Boston Vacation Day 1

Day 1 of any vacation is never very interesting. Especially for us, since it mostly consists of finishing packing and getting on a boat for the mainland. We spiced it up a little by stopping by REI to pick up some shoes and a fleece Sweetie ordered for Things 1 and 2 (respectively). Thing 1 needed new sandals because he lost one of his nearly brand-new pair. He left it at the lab, and when we got home he asked me "Didn't you bring it home?"

We stayed in a hotel that evening, eating in the restaurant there. Thing 2 managed to leave his new fleece in the restaurant, which we didn't discover until the next morning. Total time actually possessing the fleece: 4 hours. I suppose it's possible it will be in the lost and found when we return, but somehow I doubt it.

Turning from the foibles of my children, we move on to...

Day 2. This day started with getting up very early (looking for a lost fleece) and going to the airport. The hotel was very close to the airport, or we would have had to get up even earlier. When we got there, our gate was changed and we boarded a little late. The reason, it turned out, was that our original plane had a maintenance issue. ("It had this problem the last few times it landed," the pilot told us, "and there's only so many times a problem can occur before maintenance pulls it from service." I feel so much better.) So then we needed to wait for the catering to deliver food to this new aircraft. For an hour we waited for airplane fare. Oy.

The flight was relatively uneventful. There was a bit of turbulence, but nothing major. We arrived to muggy Boston. Thing 2 complained about the heat. Cousin S picked us up and took us to Uncle B and Aunt M's house. My dad was also there. They were just getting back from a day's cycling in Rhode Island. We dined and talked and had a beer or two. It was good to catch up with family, and they hadn't seen the Things in about 5 years, so there was a bit of catching up to do. The Things also got to meet their second cousins L, S, D and M. They are considerably younger, so the Things were alternately charmed and irritated by them.

I'll leave off here for now and save the juicy bits for the next few posts.