Boston 2023 - Our Last Full Day

Okay, Boston has mostly won me over after today! After our first day and a half in Boston I wasn't sure I was as excited about this trip as I thought I would be. I expected more and the fact that the trees are still green was kind of disappointing.

Then today happened. We didn't have anything set in stone, it was just a whatever day to explore the city and really get a fill of it. 

Stace said the thing we definitely had to do was the Boston Tea Party Museum, so we headed there first. Unfortunately, the morning tours were booked so we decided to grab the one at 1 and go explore, stop at the tea room for lunch, and then do the museum. We did some gift shopping in the Commons and found some good things and just took our time.

We then headed over to Abigail's Tea Room. I was excited to try Boston Cream Pie and Clam Chowder (new things AND both seemed to be big in Boston). The food was awful! I do NOT like Clam Chowder it turns out. I did order a salad as well so that was a saving grace, but it took SO long to get and it was just in a plastic container so I didn't understand why it wasn't available immediately. We both agreed this place was NOT worth the money. I was kind of bummed we wasted a meal there. Luckily, the Boston Cream Pie was really good so that was something.

Benjamin Franklin's burial site

We then hit up the Museum. This was one of my favorite things. It was super interactive and informative. It was, overall, such a fun experience. We even got to "throw" tea over the side of the ship (which was oddly fun). I felt like I learned SO much about events leading up to our Revolution that I didn't realize were such a big part of it (which is really what I wanted out of this trip). After the tea information they had a short little video of one of the battles and it made me itch for some good movie that would explain this time in our history. They had a National Geographic video in the gift shop, but it was 5 hours and, realistically, I'm never going to watch a 5 hour video enough times that owning it makes sense. I may need to find a way to rent it or borrow it from someone (I'll need to find said someone first though).

After that museum, we headed to the Old South Meeting House. This place was SO beautiful and going there was also really informative. I didn't realize why there was a lion an unicorn on the outside until we went inside and read a lot of the things. Even though it wasn't the original one, it was SO cool seeing the stands and pews and thinking about the historic moments that happened there.

That museum had a 2 for 1 deal where we could get tickets to the Old State House as well, so we headed over there. This one had a lot of information on the Presidents (although seeing our more recent ones there made me feel like the definition of President has changed WAY too much over the decades) and then there was a guide that told us a lot of information on how the house was used and things that were decided there. I absolutely LOVED that. Core memories made for sure!

Didn't realize it was a lion and unicorn the first day

Such a funny shirt...I don't wear blue though
Or I would have gotten it

After we finished with those, we walked a lot of the areas and did some more shopping. My budget for sure took a hit today haha. After walking (a lot, a lot), we decided on dinner at a place called Casa Romero. We hadn't had any Mexican food so far and this one had some of the best reviews. It's a total hole in the wall (we joked we're for sure getting robbed in the alley you had to walk down to get to the door), but man those places always end up being the best. Stace was a little more daring at this place and ordered a meal with mole (I get a little weirded out about chocolate sauce on a burrito), but hers was actually pretty yummy. My food was pretty decent too (I don't remember what I ordered, but I remember it being good). Unfortunately, this place charged you for chips and salsa, I'm not used to that with Mexican restaurants, but it's fine. Still good.

Stace wanted to go to a dessert place after dinner so we stopped at a place called L.A. Burdick and got us some yummy cakes. At this point I was almost sad that we were done with our last day in the city and we had to get back to the hotel to start packing up (especially for such an early flight). Getting home was a fun trick, the subway was "off" for our stop so taking the bus and figuring out our way to get back to the hotel was a trick, but luckily they had tons of workers to help us.

I will say the people here are SO much friendlier than I expected. The drivers aren't, they honk ALL the time, but the people we've talked to have been so genuinely nice and it's been really refreshing! Once we got to the hotel we talked with the front desk about setting up the transportation to the airport in the morning. We knew we'd need to get on it around 4 AM to get there with plenty of time and we didn't want to find out that was too early to get it arranged last minute. They were very helpful with us and making sure we had all the information so that made me feel better about how the morning will go. 

Now to get all packed up and ready to head home. Wish us luck we can figure it out and it's a stress free travel day.

Boston 2023 - Salem AKA "Witch City" Day

Well today was a long, but VERY fun day! We had to take the subway to a train station, which would take us to Salem. It was an early day, but we were able to get there just in time. Funny thing is, at the train station we noticed two women that were at the subway station looking at the same stops as us, so I decided to go over and ask if they were also going to Salem. They were AND they were from Utah and Idaho like us! What are the odds? We found out they were step-sisters and we talked about our plans in Salem and their plans to compare. 

