Train Trip: Day Seven

Day seven, our final day of this adventure, was spent in Boston, or beantown, as Matt tells me it's called. 

We had good intentions of spending the day hopping on and off of a city bus tour so we could see as much as possible, but we ended up sleeping way later than we meant to! It was 11:00 before we were ready to start exploring, so we just set out on our own. 

My first picture was of Boston Common where they had apparently drained the water from the lake. I'm not sure if that's common or not. (See what I did there?  Punny.)

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We wandered down Newberry Street and windowshopped and saw some old churches. 

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Is it just me, or does this church look like maybe it caught on fire one day?  A little ashy up top?

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With the exception of brunch in the Hancock Tower, we did not pre-plan anti four meals. For the most part, we walked until we were starving and then just looked around at what was close by and quick. For lunch in Boston, that meant sushi. Not pictured is a whole plate of nigeri. 

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Then we had to walk off all that rice we'd just stuffed ourselves with! 

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Strolling through a different section of Boston Common.  

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Matt and George. (Washington, that is.) 

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I think our kiddos would've loved this little line of ducklings!  

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I could not believe how friendly this squirrel was with us. I really think if we'd had food of some kind he would have eaten it straight out of our hands! 

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In front of the State House.  

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Samuel Adams.  

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Getting ready to go into the Faneuil Hall so that we could buy our kids some cheesy souvenirs. We left with two lobster claws that they can pinch each other with. Perfect. 

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We quietly tiptoed through King's Chapel Cemetary and I reconfirmed my desire to be cremated. 

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This new(ish) memorial was behind the Old North Church. It was blank dog tags hanging for the lives lost from Iraq, Afghanistan, and ISIS. It was really pretty to hear the tags clink together like a big windchime.

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For me, the highlight of the day was seeing the Old North Church. I was completely fascinated by the church and its cubicle-like pew stalls. 

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Families bought pew stalls to sit in each Sunday. I told Matt that church would be so much easier if Katie Wynn and Thomas could just play on the floor of a little stall!  

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Once a family purchased a stall, they could do whatever they wanted with it. Pew benches weren't even included in the purchase. This one had been fancied up by its owner. I can only imagine how much fun Mom and I would have decorating and redecorating our family's stall!  

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We were excited to see that our boy Wesley preached in this church twice back in 1736.

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Matt demonstrating how to properly use one of the stalls. :) 

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And the only non-selfie picture of us on the trip! We learned that they still have services in this church on Sundays so our next trip to Boston will definitely need to fall on a weekend. I'd love to hear the big organ and see all the chandelier candles lit.  

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After leaving the church, I was on a mission to get to the harbor. We took a short cut through Copps Hill Burial Ground only to come to a dead end (no pun intended..) and have to go all the way back through it.  

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After finding a different route, we finally made it to the "hahrbeh."

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My main purpose of going there was so that I could have these side-by-side pictures from our coast to coast adventure. We started at the San Fransisco Bay and ended at the Boston Harbor! 

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Enjoying the view (and resting our tired feet) of Boston from the water side.  

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We were on the opposite side of the city so we cabbed it back to our hotel.  We knew if we went to our room we'd crash so we had drinks in the hotel bar until leaving for dinner.

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I love a festive drink!  That's thyme sticking out of the top of it (assuming you can figure out which one is mine...).

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For dinner, we walked to Legal Sea Foods which I gather is a Boston-area chain?  We felt like we had to have seafood while there!

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We were glad this guy was able to join us for dinner.

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After clam chowder, salad, lobster, broccoli, and rice, we were stuffed silly!  But you know I can't say no to dessert.  I asked our waitress what the smallest dessert was and she suggested the bon bons.  We ordered three - vanilla, chocolate, and coffee.  They were yummy and the perfect size!  (Pictured after we'd taken a test bite of each one.  Coffee was my favorite.)

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We went straight back to our room after dinner because we had a super early morning ahead of us.  Of course, since I needed to go to sleep early, I was wide awake.  I watched the hours go by until our 3:00 alarm clock (2:00 our time) went off.  We had to leave our hotel room by 4:00 to catch our 5:30 flight.  It was an early start to the day but we were back at our own house before noon.  

As much as a fun, memorable adventure we had over the 7 days, we were super excited to get home to these two cuties!  How is it possible that they grew up so much in just a week?!  

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I'll be back with the details of our trip in the next post!