BOSTON!

We just returned from our quick trip to Boston where Will saw about 19 doctors at Children's Hospital Boston. More on medical stuff later- here's pictures from our fun day! He had appointments all day on Friday but on Saturday, we had FUN!

Saturday afternoon, we visited the Old North Church where Paul Revere hung the lanterns to warn the Revolutionaries about the British strategy ("One if by sea, two if by land.") Each pew was divided into a box with a family's name listed as to who sat where. It was very interesting!

Reagan & Will posing in Paul Revere Square- the church behind them is where Jackie O was baptized

Will & I posing in front of the Old North Church

Will rode his first subway on Saturday morning. We actually were able to ride for free somehow! Yea! It was lots of fun although our first ride was a bit stressful as we were navigating with a stroller & a one year old & it was very crowded. No pictures from that ride. The subway system in Boston is the oldest in the country & especially cool since some of the trains are above ground for a little ways. Will was very happy as there were plenty of new people for him to talk to & show off his various tricks. (He has a little series of tricks he likes to do for new people when he is happy- clapping, rolling, waving, etc.)

We are training for the White Rock half marathon so we took a long run on Saturday morning. We ran through Boston University (pictured above), MIT, Emmanuel College, & down the Charles River. The trees were beautiful! The ducks & geese were neat. There were sailboats & rowing teams on the river. We crossed two old bridges. It was a great run! (Fortunately, Will took his morning nap in the stroller.)

Daddy & Will pausing on our run down the Charles River. Isn't that tree gorgeous?!?!

In the North End - We spent Saturday afternoon walking around the North End district- near the wharf. Will took his afternoon nap in his stroller (see above - that's an actual street by the way!!!) We also went to the aquarium while there, ate at Legal Seafood for lunch, picked up some fun souveniers (a Harvard onesie for Will) & picked up yummy Italian food from the Italian neighborhood. I stood in line for a long time at the infamous Mike's Pastry for some yummy cannolis & brownies. (They made JFK's wedding cake.)

On our first night, after walking to a restaurant near our hotel for dinner, we went to see a friend of ours from college, Mike Green, who is now a pediatrician. He is doing a fellowship at Children's Hospital Boston in ICU care. He lives in this super neat old house from the 1800s. They had a scarecrow & Will LOVED wearing the straw hat & crawling all over the house. He especially liked to cover his eyes with the hat, put his head down, & crawl fast into things/people. (Sound familiar, Hudson?) Of course, he did have lots of energy to burn considering he had flown for almost an entire day, sat in a stroller while we walked all over Boston that evening, & sat through a dinner at a restaurant. It was great fun to see Mike!

Boston was gorgeous! The trees were the most brillant shades of gold, red, orange, & purple. It was nice & cold like Fall should be! There were Canadian geese throughout our neighboorhood- Will loved calling out, "duckie," to them as we strolled by.

Heading to our hotel via taxi. Will LOVED riding in the taxi- possibly because he didn't have to be in a car seat. (By law, you don't have to use carseats in taxis or subways in NYC or Boston, fyi.) He got really excited when we took the tunnel under the ocean. Mostly, he loved leaning through the opening in the seat to talk to the driver ... you know Will - never met a stranger!

In fact, as we walked through the hospital & through Boston, he was constantly yelling "hi" & waving at everyone - especially children. If they didn't respond, he would get agitated & push out of his seat to yell louder & try to get their attention. Mr. Social! :)

We definitely had some adventures flying on this trip! Leaving Midland on Thursday morning, we sat on the runway for 1.5 hours while waiting for deicing stuff for the wings of the plane. Apparently the airline wasn't expecting ice in October. Not fun to be stuck at 7am on a plane with a one year old in your lap when you still have a full day of flying ahead of you! Fortunately, he did super on the long flight to Boston.

On the way home yesterday, once again we were delayed after we had already boarded. It was our turn to take off & Will had already fallen asleep in my arms for his afternoon nap. Suddenly, the captain stops the flight & announces that we can't take off due to a dog being on the runway. We looked out my window & there was most definitely a little white dog who had perhaps escaped his kennel. It was hilarious as 3 trucks were attempting to catch the dog with nets- who outsmarted them for 45 minutes. Finally, the dog ran far enough off of the runway for us to take off- I don't know if they ever caught him. I counted 8 jets behind us also waiting on the stupid dog. While it was funny, I knew we had a 4 hour flight ahead of us plus another hour flight home after that & I really hated to waste precious nap time while still on the ground! Will did pretty good however.

More to come on how the appointments all went.