When I was 7 months pregnant I got the crazy idea that we should go to Boston shortly after our baby was born so we could meet the Maxfield twins, visit my parents, and see both the Maxfields and Gessells before they move away from Boston. We bought the tickets and just hoped everything with our newborn would be fine to travel and the twins would have arrived all healthy.
So, one day before Camille turned 5 weeks old we all boarded a plane to Boston. The flight was fine. Our girls have flown numerous times. Sadie has flown to Boston 6 times and Elise 5 times. What we didn't count on was Elise waking up at 3 AM the first night to barf all over Daniel. Rough start to the trip. You can always count on me to report sleep conditions, and they were not good during our trip. All 3 kids slept terribly. Good thing we still managed to have a great time.
I attempted to organize my thousands of pictures into a few categories.
Addy
Addy is the most squishable baby ever. I just want to reach through the screen and hug her. Good thing we are seeing her in a few days.
Sadie really enjoyed trying to get Adelaide to crawl and walk.
One of Addy's favorite things to do while we were there was holding onto adults hands and cruise. This is me and Addy. I think that's the only picture of me from the trip.
Chuck E Cheese
Papa has started a great tradition of Chuck E Cheese trips when we visit Boston. Sadie expects it now. One evening while the John sisters and their babies visited, the rest of the adults and kids headed to the land of cheap games and cardboard pizza.
Uncle Boom
Uncle Tony just happened to be in Boston for work the week we were there. He came over multiple times to hang out.
So at 5 weeks old Camille had met nearly all of her John extended family.
The rest of Anthony's family will just have to come to Utah to meet her. :)
The Twins
Nolan got to come home from the hospital the day after we flew in. Derek had already been home for a couple weeks. We wasted no time going to introduce ourselves. Sadie keeps talking about she wishes we could have twins. The twins look similar, but like brothers, not like identical twins. Once Meredith pointed out all the differences I had no trouble telling them apart. In this one above Derek is on the left and Nolan is on the right giving the camera a wave.
The cousin triplets. Born within 36 hours of each other.
Children's Museum
On the rainiest day we headed downtown to the Children's museum- another tradition when visiting my parents.
Elise was SO grumpy. The only 2 things that made her happy were putting those plastic vegetables into bins using chopsticks and hugging little bird characters.
Oh, and she also enjoyed when Nana pulled her on this chair/pulley system. She insisted only Nana could pull the rope and then she wanted to sit on it and eat snacks. Camille slept the entire time we were there. Sadie finally went in the climbing structure. This maze goes up 3 floors. It was one of my favorite things about the Children's Museum when I was a kid. Sadie is in the bottom, middle of the frame.
Joey's Park
We went to the park 5 times during our visit. 3 of the visits were to Joey's Park. This was one of my favorite parks as a kid, but it was falling apart so the town all got together and donated their time to build it. I am not sure if donations paid for the materials, but the park is amazing. Similar to the one from my childhood, but even better.
Of course Elise visits this amazing park and chooses to walk across big rocks for an hour. And that picture below of Lou and Wes is just the cutest.
One of the coolest things about the park is the zipline. Both Sadie and Elise went on it. We were nervous Elise would let go when it bounced around at the end, but she did awesome.
Addy was a good sport and hung out at all the parks with us, despite not getting much enjoyment out of it.
One night we found a basketball and the kids took turns dunking. A high point in all their lives, for sure.
We also attended Grove Street park, just down the block from my parents' house. Elise insisted on walking on all the rock walls on the way home. You can see them as little specks in the picture below.
Weston
One of the
biggest highlights was getting to play with Weston. Sadie and Weston played together a lot, while Elise was very hot and cold with him.
Weston actually slept over at my parents house a few nights so that the cousins could continue their play and the Maxfields could adjust to having both twins home.
Canobie Lake Park
One day we went up to Canobie Lake Park, a small amusement park in New Hampshire. My mom had a fieldtrip there with her physics students so we got free tickets. The kiddie ride section was empty so the girls could choose whatever they wanted and not wait in line. Sadie was tall enough to go on bigger rides, and she did a couple, but she wanted me to go on them and my stomach can't handle any kind of ride anymore, so kiddie rides it was.
Elise was a little nervous on the first few rides. You can see her nervous face in the 2 pictures. The trip ended in tragedy when both girls threw tantrums about going to the water park area. We warned them we'd be going home if they didn't stop. They didn't stop so home we went. Sadie still talks about how disappointed she was.
Cousins Class of 2032
These 4 crazy kids will all be in the same grade. So fun! We will be recreating this photo for years to come. Derek is already about the same weight as Camille, 3 weeks later.
Nana & Papa's house
Sadie and Elise enjoyed playing with all the toys Nana and Papa's basement offered, as well as bugging everyone there to play with them.
Bryce and Addy frequently chased the girls and Weston
, which was thrilling fun for everyone.
One night we did a fashion show with all the old dress-up clothes. I was the "dresser"- person who put the clothes on the models. The girls had multiple knock-down, drag-out fights over that fan. I was ready to just throw it away.
Matching Cousins
My mom bought matching shirts for all the girl cousins. Elise, of course, refused to be in the nice pictures. So here are 3 of the 5 John girl cousins (Lauren was in KC, but my mom bought her a shirt as well).