They decorate BIG here

Once we got to Salem, we took our self-guided walking tour on my phone. It took us to so many good spots with LOTS of good information. It did kind of weird out next to the Salem Witch Victim Memorial area and started playing random stops and moving from where we were (I can't tell if it was from an old phone or if the ghosts were messing with us haha). Some of the favorite spots was the Witch House and the spots that were filmed for Hocus Pocus.

Pressed to death!

We stopped for lunch at a Tavern in a ritzy hotel. the food was okay, but very pricey (and pretty slow service). We had wanted to stop by a place called Witches Brew, but it was closed for lunch, it seemed, so that was a bit of a bummer. We went to a pub by The Witches Brew, but it only had like 2 food options we'd consider and so we decided to leave and find something better. So the Tavern being open and having lot of options seemed like a winner at the time. We looked at other places to stop at since we knew we didn't plan enough. We wanted to do the Salem Witch Museum, but it was one you had to reserve in advance, so we had to skip that. We found a Witch Dungeon we added to our itinerary, but first we stopped at the Pirates Museum. This was actually really cool, a bit different than I expected, but really interesting from a historical perspective. 

The dance hall from Hocus Pocus

"Allison's House" from Hocus Pocus
Also, a haunted house too!

After that we hit up the Witch Dungeon to check out. This one was cool, however, it seemed to be more of a recreation than an actual place. With that in mind, it was still informative and a cool stop. We also walked an outdoor mall they had and did a LOT OF shopping and getting fun souvenirs. We found a shop that had some of the softest sweaters ever! We also saw some fun characters dressed up for pictures there. 

Real pirate treasure

We decided to stop for dinner before our ghost tour. We found out the Witches Brew place was finally open so we stopped there, turns out it was being sold so they didn't have a lot of food options so we left there. We were headed to closer to where the Ghost Tour was going to start to find a food place, but we saw a long peninsula out to a lighthouse and I LOVE seeing those so we walked out to get pictures and then rushed over to find a dinner place. We found a place called Boston Burgers that was probably one of the most delicious burger places I've ever eaten at! I decided to order a BLT Burger (yes, nothing super new, but I knew if I ordered something I didn't like I wasn't going to be able to eat for many hours so I had to get something that was more of a guarantee). Stace ordered a Mac N Cheese burger and, I'll be honest, I kind of wanted to try some, it looked pretty good. 

I'm obsessed with lighthouses

After that we went and did our ghost tour. That was probably my favorite part. I always expect them to be spookier, which it wasn't, but I loved how much of the history we learned and how the guide presented the information to make it feel more unbiased and clear. I loved that. I learned on this tour that Salem didn't even embrace it's "Witch City" history until Bewitched filmed a couple episodes there. Before that it was more of an embarrassment to them. Now the stores earn 40% of their profits during October alone. It was even better that it rained almost our whole day in Salem so that helped with the ominous tones of the city. One of my favorite stops was a street called something "Charleston" street. It was such a wide street with the most beautiful houses and it was lined with some amazing trees that were so tall and the leaves were falling all over the road. I guess it was built to be the nicest part of the city, for sure! Even though the houses are millions of dollars, if I could move to this area that's where I'd live.

After our ghost tour we had to rush to the train station to get on the last train of the day. That part was a little stressful since we only had one shot to get on the right train or we'd be SOL on getting back to Boston (it's a couple hours away if you try and do the bus or anything). Luckily, people in Salem are as nice and helpful as Boston so we found some people that helped us figure out the train and we got on it without any problems. It took us a LONG time to get back to our hotel and we're DOG tired, but it was so worth it. 

Overall, this has been my favorite day on our trip and I'm so glad we fit it in. I loved the souvenirs we found and I loved all the things to see. When I pictured being in New England, Salem fits that picture the most. The trees still weren't fully changed, but it was still pretty. I loved the plaques on the houses that showed who it was originally built for and when.

Boston 2023 - Day in Boston

Oh man did I get SO much good (and needed) sleep last night! That's just my first thought for the day. It was nice just being in a bed, first of all, but also not having any kids or cats interrupt it. Unfortunately, we found out this morning that our hotel does not, in fact, have free breakfast, like we thought when we booked it (we even kept mentioning yesterday at least we got a hotel with free breakfast this time...UGH). It was a somewhat unfortunate start, but we made the best of it.

