Back to School

Today was my first day back, which was kind of sad. Thankfully, Sydney wasn't even sad to see me go when I dropped her off at Addie's this morning. That made me not feel so guilty about working (is it weird that I still feel kind of guilty about it?).

Anyway, it was a long day. I got to work at 8:30 am, and I just got home at 8:30 pm because we had a mandatory open house from 6-8 pm. I'm pretty sure I talked to 3 parents in that entire 2 hours, so it's a good thing I was there. It was extra painful because I forgot my wallet this morning, so I couldn't buy anything for dinner when I had some down time .

Sydney was asleep when I got home. I saw her for a total of 10 minutes today when I got her up this morning. What the heck?

Although the day had its drawbacks, I have to admit I'm excited to get to actually start a school year. I've started every other job in the middle of the year, so I've just had to jump in and try to catch up with everyone else. Today I got to arrange my room just how I want it, and put up my own little decorations. It looks A BILLION times better than it did last year!

What We Do For Fun

For one of Spencer's last days of break, we went to the splash park with the Heaton's. We were hoping to enjoy a nice day in the sun, but it ended up being pretty cloudy with a slight breeze.

There was a good span of time when we were the only ones there. While the kids were snacking, we (the adults) decided to make up an obstacle course and time each other to see who could do it the fastest. This is what we came up with:

For the record, I won (yes!! Haha). It was all about the timing on those buckets at the end. We didn't record our first attempts, so the video is from round 2.

Newport

We wanted to start day 4 of our trip by canoeing in the Charles since that didn't pan out the day before, but we woke up to a serious downpour of rain. So we checked out of our hotel and got an early start on our drive to Newport, RI. After our arrival, we ate lunch and then stopped at the NEX and commissary on base. Then Sydney fell asleep in the car, so we took her to the hotel and spent the rest of the evening there so she could catch up on her zzz's.

On Friday morning, we were ready to step back into tourist mode. We started by doing a self-guided tour of the Breakers, the ginormous Vanderbuilt mansion. It was gaudy to a tee, but just the size was so impressive. I loved hearing that despite home's grandeur, it was still a family friendly place, and the little Vanderbuilt kids would ride their tricycles around in the great hall. I was shocked to learn that Mrs. Vanderbuilt had like 4 gigantic closets because a woman of her standing would change outfits up to 7 times a day! I would not want to be the maid in charge of laundry in that house...

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but I snuck this shot of Spencer and Sydney from the upper balcony. Such an incredible view!

This is the back of the house. We only got to tour the first two floors- the top two floors were servants quarters!

After our tour, we admired the other beautiful mansions on the cliffwalk. My favorite is still this one:

I think it's called Angelica's Place, and I was practically drooling every time it was within view. We would have loved to tour that one, but it's a private residence (those lucky ducks).

The trail wasn't very stroller friendly, so we were only able to go as far as the dark tunnel just past this Chinese Tea House that's on the Marble House property. We had a good time making loud noises in it to entertain Sydney (she requested to go back in it a second time), and laughed when we saw other people were coming in and could totally hear us.

We also had fun walking on the boulders when the trail wasn't a paved path.

Then we got in the car and did the Ocean Drive while Sydney napped in her car seat. It was gorgeous- and fun to see more modern mansions along the way. On our way back, Sydney woke up right as we were passing Brenton Point, where at least 15 people were flying kites. It was the perfect place to entertain a toddler.

We were all a little mesmerized with this display. It made me want to buy one of the little $20 kites just to join the fun (but we didn't).

Instead we walked across the street to climb on more rocks. A family asked me to take their picture, and the Dad told us about these little crabs you can find under the small rocks at the edge of the water. He said his daughter loved them when she was little, so he thought Sydney might like them.

Spencer found a bunch for us. I held one for a second, but it felt like holding a spider so it kind of freaked me out. Even Sydney was brave enough to hold one, but it didn't last long.

Spencer had fun helping Sydney make the big jumps from boulder to boulder.

Me & Sydney

Later that evening, we had fun walking along the shops in downtown Newport.

I had hopes of going to do something fun the next morning too before starting our 11 hour drive home, but after breakfast Spencer was just itching to get on the road. Like the drive to Boston, Sydney did great. She had us laughing with these new tricks she picked up:

The car seat splits (with diaper hanging out one side),

and two binks.

