Seth's Birthday

We love Seth.

Seth is twelve! That is crazy! How is our youngest boy so old?

We are often traveling for Seth's birthday, so Mom tried really hard to make his birthday be special at home! He had a friend party where they played sports and watched a movie. Everyone was able to come that Seth wanted to be there, so that was amazing!

I didn't take a lot of pictures.

But these boys had a ton of fun!

On Seth's birthday, we attended the Hill Air Force Air Show. It was amazing. We didn't stay the entire time because I didn't want Seth to be gone all day for his birthday. We came home and went to eat dinner at Panda Express (Seth's choice), and then opened presents. At the last second, Seth requested a frog cake. Mom did her very best, and she was pleased with how it came together in the end.

The air show was super cool. More about that in another post.

Seth was a great gift receiver.

Seth and his frog cake.

Seth loves Panda Express right now.

Seth is truly a light in our family. He is so fun to spend time with. He makes everyone laugh. Seth is also super smart and a great student. He asks great questions and is always learning and sharing facts about animals or sports with us. Seth is the one kid who will play with Mom's hair, and sit still and snuggle. We are grateful to have Seth as part of our family!

Seth is amazing!

Boston Day 7

Boston Common is pretty all on its own.

We woke up to our last day in Boston with really only one thing on the agenda. We were going to walk the Freedom Trail in downtown Boston. Since Mom likes to hike this trail downhill, she always does it backwards. This means parking the car at Boston Common, and taking the metro to Bunker Hill.

It was a little bit of an adventure getting to Bunker Hill. We rode the metro and then took a charter bus.

Starting at the Bunker Hill Monument, we collected the Junior Ranger booklets. The boys needed to answer question about five sites along the trail to earn the badge. We thought about climbing the obelisk on Bunker Hill, too, but we knew we had a long walk ahead of us.

Bunker Hill

After the small museum at Bunker, we headed down to the harbor. We walked through the USS Constitution and the military museum that goes along with it. Then we crossed the bridge and stopped at the Old North Church. We decided to go inside because the pews are so interesting. Also, it was a pretty hot day. Unfortunately, there was no air conditioning in the church building.

We had fun with all of the cutouts.

Seth makes a great sailor.

This ship is a lot bigger than the Mayflower.

It was fun to go through all of the levels.

The boys are always interested in the cannons.

Captain Mark

We enjoyed this stop.

It was a hot day in the church!

Good old Paul Revere!

Our next stop was Paul Revere's Home. This is by far the best stop on the Freedom Trail (and it's air conditioned). We were amazed at how well this home has been preserved. It gives you a good peek into middle-class life in 17th Century Boston. The house is all stone and has multiple levels, which is really cool, too.

Paul Revere's house is right on the main road.

No pictures inside, but we learned a lot!

It was time for lunch so we took a little detour to the oldest restaurant in the country, the Union Oyster House. This was by far the most beautiful restaurant we'd been inside. The decorations on the wall were all 3-D art of the Revolution. Mark's fish and chips was the best thing we ordered, but Dad and Dax liked their clam chowder.

It was fun to eat in a historic spot.

We were getting tired, and more than walking, we were trudging the Freedom Trail. Lunch perked us up a little, but not enough, so we walked down to Faneuil Hall and bought some gelato. The boys turned in their Junior Rangers. 

We walked past the buildings on the rest of the trail without going in. There was some old graveyards, and some old meeting houses. Finally, we found ourselves back at Boston Common. Along the route, we'd gotten texts that our plane was delayed three hours, just like on the flight out. That meant we had three hours to kill. Since we'd run out of time for the Minutemen Historic Site, we decided to drive down to Concord.

The Freedom Trail is always exhausting.

It's a drive to Concord. We enjoyed the hour in the car with the air on. The boys napped. We got there in plenty of time to see the "Shot Heard Round the World Bridge." The boys did another very short Junior Ranger. We watched a short presentation and checked out the Visitor Center. By then, the drive back to the airport was up to an hour and a quarter. Though traffic was brutal, we did make it to our flight and got home about 1 AM to find our chickens safe and much bigger.

Concord is a lovely little place.

Mark at the marker where shots were first fired.

Mom and Dad loved Boston.

Old North Bridge!

Boston Day 6

We love being able to go to the temple together.

Not much went right for us today. First of all, we got a later start than intended. We were supposed to be to the Boston Temple at 8:30 for our 9:00 appointment, but traffic and the GPS maps didn't allow that to happen. We did get to the temple, and we all did baptisms. That was a great experience, and the Boston Temple is really beautiful. It is so tall and narrow with its angel on top. But while at the temple, we had to stay and baptize some other folks, and they got bumped in front of us for confirmations. We'd hoped to be done at the temple around 10 o'clock, but it was closer to 11 AM when we finally headed up the road. 

We had a two hour drive ahead of us. This for two reasons. First, the kids wanted to make a visit to Vermont as they hadn't been to that state before. Second, the Joseph Smith Birthsite is the last Church History site we needed to visit. 

Unfortunately, this adventure wasn't without mishaps. Twice we got off the freeway to help children go to the bathroom. Both times you had to sail through a town to do so, adding 10-15 minutes to your trip time for the detour. You can't seem to get of and get back on a freeway in New Hampshire. 

We finally arrived at the Joseph Smith Memorial, and it was way back up in the hills. It was beautiful, set back in the rich green trees. Honestly, there wasn't a whole lot there. We saw the mantle stone from the fireplace and the foundation for the house. Then we walked down the road and saw the Mack house foundation and a low wall and old bridge. The most impressive piece was actually a huge solid stone obelisk that was hauled here in 1905 on Joseph's hundredth birthday. It was carved from a single piece of stone and stands 38.5 feet tall, which is one foot for each year of Joseph's life.