A view on our walk to the trolley

Once we ate and got ready, we took the subway down to the trolley station to start our hop on, hop off exploring (a funny note, on the subway an LDS missionary stopped by and started asking everyone if they wanted to go to church with him...everyone said no and I felt kind of bad at how bad he was doing, but it was funny to see one of those here). We got our tickets and decided to start with the Harbor Cruise. We were getting on the first one so we figured that would be good to do that and then spend the rest of the day going through the city. The cruise was a good one. There were lots of Asians, the don't understand personal space or not standing where they shouldn't (the guy talking had to constantly tell them to sit down or move somewhere else). But once they finally figured it out, it was enjoyable. The guy had a lot of good information and was really funny. It was interesting to learn how much of the coast line of Boston is man made and how they once had a garbage island that is now one of the most visited parks in the state (maybe country even...I can't remember).

After the cruise, we went back to the trolley. We got to see Paul Revere's House (which was only eh, because you had to pay to get in and there's only 3 rooms to see and you can't take ANY pictures inside), we walked quite a bit of the Freedom Trail (they have a red brick line on the sidewalk/road that shows where it is), and saw a lot of really cute buildings (VERY ornate out here).That was all just at the 2nd stop. So then we went to figure out where the trolley would pick up and decided to stop for lunch.

I was obsessed with the old cemeteries

We went to this pizzeria close to the stop, and while it had to be a SUPER health code violation (the bathroom was literally across from the kitchen, it only had a swinging door that was about a foot long, and it was for men and women...it was really gross), the food was decent. We finished up there and got back on the trolley. I noticed it was already 2:00 at this point and the last trolley pick up is at 4:30 and we had like 6 more stops to go so I felt a little rushed at this point. We headed to stop 4 to see the USS Constitution. We walked through the museum and the boat, which was pretty cool. I'm fascinated by the cannons for some reason. The ship was also VERY short, like MY head touched the tops of some parts and I even had to duck through some of the doorways. But it was still really cool.

Aboard the USS Constitution

We got back on the trolley at this point and headed to stop 6 (Feneuil Hall and the old meeting house). At this point I was kind of over all the old buildings (sorry!) and this just seemed like a place to do a LOT of souvenir shopping. I wanted more history though, not shops with Boston shirts. We kind of did this area quick to get back onto the trolley to go back to the beginning. Our last trolley driver was REALLY funny so it was fun to just sit there and listen to his jokes. We got off back at the beginning, which was close to the aquarium and I thought since we had extra time, why not do that? Unfortunately, the aquarium closes at 5 there so we were too late. But we were not about to call it a day already.

In front of the Old State House
AKA The Boston Massacre site

We ended up taking the subway out to Harvard. We did some "shopping" (by that I mean we walked the stores and saw how expensive that stuff was out there), we then went to part of the Harvard campus (where they seem to do the events) and walked through one of the buildings. It was really cool to see the classrooms and the digital tablets they had outside them to tell you what class was in that room. We stopped by some fast food stop for dinner and then did more shopping. We ended up coming back to the hotel after this (it was getting a little later) and realized maybe getting bagels at the grocery store would be cheaper and better than buying breakfast every morning. Luckily there is a grocery store real close to the hotel so we stopped there and got bagels, cream cheese, orange juice, and some plastic knives to use.

So it was a busy day, I've had a shower, and am SO ready for Salem tomorrow!! I'm hoping I like that area since Boston has been a little eh so far (still cool, but I expected something different).

Boston 2023 - Starting with an Overnight Flight

So funny story, Stace and I got into the habit of visiting each other and staying in each other's homes (she had 2 spare rooms so I'd usually bring up Cara and Gwen and have them in 1 room and I'd be in the other. I usually had a spare room and she'd stay in that when she came to visit, if she wasn't staying with her mom or a close, cheaper hotel). Well, after a while we both grew more into our homes and we lost room for visitors the same way we had. A couple years ago we decided to do a girl's trip to New York just for fun. Last year, we were talking about how to visit each other and determined "I guess another girl's trip is going to have to happen instead!" We talked about a few place we'd like to go and landed on Boston in the fall time (because that's just when you HAVE to go, right?). I've been so excited to go and see the trees, try new foods, and learn more about our country's history...2 out of 3 ain't bad haha (spoiler: we went too early and the trees weren't really changed yet).

