Back from Beantown

I'll apologize in advance--this may be long.

What a fun time we had in Boston!  We're so glad we could go visit the kiddos, big and little, and see Hull and the area.  Here's a quick synopsis in pictures of our trip.

The beach--since Hull is a peninsula, one is never far from water.  We walked down to the "beach" near the Franzen's home, but it's mostly rocks and the tide was high.  We also went to the beach at the very point of the peninsula.  Everyone but me threw rocks.  We looked at the Boston skyline across the bay.  Preston found me a live periwinkle in its shell.  He wanted me to take it home, cook, and eat it, but I declined. 

 

 

There is an area of Hull near the nice beachy beach that used to be an amusement park that rivaled Coney Island.  All that is left now is this awesome old carousel.  All of us plus Auntie Gail went and rode it.  The Easter Bunny was also there for pictures, but none of us wanted to do that.

We drove south to Plymouth.  The Mayflower is put away for the winter, but we saw Plymouth Rock.  I was expecting something on the order of Independence Rock, but this is what we saw.

 

 

 

 

Easter--lovely time to be together, attend church where Lauren sang with the Primary in sacrament meeting and to have a lovely meal afterwards.  Beautiful kids, beautiful family. 

 

I love this picture of me and Andrew.  It looks like he's thinking, "Who is this crazy person and what is she doing with me?"

Rene went back to Chicago on Sunday evening.  The rest of the week consisted of normal family activities.  We took Lauren to Backyard Bunch.  We went to the park.  We shopped, cooked, mended, played with kids.

Thursday, my plane left late in the day, so we took advantage of going to Boston to walk about half of the Freedom Trail.  We saw Paul Revere's grave, old churchs, Boston Commons, Fanueil Hall, Paul Revere's home and the Old North Church.  We stopped in a little bakery and bought some authentic Boston pastries.

 

 

It was interesting to see and feel a place so different from our own midwestern sensibilities.  We enjoyed our trip and are thankful we could go.  We're most thankful and proud of our kids and grandkids.  They are dealing with the challenges of grown-up life in wonderful and happy ways.

And happy birthday, Andrew!