BOSTON Rocks!!

The much awaited Boston trip pictures are finally here, I have been working for a month to get these all on Spring is hard for me too many distractions, sorry!!

So a couple months ago my brother Travis sent an email out to everyone that had super good deals on trips to Boston. We are the only ones that haven't been able to go visit him and we have wanted to go since he moved there. These tickets were basically priced 2 for 1; a deal we just couldn't pass up. So we decided that for my birthday, mother's day and father's day my dream was going to come true!!! By the time we figured out a time we could go the tickets were sold out that happened three different times in three days so finally we took whatever time was left and we took off. We even left Beau which was super hard, but made the trip so much easier. Luckily we have awesome family members that we pawned him off on and he had tons of fun with them!!! Thanks everyone who watched Beau for us you are the best!!! We had SO much fun and wish we could have stayed longer. There is so much to see and do there and it was so good to see Travis, Emily, Alyssa, and Wade and Kali. Thanks guys for letting us come hang out with you and for showing us Boston. Here are just some of the millions of pictures we took; let me just warn you.... I get picture happy!!!!

DAY 1:

We woke up had a yummy breakfast and set off to do the Freedom Trail... sorry Shanna we didn't stay on the red brick path, we weren't that diligent or really we were just lazy! :) I also had my my very first ride on a subway/transportation system. Pretty exciting!!
I was totally appalled at how EVERYTHING shares exterior walls. It reminded me of a set from one of our plays with cardboard buildings!!! And the roads are so narrow.

Boston has the coolest and such beautiful old churches EVERYWHERE!!!

Here we are at the USS Constutions aka old Iron Sides. They are doing a bunch of restoration on it, so its' masts were down. I can't even imagine how big they are when they are up. Luckily we still got to go tour it which was really cool.

I think we all know which cannon is bigger... It's ok I wouldn't mess with my cannons either!

The stairs are super steep, it reminded me of working at the Pantry! For all of you that worked there you will get what I am talking about.

Hammocks they used to sleep in.

I don't really know what I expected, but it was so cool to go through and actually be where they used to live and fight for months at a time. It was so neat. They talked about the living conditions and I just can't even imagine. We are so blessed!! They said that they all were barefoot because it was easier to run up the stairs and how you are more agile when you can feel the ground. Also how they had 8 year old kids running the cannon balls and powder back and forth. And how they kept the floors wet to put out sparks and how the cannons would roll back several feet after each blast... watch your toes!!! In all actuality the ship was made completely from wood, but how they built it so well that cannon balls would bounce off the sides and not penetrate it: nick naming it Iron Sides. Anyways there were really neat things they talked about and it was so incredible to actually be on it. It was really cool!!!
View of Boston

This was a Destroyer used back in the day I can't remember Matt thinks WWII. It was really cool to walk on too especially after the USS Constitution. Man did technology advance! Matt LOVES all the war stuff, so he was in heaven!!

We were saying that being in charge of this machine gun while you had planes dropping bombs on you would suck, and Travis informed us that this is where the term "POOP DECK" came from! :) My brother is hilarious!! And such a wonderful tour guide!

Next we went to my cousin Wade's place, which is totally cool. It is right next to the Old North Church, and their window faces the gardens right next to the commons area. So we chatted with he and Kali a bit then took Wade with us as another tour guide. I miss Wade, so it was fun to get to hang out with him.

Old North Church.

Apparently the angels up on the pillars were pirated! How funny.

They still hold Sunday services in this church.

We all agreed that the Mormons need to start building their churches with these family boxes. It would make church soooooo much easier with kids!!!

Paul Revere statue and the Old North Church steeple.
Next we went to Paul Revere's house which was really cool, but not cool enough to pay to go tour so I peeked in the windows. :) The road outside was awesome it was all the old cobblestone roads that were all coming up and stuff. It was really neat. Travis also informed us that there were two riders Paul Revere and another guy, but I can't remember his name, and Paul actually got stopped and never made it to the Old North Church to warn the soldiers and that it was really the other guy that made it there. Poor guy.