Our trip home did take longer that we were expecting, mostly because we had to stop a billion times due to stinky diapers. I think one time we stopped and I changed her bum, and then like 20 minutes later she pooped again (and that time it leaked onto the inside of her shorts...sick).

We got home safely, and were excited to be able to put Sydney to sleep in her own bed! The only bad thing is that now whenever we go somewhere (e.g. a 15 minute drive to Costco), she requests a movie, her bink, or fruit snacks for the ride :)

Boston: Fenway Park , Harvard, & China Town

On Wednesday, we started our day with a tour of Fenway Park. It was kind of weird walking there from the T station, because it wasn't super easy to spot. We were just walking and all of a sudden there were Red Sox flags hanging from a building, and we were like, "Oh, this is the stadium."

Spencer & Sydney outside Fenway Park.

We learned some fun facts about the curse of the Bambino, the Green Monster, and the single red seat in a sea of green seats (where a napping Yankee's fan was hit in the head with a fly ball).

Sydney the blue chairs, and the seat flipped up and set her off kilter. She started screaming, so we gave her fruit snacks (which she requested about every 15 minutes on this trip) to cheer her up. Totally worked.

After lunch, we took the T to Harvard. Spencer was holding Sydney, and her tired little eyes just slowly started closing. When we got there, she was dead to the world.

Luckily they had these chairs all over Harvard Yard, so we snagged a few and took a little nap.

When she woke up, she had a stinky diaper. We walked into a random building and found the bathrooms in the basement, but of course there wasn't a changing station. She was cracking me up that whenever she saw someone walk into the bathroom she'd ask me, "A change a bum?" I took her into the hallway to try to find a secluded area, but I only found a table by the vending machines. We didn't see another soul until I started wiping her poopy bum, and then a maintenance man walked by us. Naturally.

We walked around the campus a bit, then did a student guided tour, which we ended up bailing on prematurely. But we did have a genius Harvard student define big words for us on the tour, you know, words like "co-ed" (inside joke).

Then we attempted to go canoeing on the Charles river, but that didn't work out. So we just opted for a picture by the water, and decided to head to Chinatown.

Our only previous experience with Chinatown was in San Francisco, which is totally awesome. So I had to laugh at the short conversation Spencer had with a lady when we emerged from the T and saw only regular looking buildings all around us:

Spencer: "Um, excuse me. Where's Chinatown?"

Lady: (looking confused) "You're in it."

Turns out Chinatown in Boston is like two dirty side streets that smell like garbage, with a bunch of restaurants scattered throughout. After walking through the entire thing (in like 3 minutes), we decided to have dinner at a place called Empire Garden. After going inside, we walked up some stairs, and for a second I felt like I was in the movie Big Trouble in Little China. When we met the hostess at the top of the stairs, she took us into a massive theater-turned-restaurant (like Playhouse Square style theater with the ornate ceiling and everything). And we were the only people there. Although we were a little nervous about the place being completely empty, we actually ended up having a pretty good meal. Plus, I didn't feel too pressured to keep Sydney quiet.

When we were leaving, we decided to take the elevator back downstairs. We got in, pushed the button, and then the doors shut. We heard a few weird sounds, then doors opened to the same floor. We had already been giggling about what a bizarre experience it was to eat there, but we laughed even harder as we tried to slyly get out of the elevator and take the stairs instead without the hostess noticing.
We ended the night watching a free orchestra concert at the Hatch Shell right along the river. They were supposed to be playing Beethoven's 5th symphony, but the first 30 minutes or so were arias that didn't really hold our interest. Never really been a fan of opera... so we walked along the river and let Sydney run around before heading back to our hotel.

Boston: Salem, Lexington, Concord

On Day 2 of our trip, we got back in the car and headed to Salem, home of the witch trials. We got lost after being in the car for like 5 minutes when we were trying to get to the freeway. Good thing Spencer's phone has internet, or we would have been in trouble. We quickly learned that roads in Boston aren't marked very clearly, which was frustrating because we could never tell if we were on the right road or not. My opinion of Salem didn't start off very well since it had lots of traffic and road construction, and it wasn't easy to navigate.

