This Morning In Boston

 

Nothing like a visit to the Public Garden on a beautiful Monday morning to kick off the final week of August! xo 

Today In Boston

 On the eve before the girls come home from Pilgrim Lodge, Dave and I spent the day in Boston. We journied in after breakfast and were treated to this lovely sight as we walked through the Public Garden. 

 We had a few placed we wanted to stop but mostly just decided to see where the day took us. We wanedered through the gorgeous Boston Public Library. It's what a library should be! 

 Then we got to this section of the library. It felt far more like a church than a library! I'm not sure why they had such elaborate reglious murals in certain rooms. Gorgeous but confusing at the same time.

I will forever wish that I had taken more pictures of the Boston Public Lirbary. We ended up in their "new" wing before we finished exploring and I cannot even tell you how truly gorgeous (and huge!) it was! While we were there WGBH (Boston's PBS station) was broadcasting from there. They were talking with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh about the current search for a new superintendent for Boston Public Schools. Doesn't sound like one will be in place before the start of the school year but he did say that they were going to be very selective about who they chose.

After our time at BPL we walked over to Copley and the Pru and stopped into my favorite shoe store. Due to the large amount of weight that I have lost all of my fanciest shoes are now too big, so I wanted to see what size I would need now. Turns out I do indeed need a smaller size! 

 These beauties caught my eye the moment I walked in and I just had to try them on! 

 They were even more gorgeous on! I was sad to leave them there but unfortunately they were not in today's budget. I did come home with a gorgeous pair of raspberry ballet flats that were 60% off though! And I am determined that one day these gorgeous sparkly shoes will be mine! There are, after all, so very many things I could wear them with.....

After our fun at L.K. Bennett we went and grabbed a bite to eat at Eataly (and, once again, I dropped the ball and took no pictures) followed  by dessert at Nespresso (and took no pictures there either). The Boston Cream Cake was beyond delicious! 

After all our exploring and shopping and eating and walking we decided to head home. So, back through the Public Garden we go, and once again we pass by the lovely swans at the Swan Pond. A perfect ending to a truly perfect day! David and I are so excited for the girls to return home tomorrow, but we have to admit that it has been lovely to spend so much time together just the two of us this week, too! It's been twelve years since it was last just the two of us and it was nice to have the time to reconnect and just be. We're looking forward to next year's "just us" week already! xo 

{These Moments} On Memorial Day

{This Moment} - A Soule Mama Friday ritual. A single  photo Two photos - no words- capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you are inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments section for all to find and see. We wish you a beautiful weekend! xo

Boston On Memorial Day

Boston on Memorial Day. The field of flags. Time spent with some of our dearest friends. Bubbles. Swans. Watching as our girls and Erin's boys were captivated by the living statues. It was the perfect ending to the long holiday weekend. xo

On Mother's Day

Dave totally knocked it out of the park with this card! 

It may be my most favorite Mother's Day card from him yet!

Cards from my sweet girls. 

I was so excited about this book! These three know me so well!

After church we spent the day in Boston. First up, a ride on the Swan Boats!

While we waited our turn we were captivated by these sweet duckling. 

One of the many swan boats. 

 A swan boat selfie with the sweet girl that made it possible for me to be celebrating Mother's Day!

 Originally, we had planned to head Lilac Sunday. We changed our minds mid-trip and instead spent the day at the Common, the Public Garden and Newbury Street. When we came upon this Lilac while strolling down Newbury Street we couldn't help feel that we had gotten to do what we originally planned to do even if we didn't make it to the festival!

Getting to spend the day in my favorite city with my three favorite people made for a truly fabulous Mother's Day! Thank you David, Grace and Emma for making me feel like the luckiest woman on Earth yesterday (and every day)! I am truly blessed and eternally grateful to have the honor of being the mama of two such sweet souls. They (and their papa) make each day extraordinary! I love you all to the moon and stars and back! xo

Happy Mother's Day!

It's been the most glorious Mother's Day! I'll be back tomorrow with more pictures and stories from our day for we're still celebrating as I type this. I hope that each of you had a love filled, joy filled Mother's Day too! xoxo

Take Me Out To The Ball Game!

Last week, as you may remember, we were dealing with a broken dryer. Dave discovered that he could easily repair it and put a call into our favorite, local appliance store. Hudson Appliance ordered the part for us, and the girls and I picked it up after Emma's dance class last week. While we were there they also gave us two word searches for the girls to complete for a contest they were running. The chosen word search child would receive four tickets to Sunday's Red Sox game. The girls completed the word searches (and it was no easy task as that was one of the hardest word searches I've ever seen) and as luck would have it Grace's word search was chosen! We were over the moon (and still are)! Dave and I bought the girls their first Red Sox hats in honor of this very special occasion!

Yesterday started out grey and cloudy with rain predicted for the afternoon. We dressed accordingly, packed our rain gear and headed off to church. The girls first week of cherub choir was yesterday and we knew that they didn't want to miss it. On our way to church Emma was singing a song to the clouds "please clouds move away we want to see the Red Sox.....". Evidently her song worked as the sky cleared while we were in church and became more and more gorgeous as the day went on (as you can see from the picture above)!

No trip to Fenway is complete without a Fenway Frank. Even I, who am not a big fan of hot dogs, always has one when we are there. Later on we also made sure that we each had ice cream in a little Red Sox hat, too. There's just something about eating ice cream out of those little baseball helmets that's just so fun!

Retired numbers. 

Watching the game. 

I was on the lookout for my friend Averil while we were there. She volunteers with the Red Sox Foundation and had shared on Facebook that she'd be there that day so I knew we had to find her before we left. I was thrilled to see her in our section and even more thrilled that she took a couple of family pictures for us! This one is a wee bit sunny but I just love it (Plus, I'm saving the better one to share on Friday)! Thanks Averil for taking some pictures for us! I'm so glad we got to visit for a bit too! It made an already very special day that much more amazing!

Once we'd had our fill of hot dogs, ice cream in little hats, and had sung "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and "Sweet Caroline" we figured we should get going. The Red Sox were winning (with ease) and we wanted to beat the crowds. We stopped to take a few more pictures. It was then that a sweet woman offered take one of all four of us (thus making it three family pictures in one day)! After all they don't call it "Friendly Fenway" for nothing! 

It was in that amount of time that the game ended and we found ourselves dealing with the massive crowd we were trying to avoid. We decided not to rush and instead took our time leaving Fenway. 

Once we had left the park we headed toward the T. With the crowds still massive and how gorgeous the day was we decided to keep walking. It was lovely to be in the city. I always find myself wishing that David and I had lived in Boston as newlyweds. It's such an amazing city and one of the few that I feel comfortable in. I actually think that I could have even been OK with living in Boston as a mama. I'm not a big city girl but for some reason Boston has never felt like the big city to me (now, New York on the other hand is a totally different story. That is indeed the big city and whenever I've been there I always feel like a fish out of water). We walked much longer and much farther than we had planned and before we knew it we found ourselves passing by the scene of the bombings. It was very surreal. We walked farther on and ended up coming upon this wall of peace flags. It was extremely moving and had me very choked up. 

We wandered through the Public Garden and Boston Common and finally made it to a T stop that wasn't crowded. It was a glorious day full of wonderful memories and was all thanks to our dryer breaking. Thanks Hudson Appliance for choosing Grace's word search! We had a truly fabulous time at the game and it was a day that we will never forget!