Anyways, we booked our flights early and they ended up changing our flights quite a bit, so what was originally a Wednesday morning flight, because a Tuesday overnight flight so that we could sneak in some more time. While flying overnight was NOT ideal for me (I just couldn't sleep sitting up, guess I really am getting older), I was able to rest enough to get through our first day. I was happy to see the lady in the row next to us had a dog...I kept watching him to see how he handled the flight (she even gave him a little pillow to sleep on!) 

** Funny side story, when I was going through TSA in our airport I was wearing a funny saying shirt, they started to pass me through that body scan thing and the guy got distracted by my shirt they didn't scan me at first. They were about to send me away when he stopped and said "wait...did she pass?" and the lady replied "I don't know, I didn't hit the button" so they had to send me back. Good thing I'm a good sport, huh?**

Once we landed, got our bags, and got on the shuttle to our hotel (one BIG motivating factor for choosing our hotel was a shuttle from the airport to the hotel since we knew we weren't renting a car and we really didn't want to figure out transportation in a new city with our bags. The other one was we thought we were getting a breakfast, unfortunately that didn't happen) we checked in with the friendliest hotel employee on the planet! She was SO helpful in us figuring out how to get places and printed off nearby restaurants and directions to some of our destinations for our stay.

At this point we were STARVING so lunch was a must first stop. We decided to try a nearby grill place. It was pricey, but overall good. I decided right then that I was going to try new foods as much as possible while in the city. Here I tried a Cuban sandwich (pulled pork with some lunch meat and fried pickles), which was pretty good (again, I was SO hungry I might have eaten just about anything and called it good). We had decided figuring out where the subway station and getting our passes for our trip would be a good next stop. We met a very helpful transit employee who helped us get our passes and figure out where we needed to go to explore the city more (While eating, we had looked at Groupon for some cool things to do and found an Observation Deck nearby that was decently priced and looked like a good way to kick off our first day)

We got off at Boston Commons and walked that park. I was a little disappointed because I was looking forward to seeing the trees here (it's basically Central Park for Boston) and when we got to it...they were all very green still. I hoped we'd be able to stop by again on our last day and we'd actually see some color here. We headed over to the observation deck tower and found our way to the area we needed. It ended up having really cool views, a total 360 around the city. They even had little areas that had models of buildings you should be able to see out the window you were at (basically a "Where's Waldo" of the city on each side). We went through that quickly and then headed down to the gift shop (one of the best parts of being in a new city, right?)...turns out it was pretty boring and didn't have much that called to us so we passed on those.

After that, we decided renting bikes would be fun to ride around. We thought it would be fun to go through the park. So we got our bikes, rode down to Fenway Stadium (because you HAVE to see Fenway if you're in Boston, right?) and then explored more. We slowly made our way back to the park...and then found out bikes aren't allowed in the park (wah wah) so we turned those in and then walked through the park on our own. At this point we thought about heading over to Harvard since we had time to kill, but both of our phones were at 20% battery and I had forgotten to bring my extra charger and so we decided going to a new area and chancing our phones dying and not being able to figure out how to get back so easily was not worth it. So we headed back to the hotel.

I figured out quickly I needed to get an actual plug to charge my extra charger (I use the USB plug back home, but the hotel didn't have any USB outlets). Luckily, there was a shopping center, which included a Target, nearby so we headed over there. This Target must have a thief problem  because they had EVERYTHING locked up (I mean everything: electronics, medicines, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste....it was insane!). I was able to find my plug I needed (and Stace found some insoles she felt she needed to help her achy feet from all the walking we've already done) and we checked out quickly. We headed over to Wahlburgers for dinner because I had heard so much about their restaurants. Service there was a tad slow, but the food was pretty decent, the portions seemed small (which wasn't horrible since we both weren't starving). I ordered the bacon mac n cheese, Stace got some tater tot item and halfway through we switched so we could both try each others. It was nothing I'd go out of my way to have again, but if it were one of the only options I'd probably eat there. We got back to our hotel by 7:30, took our daily needed showers (especially after traveling), read for a bit, and then passed out...a bed has never felt so good and this day was SO long!

The only "changing" leaf we saw today :/

September Activities

This month felt uneventful, really, so I don't feel I had a lot of bigger posts. Here are some of the smaller items from the month:

-My surgery update: healing went pretty quickly. I didn't need my pain meds for too long (maybe 2-3 days max). I definitely felt perfectly fine by my 2 week checkup. I was bummed I couldn't fully workout until that point, so I made sure to do a longer walk instead so I could still watch my show and earn my shower haha. My belly button area and my throat (from the tube they put down it during surgery) were the worst parts really, and those were tolerable.

