20170804 - River cruise

20170804 - Up in the am and we headed out of the big city for a day closer to nature. We headed to Concord to meet up with Bruce and Ellen kohler, our cousins. We made our way to their place and took a tour of their house and grounds. We then headed to the grocery to get some supplies for a picnic and on through the beautiful town of old houses to the river. We got our canoes and kayaks and headed down river to the Minuteman National Park. We made our way on shore and had a nice picnic in the orchard of The Old Manse. The history lesson was especially interesting with all the family history Ellen added. Quite amazing the connection she has there.

After we ate we headed into the park for a walk through the start of our Country.  Amazing the think that there, on that spot, the world changed. We took our time, Ellen recited the rest of the poem that is not on the monument from memory. When our photo was taken a rather loud woman asked if we could move so she could get a picture of the monument with no one in it. If she only knew who she asked to move and the information she could have learned if she would have been polite...

Back into our vessels and headed up stream this time. There was a gentle current, and the boys had a good time hunting for turtles and exploring the banks. After our excursion we stopped for some ice cream before heading back to the house where Bruce Grant and I split off to get ingredients for dinner at the store. Back to the house and we all relaxed for a bit. The boys playing in the woods and eventually found some old tennis rackets while exploring the house and took them to the front yard where they used a wheelbarrow as a net for some sort of game.

L and Bruce started preparing the meal, and G came to assist with the lobster part and it turned into a bit of fun when the snapping and pinching going on. Everything cooked up and ready and we had a feast of lobster, swordfish, steak, fresh salad and corn on the cob from the local farm. What a superb relaxing meal. We finished up and helped clean things up before saying goodbye and heading back to the hotel.  A more relaxing day the previous few.

20170803 - UPGRADE!

20170803 - Up in the am and we jumped on the bus to get downtown. We started walking and D realized he lost his wallet so e ran back to the bus that hadn't left yet and found his wallet, lucky boy... we walked to the location of the boston Tea Party and saw the replica ship. We then headed downtown to walk on the freedom trail.

I spent a bunch of time on the phone trying to get baseball tickets for tonight's game, however we have been issued tickets for the 8/14 game. One slight problem, we won't be in Boston then... So I followed the fam as they headed down the freedom trail on the phone selling the tickets for the 8/14. I got those listed on StubHub and then headed a couple of blocks the opposite direction of the freedom trail to get hop on hop off bus tickets. I met up with D who waited back for me and we hiked halfway across Boston to meet up with LJ&G we found in a cemetery listening to stories of Paul Revere, John Hancock and my favorite Samuel Adams.

G was busy correcting the tour guide as we made our way to the Boston Commons and our tour concluded. We walked around the park and ended up a having a meal around the square that we topped off with fried Oreos. We jumped on the bus and headed to Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church. After that we met up with my buddy Paul and we walked to the USS Constitution and some ice cream.

Feeling guilty about being in Boston and not getting D&G to a Red Sox game, so I snagged some tickets at 5:30 for the 7:10 game :-o My buddy Paul put us on the right train and DG&I headed to the Green Monster while he took L&J to the finish line of the Boston Marathon and to the top of the Prudential building where they had a great view of the city and he taught J how to eat oysters. Paul also took L&J to the bar in the Green Monster to see the field and then got them on a bus back to the hotel. DG&I made it to the game as it started and we had pretty good seats. We had hot dogs and a couple of drinks and were enjoying the crowd, it was electric!

Then something amazing happened. A guy walked up to D&G and asked them if they were together; they looked at me like 'should we answer this guy?'. I leaned over and said 'yes'. He said 'so all 3 of you are together?' 'Yes' again, he said 'come with me'. I rushed the boys out of there seats and we followed the man down the steps and he pointed and said 'go wait for me down there'. Well 'down there' was the baseball field. I mean THE BASEBALL FIELD. The man caught up with us and took up to some seats right up against the wall behind 1st base. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! The most AMAZING seats I have ever seen!

We sat ringside for the remainder of the through 'Sweet Caroline' and 'Take me out the Ballgame'. What are the odds of everything falling into place for this to happen? Needless to say D&G were in heaven and got some of the dirt from the field after the Red Sox victory over the White Sox.  We headed to the bus stop, waited forever, but got on a bus and headed back to the hotel. We met up with L&J and everyone told of their awesome experiences of the night. What a great day!

20170802 - Dancing Milk & Rained Out

20170802 - Up in the am and we loaded the car and headed North up across the George Washington Bridge and into Connecticut. We made a stop at the World's Largest Dairy, Stew Leonard's in Norwalk CT, where saw the animatronic displays all over the store. All this food made us feel starving so we headed out so G could see the Goats before we found a local diner to get a huge meal. We were the youngest patrons by about 3 decades, but it was good! 

Back on the road and into Massachusetts, L mostly missed the sign, and we drove for what felt like days before arriving at a military museum that was closed... On to the hotel where we got checked in and then across the road to catch a bus to go Fenway for an Indians @ Red Sox game. The stadium was awesome and we got to our seat, that were luckily under cover as it was raining, and then had a nice Fenway dinner of dogs and soda. DG&I headed out looking for very specific hats and found the across the road in the team store. We got back to our seats just in tie for them to cancel the game :-( So a little wet we headed out to the bus stop, not raining now, to catch our ride back to the hotel. We made it back in one piece and settled in for the night, a bit disappointed our evening entertainment was cancelled.

20170801 - No Kong, Shop, Park, Stomp

20170801 - Up in the am and all on the subway to seach for King Kong. We took the elevator WAY UP to the top of the Empire State Building and the view was amazing! L was a bit weak in the knees especially when we put our phones out through the cage to take great pictures, and she wouldn't get close to the edge. We enjoyed the sights for a bit and then headed down to stroll up 5th Avenue and check out the stores.

We stopped at the 3 level Adidas store where J was in heaven and got a cool hat. The NBA store had some supper cool memorabilia. The 3rd floor of the Microsoft store gave J a chance to strap on a VR headset and blow some stuff up and D got to do a 3 screen driving game on a supercomputer, G was too young :-( A bit further uptown on 5th and we strolled into the Trump tower that had a 5 story Nike store in it.  The boys loved that and we spent a ton of time in there. We tried to get some Trump ice cream but there was only 1 super slow dude working there so we bailed and found a street vendor for a cool treat. We came to Tiffany's and went in to the amazing diamond sparkling show room to look around. We saw the 128 carat Tiffany Diamond and I looked for something less expensive to get for L and a dainty little silver and diamond bracelet. We got a hold of a salesperson and the $2000 bracelet got to stay in its nice case. No little blue box for L :-( however JG&I did get to use the drinking fountain that had a person stationed there to operate it for you. There were 2 other floors to Tiffany's but we weren't invited to visit those. On to the Apple store, which was huge, but not much neater than the one at Easton.

We crossed the street into Central Park for some hiking, climbing and sight seeing. We saw many of the movie sights and cool things, along with some performers by the pond. 

We caught the train and headed back downtown to the Broadway district where we got some pizza in a corner cafe before heading to Stomp. The sow was really loud but the boys really enjoyed the show. Another day done in the big city and we headed below to catch our ride back to NJ for the night. G got his special reserved seat :-)