Loving Independence

This might be a little late, but Boston is the BEST place to be for the 4th of July! So I need to do a little rewind. We woke up early that Saturday and went downtown for all the patriotic excitement :)

First we went to a flag ceremony downtown, and I realized I haven't said the Pledge of Allegiance for an extremely long time. It was a good way to start the day.

Next we went to Faneuil Hall to listen to the Mayor and a couple other speakers. It was more exciting than it sounds. Well, Ali fell asleep actually...

They read the Declaration of Independence right downtown at the Old State House, from the little balcony. You can't see the cute people dressed up in costumes reading it, but they're there!

That afternoon we all headed down to the Esplanade to hear the Pops and see Boston's famous fireworks! I could sit and watch fireworks forever.

So the next Monday we decided to head back down to Franklin to watch their fireworks that were postponed. I pretended it was the 24th of July because I know I'm going to miss fireworks that day! Boston isn't too excited about pioneers for some reason.

Then we wrapped Ali up in a blanket and carried her back to the car. I'm not really sure why, but it was a good time :) She said it's exactly how they lift residents when they fall at work so I'm glad she finally got to experience what that feels like.

I love the 4th of July! Plus it means I'm halfway to Christmas so that makes it even better :)

June Job

I spent a lot of time with these cute kids last month! They're a family in the Cambridge ward that needed a nanny for June. I loved playing with them!

We made up some pretty good piano duets, be sad you can't hear them. Driving a van in Boston traffic was one of the more interesting parts of the experience...I'm so glad Utah requires zero parallel parking skills. Space is a beautiful thing.

Good old Candyland. Princess Lollipop has a special place in my heart, a select few of you understand why. Andrew is 5, and he always kept me laughing.

Favorite Andrew-isms:

-"In primary they keep telling me I need to be like Jesus. They tell me that all the time -- so when I have a son, I'm just going to name him Jesus. That way it'll make things a lot easier for him."

-"I just can't catch a break from Milo. He really likes me, and I try to like him, but I just can't catch a break from him."

-"No, I don't want a drink of water. That'll completely undo all the bathroom I just did."

-"Maddie, dogs don't get married right? Then how do they have puppies?"

-"I don't look anything like my dad because my mom had me, but my dad says he invented me."

-(Andrew what did you learn in primary yesterday?) "How to sneak out."

-"I'm too tired to go outside, I feel like people make me go outside every day."

Mini-Excursion

Boston won't stop raining. Don't tell any of the sun-craving people, but I'm totally loving it. Heat and humidity is just an evil combination. So our Saturday night plans were a little limited to indoor ideas. Ali and I have been waiting for ANY excuse to get back down to Franklin (a 45-minute drive that gets you to the BEST homemade ice cream place in the world), so an indoor mini-golf course in that area sounded like a great plan.

"The Greatest Course on Earth!" That's what the door said, anyway, so we had pretty high expectations. Then we stepped inside and found a blacklight, circus-themed room that was hilariously creepy. So strange...

Creepy, right? The place was complete with clowns, one-eyed gorillas, wizards, a scantily clad indian chief, just a wide variety of...stuff.

But then we just kind of embraced it. No one more than Doug or Allen.

I loved all 18 holes of that course; each one has some random statue (like everything in the one-eyed gorilla list, or the random orange cones above) that isn't even between your ball and the hole. They're just kind of...there. It's great.

I don't know how a circus involves wizards, but when you're as cool as this place you just don't need to worry about things like that.

I know this doesn't look like a promising putt, but we're gonna give Ali the benefit of the doubt and assume this is during the round we all played left-handed. I could not figure out the difference between left-handed and right-handed putts for the life of me, I don't know why that was so confusing.

Luke was pretty excited to sneak into the Lion cage for this picture, but not as excited as Ali and I were when it was time to say goodbye to the circus and get our highly anticipated ice cream. We pulled into that wonderful little ice cream shop at 10:08, I was so happy to be back...but I'll admit a little of the happiness was lost when we saw that it closed at 10:00. Sigh. Looks like we'll just have to go back again! And we'll be sure to fit in another round at the greatest course on earth! Maybe...

To Dad

I know I'm a little late, but I couldn't pass up the chance to give a shout out to my wonderful dad! He's one of my favorite people to talk to in the world and he's great at making me laugh. I sure miss him!


