Summer 2011

Most of these pictures were taken with my phone camera so the quality is very poor. We had a fun summer and I am very sad that it is over.

Kris was attending a conference in Boston in June so the kids and I joined him for the last few days. He flew there, we drove. It was a long drive. What was supposed to be a 5 hour drive turned into 7.5 because of all the weekend traffic. But it was worth it, we had a great time seeing the city. I have always wanted to go to Boston. We have lived on the East Coast for 10 years and this was our first visit.

This is our car ride home--that is a lot of kids in one car!


While Kris attended conference all day the kids and I had to entertain ourselves. We spent most the day in the Public Garden and Boston Commons. It was a little drizzly, but the kids were in a great mood and we had so much fun exploring everything.


This is the carousel in Boston Commons
We didn't know where we were going and just kept walking and discovered this great shopping area. I know it probably has an official name, but I don't know what it is. The whole city of Boston reminded me of a small scale Washington, DC and an itty bitty New York City mixed together.



A friend of ours told us about the ducks statues in the Public garden. She even loaned us her copy of "Make Way for Duckings". If you are as uneducated as I am then you should know it is a cute children's book that shows a family of ducks finding their way around Boston. Very cute book, and fun duck statues for the kids to play on. We spent way to much time climbing on ducks!
Joshua really tried hard to imitate all the different ducks.

All of my ducklings lined up in a row. I was such a proud mommy!
Across the street from the Public garden was Boston Commons. They had a bunch of frog statues. The kids loved them too, but not as much as the ducks. There was a great playground there, but a bit to wet to enjoy it much.
We loved all the ducks in the duck pond. We rode the swan boats around the tiny lake. We all loved it except Gabriella, she wanted to drive the boat.
Don't these purple flowers look like they belong in a Dr. Seuss book? We loved them!

Since we didn't want to make the kids walk all over the entire city we decided to buy tickets on the Duck Tour. Those are the obnoxious tour buses that go in the water also. It was a fun way to see the entire city, but not quite as educational as you might think. Our guide mostly pointed out all the Dunkin' Donut locations for us--there were a lot of those!
Switching gears now....

We love to go to the drive-in movies! There is a great place near our house that we try to hit a couple of times a summer. We usually make it for 2 movies--it makes for a late night.


We went with some families in our ward camping to a place called Highland Forest. We had so much fun visiting with them and watching the kids play. We even hid peanuts for the kids, a favorite game my Grandma Palmer used to play with us when we went camping with her.


We put this shirt on Olivia and had her walk into the living room where all the kids were sitting. I asked them if they liked Olivia's new shirt. It took them all a little while to catch on, but it was fun to watch their expressions as they figured it out. They were all screaming and jumping up and down. It was very sweet to see how happy they were. And, we have since found out it will be a boy! That announcement was also followed by screaming and jumping up and down. However, instead of being in our living room we were in the parking lot of the grocery store. It was a little embarrassing:)
We love you summertime! We hate that you come and go so fast--it is just not fair!