What more could we ask for in a vacation! We traveled to a favorite place of ours, experienced good weather, stayed with family, and had non-stop fun!
As you may know Mandy received a trip for us to travel to Boston for Christmas in order to visit her brother Josh, his wife Becky and their two adorable twin boys, Evan and Ethan. We were looking forward to the trip after the holidays and with the baby on the way it’s most likely all the travel that we’ll be doing for a little while.
We arrived Monday evening in Boston where Josh kindly chauffeured us for an hour back their place. Josh and Becky, by the way, live about an hour outside of Boston towards central Massachusetts in a city called Lunenburg. We picked up some Chinese food on the way home and arrived to 2 eager little boys anxiously awaiting our arrival. We ate and got settled in that evening. We don’t get to see Josh and his family often and it was great getting to know them better during this time. The two twin boys were a riot. They are so cute. The first thing they did when they saw Mandy was gently put their hand on her belly and ask “Baby?”. It’s sometimes difficult to understand exactly what their saying, but by the end of the week we became quite proficient in interpreting the secret language. (Colton’s convinced they secretly learned another ancient language)
Tuesday morning we saw the boys off to school and it was really cute to see Evan give the driver a fake ticket as they boarded the bus. We were pretty lazy the rest of the day. Our activities consisted of hanging around the house and driving around the neighborhood running errands. We were productive though and decided we would make Mandy’s famous fish tacos for dinner and afterwards some homemade chewy pretzels. Josh devoured the whole batch that evening! Note to self: Josh enjoys homemade pretzels.
Wednesday we awoke early and caught the commuter rail into Boston. The weather was great and we wanted to have some fun exploring the city. We went and took a tour of Fenway Park in the morning which was really cool. We learned some amazing stuff and it was fun being in the oldest baseball park in America. Such great tradition. If we weren’t already, we are now huge fans of the Red Sox. We then headed over to the public gardens and went ice skating at Frog Pond. We got skills right? In the afternoon we headed to Quincy Market for some Clam Chowda and Fish and Chips for lunch then to top it all off, some shopping at H&M.
Thursday we decided to return back to Boston and tackle the Historic Freedom Trail. If you’re not familiar with it already, it’s about a 5k walk throughout Boston stopping at all of the important historical landmarks during the revolutionary war. We had each done it before but we thought it would be fun to do together after so many years. It was really cool. We managed to somehow sneak into the State House during the new Governors Inauguration for another term? Go figure. Hunger settled in so we stopped and ate lunch in the North End where all of the amazing Italian eateries are located. It’s really pretty there along with the rest of the city. That’s one thing that just draws us to Boston; it is a beautiful city! We finished off the expedition with a stop at Bunker Hill and a tour of the USS Constitution. Anyway we won’t delve into the many stops and interesting facts we learned right now. Let’s save that for later.
Friday we hung out with Josh and Becky at the house and watched some movies. Later that evening they were kind enough to treat us to dinner at Bertucci’s, a delicious Italian Pizzeria.
Saturday we had breakfast at the 50/50 diner in Fitchburg and it was well worth waking up for! Doug: “Excuse me, what are homefries” Waitress: “Homefries are Homefries” (Sorry, inside joke with Mandy’s Dad last time they ate at the 50/50 diner). In the afternoon we took the boys to the Ecotarium and had a blast playing with all of the cool exhibits. Later that evening we decided to make some more homemade pretzels as a parting “Thank You”. We learned our lesson this time and doubled the recipe. Josh now has about 32 huge chewy pretzels to chow down.
Sadly though our vacation had to come to an end. Little Evan and Ethan are the 2 cutest things and are one of the reasons that we absolutely loved our vacation. We will surely miss them. Each morning jumping on the bed and waking us up, laughing at everything and anything, dressing up in our clothes and shoes and walking around like monsters, and those amazing dance moves are just a few of the great memories we’ll remember. They are also very loving and prayed for us each night, even multiple times. It’s really hard not to love those guys. Thank you so much Josh and Becky for your hospitality and generosity. We love and will miss you guys. Now it’s back to the grind…..UGH!
