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| Boston, MA |
This is part one of the super fabulous spring break trip that the kids and I took to Boston, MA; Jackson, NH and New York, NY over spring break. Back in December I decided that although my finances were tight, I wanted to take a great vacation with my kids one last time before my son goes off to college in the fall. I had a lump sum of money from my divorce that will be gone quickly but decided this time spent with my kids was worth more to me than having money in savings. So, since my son was the one who would be leaving the nest soon, I let him decide what kind of vacation he wanted...snow or sun. He decided he wanted snow...skiing. We had never taken a snow vacation before and none of us had ever skied a single time. So this was going to be an adventure for us all
I chose the exact location of this ski vacation and there were several things that went into my decision. I chose NH because I had just gone there in October and loved it and knew my way around there a bit. I knew it would be a safe place to go for a single mom and her kids and it was a bit cheaper than most of the other popular ski destinations. I also chose it because I have friends and relatives in that area and if time allowed, it would be nice to see them. And the final reason I chose it was because of the proximity of the city. I figured if we totally hated skiing or just got tired of it, we would still have plenty of entertainment in the city. Originally it was only going to be Boston and New Hampshire but a week before the trip, we decided we would try to squeeze in NYC too.
So on Saturday, March 8th, we began our trip by waking up at 4am to catch a 6:40am flight. Austin got us fully awake by blasting the "chicken yodeling" song through the house around 4:30am. If that doesn't wake you up, nothing will. Here's a link to it in case you haven't yet been exposed to it's greatness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO7MWuJ7zLA
We arrived at Boston Logan Airport at 11:00am and proceeded to the rental car area to pick up our super hot sports car rental. What? You don't think minivans are sporty or hot? Psh...what do you know. Space and lots of cupholders are super hot in my book.
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| Our totally hip rental car for the week. You know you're jealous. |
After getting our car, we parked on the north side of Boston and then started exploring the city. We were pretty hungry upon arrival so we started off with lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. After a yummy lunch there, we walked around the Feneuil Hall area, browsing the shops and just looking around. We walked over to the harbor and enjoyed the view there for a bit. A line of sailboats went by all at once so I guess there must've been some event going on for them but I don't know what it was. As we walked back to the market area, we noticed a sign for the Body Worlds exhibit. Lexi was interested in seeing that and Austin had never seen it before either so we decided to view that. So in case you are not familiar, that is the exhibit where they have real deceased people on display with their skin removed so you can see all their muscles and things and get a better understanding of how the body is designed. It is done in a tasteful, artistic way but it is still disturbing to see for some people. I had already seen it in Dallas before so I knew what to expect. The kids were neither grossed out nor enthralled with it but the curiosity was satisfied.
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| Boston Harbor |
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| Feneuil Hall |
The highlight for me on this first day of our vacation was the concert we went to that night at TD Garden. It was an Avett Brothers concert and it was so much fun. I was smiling the whole time. The opening band was very good too. It was a band called Old Crow Medicine Show. They are a bluegrass music band. They were very entertaining with their banjos and fiddles. The kids even got a kick out of listening to them. My favorite song by the Avett Brothers is Live and Die. That song holds special meaning to me so when I heard it played at the end during the encore, it was beyond awesome. It's a song that had once brought me great joy but recently it had brought me some sadness due to a disconnect with the dear friend who had introduced me to the song. I learned once that in order to move past painful memories, you have to create new memories to replace the old. That is exactly what I did by attending this concert. Now when I hear that song, I have an entirely new memory to associate with it.....the memory of the concert and seeing it performed live and being there with my children and the smile that was plastered on my face. The old memory is still there. It's not gone forever and I smile at the old memory too, for that memory was from a time when I was happier than I've ever been in my life. It was very special for me to see and hear that song in concert. Wonderful, wonderful memories both old and new. Here is a link to a video of the very performance that I saw of this song. Not the best sound quality but captures the memory of the concert well. This is not my own recording.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyKoQQJJspQ
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| The Avett Brothers Concert @ TD Garden, Boston, MA |
Prior to the concert, we met up with my friend, Rick very briefly. He came to our hotel and brought us some Regina's pizza to share. Alexia didn't join us for this as she was too tired and was napping. We just visited in the lobby and made plans to visit more the next day. I had not seen Rick in about 12-13 years. Austin only vaguely remembered meeting him before since he was just 5 years old or so. Rick was my dad's best friend when I was very young and when he and his wife got divorced, he came to Indiana and lived with us for about a year. He became like a second dad to me during that time and we have always been very close.
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| Alexia at Fish Pier, Boston, MA (freezing cold wind that day) |
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| Rick and I at Fish Pier, Boston, MA |
So the next day, we met up with Rick again and had lunch at the No Name seafood restaurant on Fish Pier. Loved the restaurant and it was so great to spend some more time with Rick. After eating, we went on a little nostalgia tour to my grandmother's old house and to the marina that my grandfather used to like to go to and where I remember going every time we visited my grandparents.
The old house was pretty run down...sad to see since it had always been kept so nice when they lived there. Still neat to see it and relive the memories in my mind of being there as a kid.
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| My Grandparent's old house in Quincy, MA. |
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| Side view of Grandma's house. |
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| Backyard of Grandma's house. |
The marina has changed a lot. So many new buildings all built around the place....much fancier than it used to be but the little boardwalk area looked pretty much the same as I remembered it. Funny thing was, there was a parking spot with my name on it. I guess they were expecting me. Ha.
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| Marian Bay clock tower - Austin and Alexia |
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| Marina Bay |
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| My very own parking spot at Marina Bay. Haha. |
And the last thing we did in Boston before moving on to the next leg of our trip (New Hampshire) was drive around Harvard to check out the campus. Austin wanted to see it since it was nearby and we were going to walk around there but it was very cold that day and we had already done a lot of walking the day before so everyone decided driving through was good enough. But....Austin livened things up a bit by rolling down the windows and playing the chicken yodeling song a little bit loudly so a little bit of redneck influence could enter the prestigious grounds of Harvard. We had a great time laughing about it and laughing at Austin...who would turn it down and roll the windows up every time we came to a stop because he wasn't quite bold enough to continue when we were stopped. Fun times!
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| One of the buildings at Harvard University. |
We would be back to Boston at the end of our week to catch our flight again but for now, our stay in Boston was over and we headed to New Hampshire for the next few days. That story will be covered in the next blog post, hopefully soon.