So here is the famous Mike's Pastry, Home of the Lobster Tail!! Its a pastry with the perfect amount of crispiness and most delicious creamy filling!!!

To Matt's much excitement, since he thought he was going to die from starvation, our next stop was a little place Wade suggested. The food was awesome and HUGE portions. The pictures barely give justice to how big these were!!! The food was super yummy too. Dessert. AAHHH!!! I'm salavating!

So one of my favorite things about Boston was that people jaywalk anywhere. It was awesome and makes so much sense. Trav informed us that Boston has no rules only suggestions. ;) I wanted to get a video of this too cuz I loved it, this pic just doesn't do it justice.

This is the Boston Commons which is a big grassy area with tons of beautiful flower beds and a big pond. This is where Trav and Emily did their "Where's Waldo" wedding announcements. It was fun to get to see all the places where they took their pics.

This is the George Washington monument. Wade said that if the horse's leg is up then the person was injured in battle and if both legs are up it means the person was killed in battle. A little fun fact for ya!!!

This was an old cemetry right in the middle of the city. It was pretty sweet. There were huge buildings all around it and headstones right up to the building walls. The second picture is Paul Revere's headstone.

In the second picture yet another cool old church and a very new building with the reflection in the glass. It is cool with the old and new right next to each other.

This is the view from the Prudential building close to the top. It was pretty cool. Travis made an interesting point that we were looking down on the tops of tall buildings. That put a whole new perspective on things. And as we were looking out he showed us what parts used to be water until they filled it in with dirt and built buildings on it, which is quite a bit of what we were looking at. That is why the "two if by sea" saying.

Day 2:
All preped for a big day out!!

Alyssa's first T ride. She did really well on the T too.

When we were waiting for the T underground it reminded me of the movie Ghost.

This was outside the Aquarium and there was a bulldog and a bulldog puppy that kept trying to get up face to face with the harbor seals. It was cute.

So here are the Aquarium pictures and they are in reverse order, but I didn't want to switch them since I already had to with every other picture in this post. That is partially why this is a month in the making!

Alyssa's first Aquarium experience and she did great. She just chilled, got some lunch, looked at some fish, and then at the very end of our journey when they were kicking us out she had a BLOW OUT!!! It was impressive. I honestly think she covered every inch of her body in poo, but as we were changing her she was so good and just layed there and smiled. She is so cute. And I guess it was good timing so we at least had somewhere to change her. Ha ha. It was really funny.

These little guys were cool, but hard to tell what they are in the picture! There are two crazy looking seahorse things.

Click on this pic it's cooler when it's bigger!

One UGLY fish!! And some pretty fish!!

Can anyone say Deuce Bigalow! I thought this fish was awesome.

I have a fun video of the tank I was going to put here, but I tried four times to load it and it won't work, so I will try on another post!
OUCH!!

An ugly eel and a sting ray.

An Octopus. And yes these really were this green!

Here is some sand... OH WAIT that's a fish. I know pretty cool :)

This is the cool old man that told us all sorts of facts like that they have to feed the biggest shark first thing in the morning until he is full, so the other fish have a chance at life. Ha ha he was so cute. Also the biggest turtle is like 540 lbs. Crazy.

This is a giant catfish! Matt thought it was pretty cool. This wasn't the big turtle. I just think they're cute.

When we first got there they were feeding the penguins and it was the funniest thing. They were going nuts. I wish I would have gotten a video cuz when I tried later they were boring. Lucky for you the video wouldn't load, so you don't have to watch it!

Here are some cool jellyfish. There was a whole section with a million different types of jellies.

After we went to the Aquarium we just went and walked around.

Oh P.S. we bought a yauct!!!! :) This is the hotel Trav used to work at. When you get in the center of the arch it is really cool. It's huge!

There was this place we went to that you would stand in the middle and it would sound like you were talking into a microphone but if you weren't in the middle it sounded normal. It was sweet!