We started our day at the Salem Witch Museum. It was not at all what we were expecting: We sat in a big room, and there were different carved scenes portrayed up on the walls. Different scenes were lit up as the narrator described what they were depicting. Then we went into a different room where we learned about the perceptions of witches throughout history. It was all just kind of weird.

For lunch, we walked across the street for a picnic in Salem Commons. We made our sandwiches with bread, peanut butter, and jelly that we snatched from our hotel's continental breakfast- how's that for cheap?

After that we went to tour The House of Seven Gables. I thought there were some ties with this house and the witch trials, but it turns out the book Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about the house dealt with them, not the house itself.

Sydney in the kid's area, steering the ship. The view from here overlooked the water, and it was absolutely beautiful.

The house had super low ceilings, a secret staircase, and a hidden passageway. Sydney was grumpy during the tour (probably had to do with not being able to walk around or touch anything), which also made it slightly painful for us.

So, overall we thought Salem was kind of a disappointment. Plus, we also got lost trying to get out of there....

Our next stop was Lexington, but anything worth seeing in there was overshadowed by Sydney's screaming. She had fallen asleep in the car, and we woke her up when we got out of the car at the visitor's center. So basically, we had an overtired, crying kid, and we just spent our 10 minutes in Lexington trying to console her.

We got back in the car and headed to Concord, which totally redeemed the other failures of the day. Despite my disdain for the book Walden (mandatory reading in high school), we decided to stop at Walden Pond to go swimming. We knew we needed to do something Sydney could enjoy too, and it was totally worth the trip. Our little grumpster was much happier after splashing in the water and playing in the sand.

Plus, the scenery was beautiful. That would be more obvious if I was any good at taking pictures.

The next thing that made us love Concord was a little restaurant called Helen's. It was just a local little cash-only place on Main Street that looked charming and was reasonably priced. And it turned out that it was completely delicious! Always nice to stumble upon gems like that.

After dinner, we went to the Old North Bridge on the Concord battleground.

Spencer & Sydney by the memorial with a few lines of Thoreau's hymn that coined the phrase "The shot heard 'round the world."

The battleground, with Spencer and Sydney (who's also saying "prayers") running up the path.

Again, the scenery was really pretty, especially as the sun was setting. Seeing the battlefield, I just couldn't help but think about the hugeness (couldn't think of a better word) of what these people were doing in revolting against England. Whenever I read stories about people standing up for themselves like that, I always wonder if I would have had the guts to do it too.

I hope this wasn't desecrating a historical landmark, but this tree on the path was just begging to be climbed. Spencer got up there and I gave Sydney to him so I could take a picture, but she didn't really appreciate that.

I climbed up the other side and had Spencer take a few pics (senior portrait style) just for fun.

Just for the record, we got lost driving home too. Eventually we found signs to a familiar freeway and made our way back to the hotel. I swear we're not usually bad at finding our way around.

Boston: The Freedom Trail

Since we've lived in Ohio, we've talked about all the places we need to visit while we are on this side of the country: New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, etc. And now here we are, in his 4th year of dental school, and we haven't done any of it together! So we decided to use one week of his summer break to take a little family vacation to Boston, MA and Newport, RI. We picked a lot of people's brains to get their input on what we should do in Boston, and made an itinerary for each day we were there.

Our hotel had a complimentary shuttle to the nearby T station, which was really great, but I have to admit I'm kind of terrified of public transportation. Not just because your scrunched next to sometimes freaky strangers (we're pretty sure there were 3 women who were actually men on one of our rides), but I'm just intimidated by figuring out where to go and everything. Luckily, we were able to find our way around pretty easily. Sydney was fascinated with the "trains," and would say, "Bye bye chain," when we got off at each of our stops.

On Monday, we spent the day walking the Freedom Trail. We weren't planning on doing the whole thing in one day, but it wasn't taking as long as I had anticipated, so we just kept walking and walking. I thought it was so nice to be outside to enjoy the city- plus it was like 80 degrees with no humidity. Can't beat that!

Our first stop was the Bunker Hill monument. We were planning on walking up all 294 steps, but unfortunately it was closed for renovations.

Our next stop was the USS Constitution, the oldest naval ship still in commission. Spencer told me the tour guide is an active duty navy person, so the guide had to salute him (and all the other ODS people he was with) when he went in uniform a few years ago. Anyway, they weren't giving tours that day, so we were 0 for 2 right off the bat!

