Week two in Boston was a serious reality check for us; it became obvious that after Ginnie and Wil left, we were no longer on a vacation and that this was our permanant home. It was very hard to get around to do even the essentials for normal life: groceries, gas, parks ect.
We often stayed in our pajamas till mid-afternoon (like the above picture) and played down the basement with toys, boxes, and built lego structures. The girls loved riding their roller blades down stairs on the smooth cement and came up with some pretty fun routines.
After some trial and error, Mike has come up with an acceptable system for getting to class each day. He found a place to park his car near the train station to take to Harvard's School of Public Health. He has really enjoyed the lectures and has started his grant proposals based on some of his previous research.
When the weekend finally arrived, we were ready for our next family adventure. We researched some beaches and found out that the World's Sand Sculpture competition was taking place at Revere Beach, MA. The beach was only 30 minutes from our home and the weather was hot and humid. The sculptures were very impressive. The kids were excited to get out into the ocean water but quickly found out that unlike our trip to Florida last Christmas, the water here was ice cold! Mike and the kids willingly dove in, but not for long. The remainder of the day was spent searching for special shells.
The kids have been getting some fun mail sent from their friends back home. They also have a goal of writing back to a friend once a week while we are here.
The kids and I also found the local pool to be a much needed daily activity. They are all becoming excellent swimmers; Hailey has now mastered diving off the board in the deep end. I have registered them all from swimming lessons to start on July 23rd.
Just a block and a half from our house are three ball fields, a basketball court, and some tennis courts. Each evening we go out as a family and do something different. Carter prefers to play baseball and the girls usually choose to play at the park, but we found our that tennis is very popular her in Newton, so we have now began to teach some tennis.
At the start of week three we were blessed to find an Evangelical Baptist Church that had a VBS! The kids were welcomed by a host of fun young kids all week and were also invited to two pool parties during the week.
The final day of VBS was water fun day. Taylor had her eyes closed awaiting her splash.