Then we went to a yummy seafood dinner on the harbor. It was really good and now I can say that I have eaten SCROD! :)

Man just looking at these pictures makes me crave a lobster tail!!! "They put an addictive chemical in it that makes you CRAVE it nightly" ~mike myers :)

Then we went to the Hollocaust Memorial. It was really sad and put just how many people were killed into perspective. There were six of the towers from the different camps and each one was covered in the different numbers from the victims that had been there. You can't even tell that is what is on the glass until you get up to it cuz they are that small. It was really sad. There were also different sayings on the inside and on the ground around each tower. As you were inside one you would walk on grates that you could look down into and it looked like you were walking on embers and there was steam that would come up from it to signify the gas chambers. It was a really neat experience and I'm glad we went to see it.

AHHHH enjoying our lobster tails yet again! Travis and I went to the grocery store which was cool... did I ever mention that I am easily entertained... anyways they call the carts carriages which I thought was really funny and they had a million different kinds of produce and all sorts of CRAZY stuff in the meat section. And where our tags show price per ounce theirs shows price per pound. It was nuts I thought everything was super expensive at first until Trav explained it. I am not too smart. This is where Travis also got some Friendly's butter crunch ice cream which I also crave nightly!!!! It was tasty!!!

Day 3:

We went whale watching, which was totally awesome. My pictures were horrible and when they actually got super close our camera was having problems and wouldn't work. I was so mad we could have gotten some awesome pictures. Oh well that just means you all have to go and experience it for yourself. It was so cool. One came up right in front of us a few times when I was on the lower level. Oh and another first for me... being on a huge boat.

This camera has no zoom sadly.

There were 3 humpback whales we were watching and a Norwhale (or something, the long one with the short dorsal fin) and lots of minki whales. In the first video near the end you can see one humpback come up and you can see the white on her flipper under the water. It is really cool. We saw this a lot and the guide even said she could see the bubbles coming out of the mouth one time.

Ok so my video taping skills are not at all good then you add 100 people pushing you and a boat driving on the ocean and it makes them really bad, but this particular video makes me laugh. I was holding the camera up cuz the whales were right in front of us and I couldn't tell where I was taping, so as I was doing excellent work filming the guide, two whales were right below the camera flipping their tails and making fun of me. As I bring the camera back down you can see the ring in the water that they make when they do that right in front of the boat. I am such an idiot. And even sadder I didn't get to watch them since I was trying to figure out the camera. Maybe it is good it broke, so I could just enjoy watching them.

After whale watching we went to meet Travis after work, but we took too long since there were so many whales, so we didn't get to go see where he works. That was sad but there's always next time!!! He took us to the Hay Market (I think that is how you spell it) and it was straight up craziness. It was semi-organized chaos, but super cool!!! We were going to get a picture but I couldn't stop cuz it was constant pushing moving you along. We did get to go into this little underground meat store where Travis got Bradley some bones to chew on. As the guy was chewing it up Travis mentioned it was for his dog and the guy was all "you give this to a dog? No I boil this in a nice soup" in disgust. It was super sad how he said it, but really funny! Travis felt so bad like he had made this guys whole family go without dinner while his dog ate like a king. No wonder they hate white people! :) I'm rude but I still think it was funny.

Emily took us to Revere beach where a few days earlier Kali was and a guy got stabbed in the head just down the beach from her. It was pretty mellow when we went. :) Yet another first for Alyssa and she did great until we got back in the car. Luckily it was close to their house!!

She is a super smily baby. And look at her cute little feet and hands. That is my favorite part about babies. Their hands are soooo detailed just like ours just TINY!!! I love it!

Isn't her smile so cute!!!

Day 4:

We got to go to church with them and that was quite enjoyable. It's nice to know that the gospel is true where ever you go, but some wards are much more exciting and entertaining!!!

Wade and Kali came for dinner on Sunday and stayed to play games. Travis made an awesome roast and in so doing used everything in their house up. So we literally ate him out of house and home. OOPS, what can I say... I like food!!

So this pretty much sums up our trip in a quick short post, NOT!! We had so much fun and can't wait for another opportunity to go. Thanks again to Travis and Emily for everything. Also thanks again to my Mom and Dad, Lynette and Shelby, and Audrey and Mike for taking care of Beau so that we could actually enjoy our vacation!!!