I left first, on June 25th, and flew to Connecticut. I went a week ahead of everyone else so I could get to the grandkids first. On Saturday, Danny, Jamie, the kids, and I drove up to Vermont to see the Joseph Smith Birthplace Monument (see my blog below for more details), arriving back in Glastonbury in time to pick up a couple of friends and head over to an open house for Bishop Madson and his family -- the ward members had just found out on Friday that the Madson's were moving on Sunday after church. Amazingly enough, they moved to Alpine, UT!
It was fun to visit with all these people that Danny and Jamie know, and even better the next day when I was able to recognize many of the people at church. It was at church that I learned of the fan club that surrounds Jakob and his parents. Everybody loves Jakob and wants to play with him, even the adults. After Jamie introduced me as Danny's mom in Relief Society I was asked how I felt about his recent injury during a scout outing. (For those who may not have heard--Danny's chin came into hard, unexpected contact with the head of one of the scouts, leaving Danny with a cut that needed to be stitched and the scout with a nice headache.) The questioner was surprised when I told her I just laughed. She has a hard time understanding why it is okay to send your sons off on potentially dangerous outings like they do in scouts. Why can't they just stay at home and be safe. Her son is one of the scout leaders. After church we attended the baptism of an eight year old and a convert. That was really cool!
During the week, since Danny had to work, Jamie and I hung out at home. I played with the kids, watched Jamie wash her new car, played with the kids, sadly watched a tree service company remove two trees from a neighbor's yard, played with the kids, did some homework, and played with the kids.
On Thursday afternoon we went over to Wethersfield, across the Connecticut River from Glastonbury, went to a Farmer's market where we bought some goat yogurt and goat cheese, visited a museum where we saw a display mentioning the dispute between Wethersfield and Windsor as to which town is the oldest in Connecticut, saw the church George Washington attended when he was in town for a meeting with Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau to plan their strategy for the war, and saw the house in which they met on May 20 and 21, 1781. It was fun to think that we were walking on the same streets that Washington walked on.
On Friday we decided to go to Newport, Rhode Island, because in the east you can travel only an hour and a half in any direction and be in another state, unlike the western states. By the time we did a little shopping then drove to Rhode Island we arrived just in time to head back if we wanted to be at the house before Don and Kelly arrived. They had left Utah on Wednesday and drove two and a half long days to get to Connecticut. But we didn't want to just turn right around and go back so we spent some time seeing the sights. Among the sights we saw was Touro Park. The name caught my attention because of Touro Hospital in Louisiana. It turned out that the park and the hospital were named after the same man who had lived in Newport, but died in New Orleans. We drove along the Mansion route and then went on the scenic drive along the coast before heading back. Just as we left Newport we got a text from Kelly saying the Connecticut had just welcomed them. They arrived at the house an hour before we did. Oops.
Kristy arrived at the Harford airport about 11pm and Jenny arrived the next morning at 9:30. Then it was party time for the birthday boy!
As you might imagine, he was not happy about leaving behind his new things when it was time to leave for Boston. But leave we did. An hour and a half later we checked into our hotel and then headed into town. We had just enough time to see a bit of downtown Boston and get some dinner before we went to Fenway Park for the Boston Red Sox/Baltimore Orioles game.
The next day we had to go into Boston early so we could get wristbands so we could sit in the Oval for the 4th of July Boston Pops Concert and Fireworks. After that we went back out to Belmont to go to a church near the temple. After Sacrament meeting started we discovered that seated a few rows back and to the left were some good friends of David and Janeal -- Brent and Danika. What are the odds of just randomly picking a church and a time and finding friends there? We visited for a while after the meeting until Brent had
to run off to his nursery class. We went over to the temple.
Then we went back to the hotel to change and headed for the Oval where we sat for the rest of the afternoon with thousands of other people waiting for the concert to start.
The day was hot.
The sun was out.
The concert was awesome! We also got to hear Toby Keith!
On Monday we decided to start at the end of the Freedom Trail and work our way back into town so we walked out to the U.S.S. Constitution and went on the guided tour that took us down into the ship.
On the way back along the trail we came to the Old North Church. We went inside, sat in a pew box and heard the story of how the church was used to signal the armies. By this time we were hot, tired, and hungry. We found a place to eat then headed back to the subway and our cars and drove back to Glastonbury.
We had just two more days to spend in Connecticut, so on one of them we went to Rocky Neck State Park and played at the beach. That was a lot of fun. The water was so shallow that we could walk a hundred feet out into the water and only get our legs wet. Jakob didn't discover how fun the water was until he fell in just as we were getting ready to leave. Then we had to stay a little longer as he played IN the water.
1 comment:
We watched the Boston fireworks and thought of you
Post a Comment