I love that dirty water...

Ohh, Boston, you're my home..

As our two-year anniversary of leaving Boston was approaching, we decided it was high time to take a trip back to our old New England home, so this summer we treated ourselves to eight days in Massachusetts. Maybe I've procrastinated writing about this because it is difficult to sum up what Boston means to us, and going back there reminded us just how much we love it, how much we miss our friends there, and what a big part of our lives it has been. The week was packed with get-togethers with friends, sentimental jaunts to our old haunts, and a few novel experiences that we didn't get around to during our time living in Boston.

For me, the best part of our visit was spending the week with our dear friends, Missy, Brad, and their 3 little munchkins. When we lived in Massachusetts, Ava, Sam, and Abi practically lived as siblings. They took snacks, time-outs, bribes, and diaper changes from either mom, and they all adored one another. They played, slept, ate, shopped, cried, potty-trained, and even took a 3-week road trip together. Needless to say, we had some catching up to do. We loved every moment that we had crammed into their house. The kids picked up where they left off almost 2 years before, and PJ and David (who were wee babes when we left), well..they were strangely attracted to each other, though many of their interactions ended in yelling and/or tears. Oh well, they tried.

After the kiddos were exhausted and collapsed into their beds for the night, the moms staved off their own exhaustion with a couple of hours of good old-fashioned BBC chick-flicks. Missy and Brad were perfect hosts--lending us their car, baking us piles of cookies, serving up steaks, roving around the city, and making us part of the family. They couldn't have treated us any better.

{Missy also wrote a fabulous blog post about our trip to Massachusetts, featuring an original Glittery tale, Glittery being a favorite fictitious flying pony who makes frequent appearances in the George's Bedtime Story Anthology.}

All the kids, lined up obediently at the Children's Museum.

Gleeful little Ava, who had one of the happiest weeks of her entire life. No exaggeration.


Don't they look like the best of friends? Heh heh heh...

Our rainy day in the city. Pretty much every day was rainy, but we weren't about to let that stop us.


Aww, pretty flowers.

Derek was able to join us for about half of the trip. He loved visiting his old friends at the MIT Press, where we spent half a day hanging out at the office, just like old times. Oh, except Derek wasn't getting paid to be there. His groupies back at the homestead kept him busy, too.

At the very cool Institute of Contemporary Arts, a new addition since we lived there:



Missy's Birthday! We got to enjoy the cake..I mean, the day, with her.

This was an important trip for Penelope, who left Boston at the somewhat youthful age of 35 days. She was able to check a few important items off of her list of Experiences to Have in Massachusetts Before Growing Up:

1. Pose for a beautiful beach shot at sunset.

2. Allow Missy and Sandy to wring every last shred of energy from your 20-something pound body in a 12-hour period.

3. Ride the ducks in the Public Garden.

4. Throw a tantrum on the T (subway).

5. Ride the carousel on the beach in Hull.

6. Bathe with a Bennion lad.

7. Wear a coat and long sleeves and SOCKS in the middle of summer.

Good work, PJ. You still have some items left (throw a tantrum at IKEA, eat a bite out of every apple littering the ground at an apple orchard, cram fresh blueberries in your mouth straight from the bushes, splash in the tidepools...I could go on.).

As for transporting the Georges to and fro Boston, I made all the flights alone with the girls, and they were some seriously terrific travelers. (Except for that part about waiting in an hour-long security line in Austin at 5:30 a.m. with a screaming-bloody-murder-PJ and almost missing our flight and dashing madly to the gate with the following in my arms: one child-sized backpack, one large diaper bag, one bag of other stuff, one toddler carseat, two shoes, a stroller slung over the shoulder, and, oh yes, one wiggling 21-month old child. All while cheering on a surprisingly cheery barefooted Ava who stopped to observe a spider crawling down the hall.). Besides that, they were champs. See? I have this picture to prove it. That is the girls cuddling on the plane.

PJ, assuming her "I own this plane/I will be happy as can be, so long as you don't move me" position.

And when we arrived back in Austin, Ava even had the presence of mind to scour rows of airport seating with baby wipes, in the name of public health.


We miss all of you Bay Staters. But it is good to be home, as it should be. As much as we love Boston, Austin not only rhymes with Boston, but it is also the perfect place for us to be right now. So to all of you Boston friends: Tag. You're it. Time to book your trip to Texas!