Ben's An Author

Earlier this summer, Ben decided that he wanted to write and illustrate a book. He drew the pictures and then told me what he wanted each page to say. Here is the complete story: The End -

Boston Day 3

For our third day in Boston, we decided to start the morning off across the river in Cambridge where we walked through Harvard's beautiful campus. The kids found the Harvard stop on our Boston tour to be less-than-entertaining so we made our way to the Harvard Book Store to try to appease them. Then, we took a cab back across the river to the Back Bay part of town. We walked all of the way down Newbury Street until we ran into the Boston Public Gardens. There, we found the famous Swan Boats, a 130-year Boston tradition, and decided to take a ride. The ride on the boats was Ben's favorite thing we did in Boston, as they were just his speed.
In the corner of the Public Garden, we located the bronzed mallard ducklings honoring Robert McCloskey and his children's book "Make Way for Ducklings". It was a popular spot in the park on a gorgeous Saturday! We continued our walk through the park and then through Boston Commons before we came across the Granary Burying Grounds. In this cemetery in the heart of Boston, we saw the grave sites of Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, and members of Benjamin Franklin's family. (Franklin was born in Boston, but is buried in Philadelphia.) Once we were done perusing the grave sites, we continued our walk through the city, following the Freedom Trail back to Fanueil Hall and its ubiquitous street performers before returning to our hotel for some rest. Finally, our last hurrah of the trip was a Duck Boat Tour through the streets of Boston and down the Charles River. We ended up only being able to get tickets for an 8pm ride so the trip was quickly dubbed a "Sunset Cruise". By the time we got into the river, the nickname was apropos. Each of the kids had the opportunity to drive, what was now a boat, down the river. It was a perfect ending to what was a fun family trip to Beantown!

Fenway Park

We spent our Friday night in Boston at a 100-year-old institution - Fenway Park. There, we saw the Red Sox play the Toronto Blue Jays. Josh Beckett, one of the Red Sox's star pitchers, was the starter that night. The stadium is steeped in baseball history, but it is definitely lacking in modern-day conveniences that we had grown accustomed to at Turner Field. First, we had seats 1-5 in a row (here was our view) and were happy with the thought that we'd have an aisle seat with kids. Once we found our seats, though, we discovered just the opposite. We were all of the way inside the aisle, but the real kicker was that our row merged with another row after our seat #1 so it was a row of nearly 50 seats! Not an ideal seating arrangement when you have three young children. Also, in order to use the restroom, we had to walk to the level above the ground level where we were sitting. Because of its age, though, the stadium did have some old-fashioned aspects that were endearing, such as the manually-operated scoreboard and the Coca-Cola sign. Though the Red Sox ended up losing the game 5-1, the kids loved being at the ol' ballgame!

Boston - Day 2

Our plan for our second day in Boston was to walk the Freedom Trail through the North End of the city and then over across the river to Charlestown. Our first stop of the morning was Paul Revere's home. Eleanor appreciated this stop since she learned all about Paul Revere this year in school. Next, we walked a few blocks before we passed this statue of Paul Revere that led us to Old North Church. As you can see from this plaque outside the church, Paul Revere's two lanterns hung from the church's steeple in 1776 to warn the people in Charlestown that the British were coming by sea, not by land. It was a beautiful, historic church.
Just before meeting one of Thomas's Wake Forest friends for lunch on the waterfront, we backtracked to revisit the Old State House, the oldest and one of the most important buildings still standing from the original 13 colonies. Also, the Declaration of Independence was read from the building's second-story balcony to Bostonians for the first time on July 18, 1776. The location also served as the site of the Boston Massacre in 1770. Then, it was time for lunch on the waterfront and some baseball in Christopher Columbus Park.
After lunch, knowing we wanted to get across the river to Charlestown for the afternoon, we decided to try a water taxi as our mode of transportation. It was a super-quick trip - less than 15 minutes - but it was a beautiful day to take in the cityscape.
Charlestown is home of the USS Constitution, otherwise known as "Old Ironsides", the world's oldest naval commissioned vessel still afloat.
We got a great tour of the ship, led by an active duty Navy Sailor, and the kids learned what it was like to be a sailor aboard a vessel two hundred years ago. Finally, our last stop of the afternoon was the Bunker Hill Monument. This monument is on the site of the first major battle of the American Revolution fought on June 17, 1775. We all climbed the 294 steps to the top (there are no elevators) to get a view back across the river of Boston.By the time we climbed back down the 294 steps, our legs were burning and we were worn out! We persevered though and walked across the bridge back to Boston and our hotel, with a stop midway in the North End at Mike's Pastry for some famous cannolis. (I'm still thinking about my mint chocolate chip one!)

Boston - Day 1

With the passing of Baxter, we were grateful for a change of scenery. Later that week, we boarded a plane and flew up to Boston for a long weekend. Thomas had never been to Beantown before, and I had not been since a cold December while in junior high - the town was due a visit!

On our arrival in Boston, we hit the ground running. First, we ate lunch at Wagamama's in Faneuil Hall (one of my favorite places/trendiest places to eat when I lived in London summer of '95) and then began our adventure down the Freedom Trail. We passed by the site of the Boston Massacre at the Old State House (decided to revisit later in the weekend) and then ended up at the Old South Meeting House. Here, Bostonians held a meeting in 1773 to discuss what to do with a bunch of tea sitting on three ships in the harbor. This meeting led to the Boston Tea Party later that night.

We made a quick detour to see Dad's Boston offices before deciding to check out Boston's North End neighborhood for dinner. While walking along the wharf area towards the North End from our hotel, we passed through Christopher Columbus Park and could not get over the beauty of the waterfront. The North End neighborhood of Boston is distinctly Italian. It has small, tight streets, authentic Italian restaurants (20-30 seats) at every corner and lots of Italian spoken among the locals. We chose to succumb to the hype and wait in line on the sidewalk get into Giacomo's for dinner. The line begins to form around 4:30pm each afternoon for the restaurant's opening at 5:00. Then, you literally wait in line out on the sidewalk for a table to open up. After waiting for an hour, we finally made it in. We quickly realized just how small this place was - we counted 10 tables in all, most of them being two-tops. The food was amazing though (I got crab-stuffed ravioli topped with a creamy red sauce with lobster and asparagus - yum!) and the service was just as good.

Knowing we had a full day of touring ahead of us, after dinner we walked back along the harbor to our hotel to try to get the kids to bed.