Boston

Last Friday, Dane gave me a call at about 10:30 a.m. from his training and told me that he had finished way early and was on his way home. Then he asked if I wanted to go to Boston. "What? Of course I want to." I replied. "When?"
"Right now. We can make it on a flight at one o'clock today."
Quickly, I was doing the math in my head....leave at one, be at the airport by noon, leave home no later than 11:30. That's in an hour.
"Sounds great!" I gave him my sister-in-law, Aubrey's phone number so that he could make sure it was ok with them for us to come crash their weekend, and jumped in the shower. I had an hour to shower, clean and pack.

My brother, Stuart, and his wife live outside Boston in Cambridge. It is a beautiful city, rich with history, culture, and architecture. It was the first time for both Dane and I to this town, and we know it will definitely not be our last.



So, here are all the pictures:
This is Dane and I in front of Fenual hall
This is the old state house. This is where the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time to the people in Boston from that little beige balcony. So cool. And, I may be mixing this up, but the Boston Masacre happened right on that little spot in front of the building. (This used to be one of the biggest buildings in the city. Now look how small it is!)


This is a small view of Boston Commons (kind of like the Central Park of Boston). This place is old--it's where the Red Coats camped out during the Revolution when they were taking siege of the city. Through the trees you can barely see a building with a gold dome. This is the State House.


I can't remember what this is. Sorry. Aubrey can you help us out? I think it is a church.


We also visited a grave yard downtown as saw some pretty famous headstones. This is the grave of Paul Revere. I did a report on him in 7th grade. So, I feel a connection to him and his night ride.


This is a monument built over the grave of John Hancock. I think it is a little comical how well known this guy is for nothing other than his signature. I am sure he did some other cool stuff because you would have to to be one of the ones who got to sign the Declaration of Independence, but who knows what else he did. I wonder if he had any idea how his name would go down in history...


This is the graveyard. That big monument on the right says "Franklin" on it. This is where Benjamin Franklin's parents are buried.


It doesn't really look it, but it was COLD! The wind was blowing and it was very overcast. This is how Stuart and Charlotte kept warm.


Ok, so now for the food. It was way good. For lunch we had Japanese/Tai. Below are the gyoza that we devoured before I enjoyed my sushi.

And this is Small Plates. Honestly the-best-food-I-think-that-I-have-ever-eaten. It is a Spanish style restaurant where you order tapas instead of entrees. (See the attached wiki article for an explanation.) We ordered a number of exquisite dishes and shared them around the table. We had eaten over half before we remembered to take pictures. AND these pictures do not give the food justice. Honestly, I would go back to Cambridge just for this place. Lovely food. Lovely environment. Lovely company.

This is a squash linguine veggi dish.

Gnocchi. (potato pasta)

Cowboy steak. Sirloin cubes in an amazing Tabasco flavored sauce with blu cheese on top of polenta. This one was soooooooo good.

After, we went to a chocolate shop to indulge in the most rich and splendid hot chocolate of my life. This little thing was 2 bucks! The price made us skepticle, but it was very good.


We got lucky on Sunday with our flight. There was enough room on the later one and so we had time to go to church with the Laytons. They met in a charming old factory that is being rented out by the church until their stake center is done being built. As we rushed into Sacrament Meeting, low and behold who ran up to say hi? Brittany and Wyatt! What a small world. Wyatt had an interview for dental school at Tufts University so they deiced to make a weekend out of it. It was really great to be able to catch up with them.


Bye Bye Boston! We will miss you, but we will be back! (Waving goodbye on the jetway with Louis II, our newest finger puppet. If you want to know who Louis I was, ask Leslie Ann.)