The USS Constitution museum replicas were the closest we got to a ship. Luckily, there was a kid's area upstairs with lots of hands on stuff that Sydney enjoyed.

Captain Spencer thought long and hard about his career as a Navy man.

Sydney got to wear a sailor's coat, which she didn't want to take off.

Our favorite part was swinging on the hammocks in the sleeping quarters.

After the museum, we followed the red line in the sidewalk to the Old North Church, where the lanterns were lit to let the patriots know the British were on the move to Lexington.

We also saw Paul Revere saddled up for his midnight ride,

and then took a short walk to his house.

Sydney was conked out in the stroller while we walked through Little Italy, and woke up just as we finished eating our first ever cannoli from Mike's Pastry (recommended by a friend). She had no idea what she was missing :)

Spencer & Sydney at the site of the Boston Massacre.

After lunch at the insanely crowded Quincy Market, we walked to Boston Commons and took Sydney for a ride on the carousel. She LOVED it and cried when I told her we were all done after it stopped.

So we bought her another ticket so she could ride again with Daddy. I think she cried when that ride was done too.

Then we walked across the street to the Public Gardens to ride the swan boats,

and walked around to see all of the beautiful flowers.

Our day went out with a bang with a Duck Boat Tour. It was pricey, but totally one of our favorite things we did on our whole trip! Our "ConDUCKtor" was quirky and hilarious, and it was just nice to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride while getting a fun history tour.

When that was over, we walked back to Little Italy for dinner. Sydney fell asleep again in her stroller, and when she started stirring when we got in the restaurant, I picked her up and held her while she slept. She woke up just as we finished dinner, so we took our leftovers back to our hotel. Spencer crashed on the bed in about 15 minutes (I think it was like 9:15 pm) while Sydney ate chicken parmesan and spaghetti at the desk. It didn't take long for her to get a bunch of sauce in her hair, so I gave her a quick tub when she was finished. I think she went to bed at like 10 pm... just the start of a week of some bad parenting when it came to naps and bedtimes.

Hill Cumorah Pageant

This weekend we drove to Palmyra, NY for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. And what a painful drive it was!! Sydney pretty much screamed the whole way there, and didn't fall asleep until we were about 40 minutes away. Then we missed a turn (darn Google map!), and had a 40 minute detour. She woke about when we were still about 10 minutes from the Visitor's Center. The good news is, she was pretty happy once she was free of the car (and so were we!).

Aunt Kristie (Baize), Uncle Ken, Spencer, Me, & Sydney

We were excited to meet Baize, Ken, and Chelsey, who have been in the pageant for about a hundred years. It had been 4 years since we last saw them when they came to visit family in Provo. After feeding us dinner, Baize took us to the seats she reserved for us on the front row!

We had a decent amount of down time between dinner and the start of the show, so we hiked to the top of the hill to see the monument.

We relaxed on the hill and enjoyed the incredible view. Just like the last time we were here, it was mighty windy up there.

It made my hair look just like George Washington's.

Down below, we passed the time by reading stories, throwing a ball, and chasing Sydney around. She stayed busy, busy, busy during the entire show too, constantly getting on and off my lap, in and out of her chair, etc. We still enjoyed the show- I think Spencer was especially impressed since it was his first time seeing it.

This morning after church we went over to some of the historic sites to walk around for a bit.

Well, we walked. But Sydney ran.

Spencer and Sydney in the Sacred Grove.

The Cooper House in front of the Smith home, where Joseph once hid the plates from an angry mob.

According to the account, Joseph had initially hidden them in the floorboards, but then felt impressed that they would not be safe there. He moved the plates to the attic above, and when a mob came they tore up the floorboards and only found an empty box there. They apparently had no thought to look right above them where the plates were just a few feet above their heads. Pretty incredible.

Family picture with the Palmyra Temple in the background.

The drive home literally could not have gone better. Sydney slept, then woke up happy and stayed happy for all but maybe 10 minutes of the ride. She even had us laughing a few times when she was reading books, singing songs, and just being silly.

Showing me her "gackes."

We're hoping that our next trip goes as smoothly as the ride home. Otherwise it is going to be torture!