This is the original mantle stone and they let you stand on it!

Outside at the Joseph Smith birthplace.

We walked down the hill to some other sites.

Not a whole lot to see here, but we tried to make the best of it.

We left the monument knowing that our plan to run by Lexington and Concord afterward would have to be altered. Instead, we needed to head straight to Fenway Park. The traffic was brutal, and we finally arrived about 5:45 and got parked for $60. There is an amazing little restaurant called Tasty Burger right next to the stadium, and we got food there. Around 6:30 we headed into Fenway.

We ate at Tasty Burger again!

The atmosphere seemed less festive, but we were still excited for our seats. We sat just behind the left-handed batters box in the front row of the second section. This meant that vendors were walking back and forth in front of us, and people wanted to take pictures from our row, but the view was perfect, and we didn't mind the traffic. It added to the ambience. The most incredible thing about this seat was that the voices of the spectators seemed to bounce off the grandstand behind us. It was like hearing the whispers of a hundred years of history. When Devers hit the longest homer of his career and the Sox took a two run lead, we were excited. But then the starter gave up 7, which later bloomed to 9, and the game wasn't as fun. They finally lost 9-4, and of course, we stayed for the last strikeout, which happened to be the same guy who walked it off yesterday. 

After the game we voted and all agreed that the seats on the Monster were infinitely better than seats behind the plate. We didn't get back until 11 PM, but we enjoyed counting the baseball stadiums we'd visited on our drive back to the hotel.

Our seats were really close!

We loved being in Fenway.

The boys went right up front!

Duran!

Devers!

Not as fun as last night's walk off, but still fun!

Boston Day 5

We had a great day in Boston. First, we drove down to Plimouth/Patuxet Plantation. This is a re-enactment center for the Pilgrims who settled here. We started in a small Patuxet village. We saw how they carve out boats and how they make their homes out of bark. We even played a few native games for the kids.

We went inside a larger Wigwam.

Learning about the native people of America.

Down the hill, we found the Pilgrim Village. There were actors dressed up speaking with ancient lilts in their voices. We walked through several houses and gardens and even explored the fort. It was really cool because we are so used to 1800's history, that it was refreshing to see 1600's history. We learned a lot and enjoyed our time at the site.

Walking through the Plimouth village is so fun.

It's similar to This is the Place.

The chain mail was impressive.

The boys had to help change the beds.

We explored all the houses.

Cute Randy in the old Plymouth house.

Seth was happy despite this pic!

We also had the opportunity to walk down and see the Mayflower replica. The boys liked this, but their favorite part was the pond we passed along the way. We had lunch amid the geese, but we also saw swans, fish, herons, ducks, and turtles in the water.

The pond was a great spot for lunch.

We spotted a few turtles.

They were so cute.

A fun bridge along the way to the Mayflower.

We also stopped by Plymouth Rock.

Right before we got to the boat, we found the statue of William Bradford, who is the boys 12th great-grandfather through Natalie's side. Then we went aboard. We were shocked at how narrow the Mayflower was. They crammed 102 people below deck with dogs, pigs, and chickens, too. The boat was really interesting, and we saw the smaller boat they used to land people as the ship was moored three miles out. It was fun to talk with the workers as they really knew their stuff.

William Bradford is our relative.

Going to tour the Mayflower.

Seth takes the best pictures.

The boat was not that big. How did the make it here?

Mom loved these purple flowers all over the East coast!

After that, we had to drive to Costco to buy Dad a white shirt. Somehow he forgot to pack one. Luckily, that was close to our next stop at the Boston Tea Party Museum. None of us had done this, and it had been Seth's idea to go. It turned out to be one of our favorite stops. We met in a building representing Town Hall in Boston. John Hancock and Sam Adams addressed us in a meeting (Dad got to say a line), and then we went to the ships. We were on the Eleanor, and we got to explore the ship and throw boxes of tea into the harbor. Then we went inside and saw actual tea from that night, as well as the only surviving tea box, which washed up on shore. Finally, we went in and watched a short video about the Battle of Lexington. It was really exciting, and the boys called it the best part of the day.

We had a great time at this stop.

We all got parts, and Dad even had a speaking part.

Then we all got a chance to throw the tea overboard.

At least, it was the best part of the day until we arrived at Fenway. The atmosphere was so exciting and we stared with huge eyes as we made our way through the crowd to the monster. They only let you up on the wall with a ticket, and we felt a little like kings as we found our seats right on the front row. Through the light stanchion, we could see Kevin Millar and Kevin Youkilis twenty feet away doing the play-by-play. Before the game, we grabbed Fenway Franks while the boys watched batting practice. They all said the hotdogs were the best they'd ever had. They even introduced the NBA champion Celtics and brought them on the field before the game. 

The game moved fast, and it was the sixth inning after a blink. The Sox were ahead 2-1 when they pulled the starter, Houck. Mark complained about the reliever, and he gave up 5 runs in his one-third of an inning, including a massive home run to Vlad Guerrero that sailed way over our heads. That made it 6-2. But in the eighth, the Red Sox scored 4 to tie it up. Then, our favorite player, Jarren Duran hit a walk-off single in the bottom of the 9th inning. We screamed until our voices were gone. Everyone was celebrating. The streets all around the stadium were full of happy Sox fans. It was a really great ending!

The atmosphere at Fenway is electric!

Sitting on the monster was amazing!

Fenway Franks are delicious!

So excited to be here!

Mom loved being here with her family.

The Boston Celtics coming onto the field.

We love Duran!

And Devers!

The Celtics players were sitting directly across from us!

A little meeting in the outfield right below us!

Walk off win! It was a great game!

Dax's friend caught us on TV.