Halloween in Boston

Wow is all I can say. I have never seen such elaborate decorations or so many people trick-or-treating together. I would estimate that we were trick-or-treating with about 1000-2000 other kids!!! It was an awesome experience!

We first took Marissa and Brynn trick-or-treating in an area of Boston called Beacon Hill. The whole area of Beacon Hill is blocked off by the police so that the kids can trick-or-treat without worrying about cars being in the road.


It was not dark yet when I took the first couple of pictures. All of the houses were decorated really nicely. Being in the area of Beacon Hill gives you that true New England feeling. The roads and sidewalks are cobblestone and all of the homes are original!


I had the girls stop and pose in front of this house. It was really amazing to see whole blocks decorated in this fashion!


This home is said to be the first original house on Beacon Hill - The decorations were unbelievable!


The weather was amazing. We didn't even have to wear coats the whole time we were out collecting candy. The weather was about 60 degrees. The residents sit on their porch and hand out candy. It is nice that you don't have to knock on doors. The houses are so close together the girls got an unbelievable amount of candy in a short amount of time.


I stood up on the porch to be able to get a good shot of the whole block and the amount of kids lining the streets!

After trick-or-treating on Beacon Hill we were able to go collect some more candy at the apartment complex where we live. We were able to sign up if we wanted trick-or-treaters to come and visit us and then they gave us a list of all of the people that signed up.

Halloween Roller Skating Party

We went to a homeschooling event tonight. They had a Halloween roller skating party. The kids all had a good time and we met a few more homeschooling families.

Ward Halloween Party

Tonight we were able to attend our ward's primary Halloween party. It was really fun both both the parents and kids! We were able to play games, frost cookies, make crafts and eat some great treats.



The girls each frosted and decorated cookies - the cookies did not make it home!!!


Marissa went as static cling!


Brynn won the "Most Original Costume" award. She went as a piece of bubble gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe!

We didn't bring any of our decorations or costumes with us here to Boston, so we had to be a little creative when at 1pm we decided to go to the ward party that started at 3pm. Fortunately, Target is only about 10 minutes away. David took the girls to get some sweats and I rounded up the other items from the house and then we had costumes!

Friday Playgroup at the Children's Museum

Each week quite a few mom's in the ward get together with their children for playgroup on Friday morning. This week we got together at the Children's Museum. We have been there before, but we went to parts of the museum that we had never been to before.


The girls each climbed to the top of this amazing structure and then yelled down to me to take their picture! If you look in the top right corner you can see Marissa and Brynn is in the top left corner.


There is an "Arthur" room where there is a green screen and kids can be "in the movies" with Arthur. If you look on the tv, you can see Marissa and Brynn running with Arthur.


Marissa was able to play some of the same types of instruments that the Blue Man Group plays.



There was a craft room where each of the girls were able to make a collage. They chose to make 3-D collages! It was interesting trying to take the subway home carrying them, but fortunately they all made it home in one piece!

A Field Trip to the Super Joann's Store

I have told a few of you how much I like having a Super Joann's near by (well, it is a 40 minute drive, but all freeway!) So, the girls and I headed out to go there today and pick up a few items we needed for some Christmas projects we are working on and I finally remembered to take my camera and get a couple of pics to show you just how big this store is. It is the size of a Walmart or Target, but all CRAFTS!!!

I had to back up all the way to the road to take this picture and I still couldn't get the whole store in the frame. The 2 little people are Marissa and Brynn!


Anyone who has been to the Joann's by my house knows how bad their paper selection is, so I had to take a picture of the huge wall of scrapbook paper! The whole wall all the way down to the end of the row is filled with awesome selections of paper - too bad I didn't bring any scrapbook stuff here with me!

Gas

When we got here 7 weeks ago, I was surprised at the difference in gas prices. We were paying about $4 a gallon in WA and $3.50 a gallon in MA. When I filled up today, gas was $2.59 a gallon. I never thought I would see it go below $3 a gallon again in my lifetime!

