum before this weekend! Can you believe it? I feel like one of those regular DC people who have lived here forever but have never done the DC stuff because "that's just for tourists"!!  I'm one of those people that tourists stop to ask for directions, then scoff and say "you've never been!?" Ha ha ha. Not really. I've been to literally everything else, including the Dulles Air & Space museum, but I'm letting this little slice of DC virginity soak in and make me feel more like an assimilated citizen instead of the giddy girl who is overly enthusiastic about being out of Texas!

While my brother was visiting this past weekend, we took all of our boys down into the city to explore the museum. A fun fact about our visit? Ok, well a fun fact for ME... is that I shot the day on my brother's Canon instead of my Nikon. I ALWAYS play with my brother's Canon whenever he is with me because I like to know the differences between the two brands. It was A LOT of fun to play with.

One thing I noticed at the DC Air & Space verse the Dulles one was all the hands on exhibits. We live right near Dulles airport so we have been to the museum out by us many times. It is HUGE with an awesome control tower that overlooks the runways of Dulles and, of course, the space shuttle is pretty danged amazeballs... but we've said a million times as we are walking out how disappointing it is that we cannot go inside ANY of the planes. Not even a guarded sheet-of-plastic barrier peek. I mean, they have the flippin' Concord just chillin' right in the middle of the place and we can't even look inside!? I find that terribly annoying. I really want to look inside that Concord!!

But down in DC, where there is much less space, my kids climbed in a Cessna (to be fair, they have one at Dulles too but there are only certain times that it's available for play), they walked through a DC-7, we walked into the top story of a full sized 747 and could check out the huge cockpit, and there was another rocket-like thing that you could walk through as well but we forgot to go in it.

It just seemed sort of odd to me that the giant and NEW Dulles museum doesn't have anything like that!

I am a huge aviation nerd. That's something I'm pretty sure I've picked up from my engineer big brother because it certainly doesn't come from me naturally. I hate flying. But I loooove airplanes. I am a complicated and complex human being who very often makes no sense whatsoever.

I wanted to read ALL the stuff. Do you know how hard it is to read all the explanation plaques in a museum when you have a 5 month old, 2, 3 and 8 year old to keep your eyes on?? Impossible. It's 100% completely impossible. I told the hubs as we were leaving that it is a total shame that we never went to a single museum before Charlie was born. To be fair, we were really too busy sleeping until 1pm on weekends back in those days...

Henry spent the weekend professing his love for Oliver. Very often, Henry would tell him that they were best friends and encourage his cousin to follow him everywhere. "Come ON, Oliver!!!" It. Was. So. Cute.

Toddlerhood is so exhausting.

This is the point of my blog post that I gush over how amazing my big brother is. I adore him. This is nothing new, I've always thought he was amazing (aside for a few years in high school when I was way too cool for him) -- but watching him be a dad and an uncle makes my heart explode. He will play and play and play with our kids. Past the point where, as a mom, I'd be done. He's funny with them in a way that I have never been able to be myself... and he's always genuinely interested in them. And they ADORE him because of it.

Mikey and I frequented the Charlotte Discovery Place all the time when we were kids. My mom would give us some money for food (you know, back in the 90s when it was safe/safer... to just drop your kids there for a day...?) and we would ALWAYS save that money to buy astronaut ice cream. It became a tradition over our childhood that we cherished. I can even remember our little conversations about how we couldn't buy too much lunch so we would have enough leftover for our ice cream. :)

Now, whenever we go to science museums (which we do a lot when we're together because we are a nerdy-chic family), my big brother buys astronaut ice cream for Charlie (insert a big, fat, giant, heart-melty "awwwwwww" here). We realized on this particular trip that we will need to amend this passing-on of tradition to include buying a few more packages of ice cream because Henry and Olly definitely noticed they were left out on this and FREAKED. Ok, just Henry freaked.

Side note: It was $3 back then. It costs $7 now. Since it was my brother's birthday, I paid for this round. $14 for two packages of 3 inch squares! How is this even possible? We don't even have a space shuttle program anymore! I'm not even supporting dudes going up in space with that additional $4. Rip off.

After the museum, we walked outside and played goofed off on the mall for a bit. We took the obligatory family photos in front of the Capitol. Some of which were photo bombed. And children, or my big brother, convinced us that we should take nose-picking shots...

The little guys were super interested in the dirt path. And my big brother was interested in being awesome with the kids.

And little man H fell asleep on the way home and snoozed on the couch for much of the afternoon. Being a toddler is really exhausting.