Our Trip to New England

The first week of June, Justin and I took a 5 day trip to Boston for his cousin Carter's wedding.  It was the first time we had left all three children and the longest time we'd ever left any of our children.  My parents watched the kids for us and did a great job.  Barrett wasn't even mad at us when we got home.  We flew into Manchester, NH and were met at the airport by Justin's parents who had spent the week at Acadia National Park in Maine.  We stayed at a beautiful New England inn close to the airport and had a fabulous dinner at the hotel dining room.

The Bedford Village Inn in New Hampshire.  

I had to take the photo out of the car window as we  were leaving because it was pouring rain at the time.  We didn't have to be in Boston until that evening for the rehearsal dinner so we took our time and stopped in Lexington and Concord, MA.  Lexington and Concord were where the first shots were fired of the Revolutionary War.  We saw the famous Lexington Green and stopped at a museum and the Minute Man visitor's center.  The weather was cold and damp, but it didn't really rain on us. The most memorable event of the day was when we got slightly lost and ended up at the gate house of an Air Force base.  Chuck explained to the the guard that we were lost and were only trying to find Concord.  The guard looked at him and said, "I'm going to have to confiscate your ID . . . while you turn around.  Justin's Dad thought he was kidding at first and replied, "You couldn't just ask me nicely for it?" but handed over his license while we made a U turn and stopped all of 20 seconds later on the other side of the guard house to reclaim it.  We couldn't quite figure out how confiscating Chuck's license would have helped if we had been terrorists and set on wreaking destruction on the base with our rented Volvo.  

We did eventually find our way to Concord.  This photo is of Justin and me in front of a bridge that has been recently reconstructed where the first actual battle of the War of Independence was fought.  Concord was also home to many noted authors.  We toured two homes where Louisa May Alcott who wrote the book  "Little Women" lived.  Nathaniel Hawthorne lived in one of the same houses too.  Ralph Waldo Emerson also lived in Concord and was a friend of the Alcott family.  

This is the Fairmont Copley Plaza where we 

stayed in Boston and where the wedding

 reception was held.  It first opened in 1912.

I couldn't resist taking this picture of some geese

and their goslings crossing the street.  It looked like

a scene straight out of the classic children's book,

"Make Way For Ducklings."

Beth Parcella, Jill Chudleigh Petty and Nicole Iovanne.

My two best friends (who I have known since I was 2 or 3 years old) Beth and Nicole drove up from New Haven, CT on Saturday and we visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum and then Beth treated Nicole and me to a birthday lunch. We stopped at the concierge's desk on the way out of the hotel and asked for a restaurant recommendation.  He recommended Stephanie's on Newbury Street but warned us that there was usually a long wait.  He pulled out one of his business cards and gave it to Beth with the instructions that if there was a long wait we should give his card to the hostess and tell her that Jim from the Fairmont had sent us. When we arrived at the restaurant very hot and sticky after walking from the museum in the 95 degree weather with lots of humidity there was indeed a long wait.  So Beth handed over the card and they told us they would halve the wait time.  So we went over to the bar and ordered drinks (lemonade and iced tea) and they had a table ready for us before we had even finished our drinks, which was a lot sooner than we expected.  We were very impressed at how the restaurant staff responded to Jim's card and felt that we could easily get used to preferential treatment.  We had the most delicious Bruschetta I have ever eaten, as an appetizer and had a great time catching up over lunch.   The photo was taken in the hotel room after I had put on my dress for the wedding to show it to Beth and Nicole.  

The wedding was held in a beautiful old chapel on the Harvard Campus and the wedding reception was very elegant.  We sat at a table with Justin's cousin Elliott and his wife Heather and their 4 girls.  Justin and I were very happy that we didn't have our kids with us, especially Barrett since the 4 course dinner with French service took hours.  The food was delicious and we had a good time visiting with many members of the Petty family.

The next day we left Boston for Vermont.  I had made arrangements to visit Deanna, who was one of my roommates at BYU and now lives in Sharon, VT with her family.  Sharon is where Joseph Smith was born and Justin and I were able to visit his birthplace and take the full 1 1/2 hour tour that evening.  It was another extremely hot and humid day, but the weather was perfect at 7 p.m. when we took the tour.  The photo is of us standing in front of the granite monument which is 38 1/2 feet tall, one foot for every year of the Prophet Joseph Smith's life.  

Deanna Creighton and Jill Petty in Vermont.

We had a nice visit with Deanna and Eric and got to meet all three of their kids for the first time.  They live right on the White River and Justin tried some fly fishing on Monday morning, but didn't catch anything.  Deanna drove us to the King Arthur Baking Co. store where I picked up some thank you gifts for my Mom and then over to Dartmouth College where Eric works as their Bio-Safety Officer.  We had lunch and Eric gave us a quick tour of his part of campus before he drove us back to the airport in just enough time to catch our plane home.  One of the best parts of the trip was being able to actually read a book on the plane instead of trying to keep a small child amused.  We also enjoyed sleeping undisturbed through the night for the first time since Barrett was born.  In spite of these luxuries we were happy to return home to our children.  They were glad to see us again, even though it might only have been for the presents we brought them.