Girls Day Out

Marissa, Brynn and I had a girls day out with one of my new friends Audrey and her daughter Belén. We went out to lunch and then went to this cute little cupcake shop and then shopping at the mall. It was really fun! I hope we do it again soon, I love getting out of the house and chatting with adults! Thanks Audrey!!!

Brynn was carrying the cupcakes and our leftovers from lunch. We were so full from lunch, we had to take our cupcakes home to have after dinner.


Marissa and Brynn had fun pushing Belén in her stroller. These fountains are at the headquarters for the church of scientology, it's an interesting church, but they do have pretty areas to walk through.


Marissa and Brynn stopped to look at the Charles River.


Marissa posses with a couple of the cupcakes that we bought. Marissa picked a pumpkin cupcake, Brynn picked a Boston Cream Cupcake, I also got a Boston Cream Cupcake. I picked a Orange Cranberry Cupcake for David and then I got a Red Velvelt and a Sweet Treat cupcake for all of us to share.

Boston Pumpkin Festival

Boston held it's annual pumpkin festival at City Hall yesterday and we went to see all the pumpkins! Last year they had over 20,000 lit pumpkins and this year, they were hoping to have more than 30,000 to break a world record. I haven't heard the results yet.

The Head of the Charles Regatta Boat Race

It was a sunny and crisp feeling fall day yesterday. We headed into Cambridge near Harvard and headed down to the Charles River to watch a regatta race called - The Head of the Charles. It was really a neat experience to see something that I have only seen on tv. There were 2, 4 and 8 person teams. They would announce the teams as they came by us and it was really interesting to hear that a lot of them were former Olympians.

Marissa and Brynn found a great place to watch the races from.


We sat right near this bridge and it was amazing to see how many people could fit on the bridge to watch the race. There were as many people at the regatta as we have at the boat races!!!


David, Marisa and Brynn all went up on the bridge to watch the race from there.


When I went up on the bridge, I was amazed to see how many people were watching on the shores and on all of the bridges that cross the river!


Our favorite was the 8 person teams.

Visiting the New England Aquarium

Marissa, Brynn and I all went to the New England Aquarium yesterday. It was really a blast! It was really cool to see the huge fish and sharks, but the best part was where we all got to touch star fish, see anemones, hermit crabs and sand crabs! We are going again on the 21st of October and I got another set of tickets for November!

Yeah, I Finished My Quilt - Well Almost...

Yesterday, I found out that the baby that I am making this quilt for was born on Friday! So, I quickly finished the top for the quilt yesterday and I am shipping it to my mom today. She is going to machine quilt it on her long arm sewing machine and then do a new binding technique she learned on it and ship it back to me - hopefully really quickly!

I really love how the quilt turned out! It was a quilt kit that had been marked down because it was open, then I discovered that the directions and pattern for the quilt were not in it, so I asked them if they would give me an extra discount on it and they did! So I brought the kit home, created my own pattern and made the quilt! I can't wait to see what it will look like when the whole thing is finished.

The Changing of the Leaves

Since this is a holiday weekend, we decided to spend the whole weekend exploring the area. We decided to head out this morning at about 10:00am and go for a drive so that we could see all of the leaves that are changing colors right now. On the tv, they kept saying that these next 2 weeks will give you the optimum chance to see the most colors! We didn't get back home until 9:30pm.

This is the path we took - We went from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, then through a small section of Vermont and back to Massachusetts.


While we drove, we ran across some festivals that we stopped and walked around at. At the first festival, the girls were able to pick apples from an orchard. All the trees were labeled, so we could walk around and pick what kind of apples we wanted.




Here are some pictures that show the colors of the leaves. I have never seen colors like this before - it was truly awe inspiring!!!

The Circus Came to Town...

Wow, we had quite a busy Saturday. But the weather was wonderful and we were in the mood to wander. We knew the circus was going to be in town. We had actually planned to attend on Thursday before the boys left, but they had a meeting come up, so we told them we would go another time with them.

We walked past the Garden (pronounced Gaahden in Boston - it is where the Celtics play) and we decided to go in and see how much the tickets would be. We found out that there was a 3PM show and a gentleman in line gave us a discount coupon, so we were able to get tickets for $15 each and sit in an awesome area.

The girls loved the circus!