Day 2 - Boston!

We spent the morning driving around looking at the various places where Darrin grew up. Here is the house he grew up in from first grade until he went on his mission.

Are you sensing a theme?

Ate a picnic lunch, then hopped on the T (subway) to go downtown to the Aquarium. We walked through Quincy Market on the way there, and Brynn just HAD to pat each and every fire hydrant we saw (and there were a lot!)

Like most big cities, Boston has a lot of fire hydrants downtown.


Brynn was in heaven.

When we finally dragged her away from the fire hydrants and over to the aquarium, she fell in love with the harbor seals that were swimming in a large tank outside the aquarium. It kept all three girls occupied while Darrin waited in line for tickets. They loved seeing how they swam upside down and you could see their "be-bo" - Brynn's word for belly button. Brynn would laugh whenever they popped their heads above water.

After we went inside, we went first to see the vet's office. Callie had learned from the aquarium's web site that the vet's office had glass walls so that visitors could watch the vets treating animals. Sure enough, we saw a fish being treated. ONe woman was using a giant syringe to inject water through the fish's gills while I lay on a table, while another vet was injecting some kind of medicine into the fish's tail. Callie was fascinated by the equipment, hospital tanks, etc.

We wandered around for a couple hours, looking at all the exhibits. They had an area where kids could hold & touch sea stars and hermit crabs. The kids enjoyed that, but it was crowded and kids were jostling everyone to try & get it, so not so much fun for the adults who were trying to keep kids from being pushed off the step stools!

Kyra liked the voltmeter above the electric eel's tank, and Brynn loved the wave tank full of large green anemones (and hearing Brynn trying to figure out how to say "anemone" was great fun for me. She can do it now!)

We went to the top of the big tank where the divers were just going in. Brynn was really feeling yucky, so I found a quiet corner & sat with her on my lap for a half hour. Darrin went & got her a cold drink of water and I fed her a snack. It helped a ton and soon she was raring to go look at more!



They had a nice exhibit of Jellies, but nowhere near as good as the exhibit we saw in Monterey two years ago.

When we were done with the aquarium, we walked back through Quincy Market in the rain to go to a restaurant called Durgin Park for dinner. Quincy Market was deserted, an amazing thing in the summer! The restaurant was good, we ate yummy food and watched the rain fall outside the open window near our table. Brynn & Callie ddin't eat much, we ended up taking their food home and they ate it later in the hotel.

Leaving the restaurant, the rain had only gotten worse. It was coming straight down, no wind, just pouring down as though you were in the shower! (It was even warm) We had a walk of about 2 blocks to get tot he subway station, but fortunately, mom had plastic ponchos in her "super purse" and we put them on and head off into the rain. Brynn was stomping puddles all the way, we didn't care, because we truly could not have been any wetter. It was kind of fun to see the water running in rivers everywhere. Later in this blog there is a picture of Brynn jumping down some stairs - they were a waterfall this day, and we went around.

Finally made it to the T station and waited with all the other soaked Bostonians for our train, rode out to where we'd left the car, and drove back to the hotel, stopping only to buy a car seat for Brynn when we FINALLY saw a place that would have them. There are not too many places like Wal-Mart, Target or K-Mart in Massachusetts.

Back to the hotel, where Brynn & Callie took a bath with the new bath toys Brynn got at the aquarium. Then we collapsed into bed and fell unconscious.