Boston, day 2

We spent our second day in Boston trying to take in as many of the sights as possible with a hop-on/hop-off trolley tour of the city and a river cruise of the harbor. I think the photos tell the story pretty well so I'll only put a few labels to clarify the landmarks.

::waylaid by 10k runners::

::Harvard::

::Seaport World Trade Center::

::Boston skyline from Boston Harbor::

::lightship::

::Old Ironsides::

::fireboat::

::Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial Rose Garden::

::Freedom Trail::

::Copp's Hill Burying Ground::

::Old North Church::

::Paul Revere's House::

::sprayground on Rose Kennedy Greenway::

We had quite an eventful day, and we were completely exhausted by the end of our excursion. I'm glad we did the hop-on/hop-off tour because even though we didn't get to explore every area we wanted to, we were at least able to see nearly everything in passing.

Boston Common and Public Garden

Yes, I know we just got back home from Philadelphia a mere week ago, but when a business trip to Boston appeared on Paul's schedule, Elizabeth, Finn and I decided to crash his business trip to explore the city. And then we changed Paul's schedule a bit so we could drag him along on some sightseeing over the weekend before he has to work on Monday. We're considerate that way...especially since he's such a great Finn-carrier.

After a morning (and early afternoon) full of travel related woe, including delays, a cancellation and a missed connection, we finally arrived in Boston ready to dump our belongings at the hotel and get out to do some walking! Fortunately we're staying only a few blocks from the greatest walking grounds in the city: Boston Common and Public Garden.

We stumbled into Boston Common, the oldest park in America, near the Central Burying Ground, final resting place of Gilbert Stuart, and many other very old gravesites. You can't walk through this burying ground, but it was fascinating to see.

We couldn't stop laughing at this squirrel hanging upside down and digging his claws into the trash bag to hang on.

Apparently he grabbed what he was after!

Elizabeth is counting the headless guys at the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. Nice.

Can you say that you were once able to sit on the lap of a fishing frog?!

Onward from Boston Common to the Public Garden...

Our silly family riding the Swan Boats through the lagoon.

One of my favorite spots in the garden was the island in the middle of the lagoon. I could just imagine Robert McCloskey's ducklings following their mama and making their way through Boston traffic to the island.

To make the experience more amazing, a mama swan was nesting on the bank closest to the island.

Although we have plenty more things we want to see while we're in Boston, I hope we'll make our way back to these parks at least one more time while we're here visiting.

a garden for the fairies

There are fairies at the bottom of our garden!

They often have a dance on summer nights;

The butterflies and bees

make a lovely little breeze,

And the rabbits stand about and hold the lights.

Did you know that they could sit upon the moonbeams

And pick a little star to make a fan,

And dance away up there

in the middle of the air?

Well, they can.

~ Rose Fyleman

In an effort to attract a few fairies to our garden, we decided to make a sweet little garden just for them. We brainstormed about the kinds of things that we thought might attract fairies to our garden. We came up with mushrooms, moss, butterflies, seashells and glass pebbles.

The mushrooms were made from sculpey, then baked and painted.

We spread potting soil in the bottom of a clay saucer, the placed our fairy items carefully around the dirt. Once we situated them in the perfect places, we spread chia seeds in between the moss, shells, and glass pebbles. This is what the chia seeds looked like when we spread them after soaking overnight.

Even before the chia grew, we had quite a lovely beginning to a garden!

After the first night, we already had a few white sprouts on our chia seeds.

By the second day, we had green leaves beginning to sprout.

On the third day we had green leaves beginning to spread between our mushrooms, pebbles and shells. We decided to move our garden outside to see if the fairies might notice.

Sometime between the third and fourth day one of our butterflies flew away. (Or "maybe a fairy rode away on it!" as Finn suggested.)

Fairies come here! (sign by Philip) We're ready for your visit now. Please stay a while. Sit on our mushroom, taste our chia (we hear it's very healthy!), walk along our glass stepping stones. We hope you'll visit soon!