-Now that it's September I've started spooky movie season. I love ones that have a great twist. I'm pretty picky with thrillers and horror movies (I don't care for jump scares...too cheap and easy) so it's hard for me to find new ones that I actually like.

-We crossed off our doctor days this month. Dentist, Eyes, and (as of today) Larry's Dermatologist are all done. We even all had NO cavities (which was an amazing feat...I thought, for sure, Cara and I would have at least 1 each). We went out to Leatherby's to celebrate and get some ice cream.

-Football season has also started and I'm SO excited for that. I think that might be my favorite part of Fall time. Go Pack Go!!

-I loaded up on some Fall scented candles that I love and am excited to burn. That's a harder goal for me to get so I'm pretty excited I found quite a bit.

-I feel like this month was prepping for our big shift coming (two vacations for me and Larry should be starting his new job soon) so my focus was on that and figuring out how our days will work after all that.

-We did make it to an outdoor movie. Cara's school put on The Super Mario Movie (and that's a favorite in our home) so that was pretty fun for us.

-I got a pedicure this last weekend with Rachel. It's nice to have pretty toes and soft feet again. Just in time for my trip :)

Speaking of my trip...now I'm getting ready to head out for my Boston trip with Stace so I'll be excited to post about those coming up!

Tracy Aviary Family Day

For our family date day this month, I decided on Tracy Aviary. I've been wanting to go for so long and I figured since it was cooling down this would be a good time. Not to mention, this made a great activity to invite Mom and Grandma to (Grandma can't walk on grass so we need solid ground activities for her).

The good parts were the Macaws being SO vocal (although that scared Pierce a bit), they have tons of flamingos, there were other birds that were pretty interactive with the kids, they had a couple birds just walking around so that made it more exciting.

The bummer parts were the kids didn't get to play as much as I had hoped (Mom seemed to be rushing a bit...might have to do with Grandma walking so slowly these days), you can't feed the animals anymore since it was attracting wild birds that hurt their birds, and it was much warmer than I had hoped.

It wasn't as entertaining and fun as it has been in the past so might be a while before we go back, which I kind of feel sad about. But, at least we got out of the house.

Labor Day Weekend 2023

Labor Day Weekend was part dud and part a lot of unexpected driving.

Saturday we kicked off the weekend with a drive up to Malad for lottery tickets. The lottery was pretty big and Larry REALLY wanted to go all together (I'd totally be okay just letting him drive up and I'll stay down entertaining the kids). I figured since we had two days at home after, I could sacrifice a day driving up there. We decided to bring some fun stuff for the kids and some snacks so we could drive up, play at a playground, and then head home. The playground we found ended up having a splash pad, so we let the kids strip down, play in the water, dry off with the hand dryers in the bathroom, and then get re-dressed. We let them play as much on the playground as they could handle. We let them eat all the snacks we had. We even let them dance around and put on a mini performance on a nearby stage. It actually ended up  being pretty fun, although the drive home wasn't everyone's favorite haha.

Sunday we ended up having a lazy day. I wanted to get our new decorations put up, tidy the house, and get some other chores done, but I figured I had another day so we just had fun as a family on Sunday (aside from Grocery shopping and laundry).

Today, as we were finishing up breakfast Larry got a call from his older brother saying he crashed one of those electric scooters and hurt his leg and wanted to know if he could take him to the hospital. He lives an hour North of us so it was quite the ask, but we know he didn't have very many options. I told Larry he should just go up, take care of his brother, and I'd stay here and take care of the kids. He mentioned taking a couple kids with him and going out to lunch and I thought the lunch idea sounded fun so he ended up talking me into us all going. I figured it would only take a couple hours, max, but we got him to the hospital at 12, went to lunch, and then (because it was raining so playing outside wasn't an option) we headed over to Cindy's to hang out with her. Around 3:00 his brother text us to tell us he had to have some surgery on his leg and would be there at least until the night. We had to tell him, unfortunately we couldn't stay that long and so he'd have to find a ride home (it is a school night and it was a long drive after all). Luckily, the kids had fun playing upstairs with Olivia so that was nice (plus I learned Pierce can officially go up and down stairs all on his own). 

A representation of our whole weekend

So we never got around to all the chores I meant and we did SO much driving and lots of eating out (it felt like) so it wasn't my favorite Labor Day Weekend we've had, but at least we got to see family and help someone in need.