My dad is one of the smartest people I know, I love how I learn something every time I talk to him on the phone. And his fatherly advice is always amusing to hear :)


My favorite thing about my dad is how much he loves my mom. Their marriage makes me so happy. He's just such a good guy :) Definitely the best dad I've ever had.


I also love how much he humors his daughters, like when I told him to be more excited about plants for this picture :)

A few favorite dad memories:

• Late night Oreo talks
• Struggling to learn how to drive a stick (which involved a lot of frustrated moments, a few tears, anger when he would laugh at my tears, and some misleading directions that ended up with me on the freeway being chased by a diesel that could totally take me and almost did.)
• Talking about politics and pretending Massachusetts is changing me just to freak him out a little
• Walking the cute streets of Cedar City on the nights I'm in town
• His beard :( (You better grow it back when your calling changes, dad.)
• Watching him be a grandpa
• Beating him at ping pong! Ok... and sometimes losing to him ;)
• His radio voice

Happy Father's Day dad! I love you!

Why did the deer cross the road?

I just gotta say, Bambi was never my favorite disney movie.

This is the sad result of a deer who decided to take a risk (and died) on Saturday night. Poor little thing. At least that was how I felt until I saw Ali's car, now I just think it was an annoying little thing. But I'm not going to judge.

On our way home from a drive-in movie on Friday I asked Ali if there were any deer in Massachusetts (just so you know, that's the only state I could never spell, but now that I live here I think I finally got it down), and she said there were but she had never seen any. Well, we saw one!

We were super lucky and didn't feel a thing. The car, not so much...it's totaled. I kinda figured it was when we decided to get out of the car and look at the damage and I couldn't open my door hehe. I didn't want Ali to freak out so I tried to discreetly crawl to the back seat and get out...but she noticed, dang it. I would say the most traumatizing part of the whole ordeal was when Ali made me take pictures of the deer for "insurance reasons." Proof? Haha I did not think that was necessary or healthy for me but I wasn't going to question a sad girl with a ruined car. It was really gross though, and don't worry, I'm not going to post any of those.

We've been mourning the poor thing all week (the car, not the deer -- is that bad?), but I already had a good relationship with the bus system and Ali is having too much fun borrowing our roommate's scooter for a little while. I just don't feel good about leaving you with those sad pictures of the car, so here it is in some happier moments.

Weekend road trips! This one gives you a good view of Glinda, our trusty GPS. (Well, sort of trusty...it broke right before we hit the deer. Bad night all around.)

Aw, look how cute it is, just chilling at a lookout point while Ali and dad have a GPS-Atlas battle.

It was a good car.
R.I.P.

Opa!

Boston always has crazy things going on, so we drove out to Arlington to check out the local Greek Festival. It was a party! It looked like a stake activity, Greek-style. That probably gives you a better image of it all.

I discovered that I do not like Greek food. Like at all. But it was fun to try it! Quite a lot of it actually...

Opa! Greek dancing was pretty exciting, you do the same four steps in a circle over and over and over. And over. It was a live band so I think they just secretly enjoyed watching us get slightly annoyed.

Here's Ali in her element.

Public Apology

It has come to my attention (a.k.a. Ali made fun of me) that a recently posted picture may have given a false impression about my Boston habits:


The above picture was meant to be an innocent portrayal of my directionless (but fun) days here in Boston. My dad made me take this picture with good old Samuel the day we walked the Freedom Trail, and I promise we were going for the Founding Father side of him rather than famous beer company. Confession: Did not even know Samuel Adams had any association with beer.

So no, I have not turned to alcohol to fix my unemployment frustrations. I've got other things for that:

The blanket. Ok, confession #2: The above picture is a little bit of a lie -- I was laughing 2 seconds before, and laughing 2 seconds after, so don't go thinking I've really reached that level of sadness. But seriously, I love my blanket.

Here's a few Memorial Day pictures I feel like I should put up since I came down a little hard on May last time. Beaches and barbecues, always good things! The month redeemed itself. A little :)

Don't be fooled by the sunny appearance of this picture -- the water is FREEZing. Come on Atlantic, help us out a little.

Ward barbecue! I discovered some sweet croquet skills that might possibly be a one-time deal, so I'm not going to play for a while so I can enjoy the feeling as long as possible. Note that Ali is about to be nailed by a water balloon because people like to make little kids do things. Also be aware that little William cried after because he didn't realize throwing the balloon meant the balloon would pop, making it a lot less fun to play with. Poor kid.

But looks like he got over it :)

P.S. Happy June!