THE NIELSONS

Sunday was only church (could 3 hours of church ever accurately be described as only?), a playground visit and some whiffle ball. I always enjoy going to the park at my elementary school, even though it is different equipment than when I attended.

Will anyone ever tire of me posting blurry shots? Oh how I wish that picture on the right was clear. This slide is really fast. Camille was not prepared for the speed.

Papa spent a while playing soft toss with the kids in the backyard. Boston had a drought this summer. I don't think I have ever seen my parents grass dead in the summer. It was weird.

The next morning we drove to the Providence Zoo.

Will and Lauren are much more knowledgeable about animals than my kids and they were great to educate us a bit. It has been a couple years since my girls went to the zoo. We took a snack break by this huge tree that the biggest kids climbed. Then Lou and Lauren wanted to climb, but couldn't get up alone. Elise was definitely feeling some hostility in this picture.

Millie wandered over to this bounce house during the snack break and Nana made a big grandma mistake. She paid for Millie to have a turn. It took about 5 seconds for the rest of the kids to notice, so Nana paid for all 5 of them to have a turn. They all had fun but I had to climb onto it to get Camille off.

Camille really liked seeing the animals, when she could find them. Two-year-olds are pretty terrible at spotting things and describing and pointing out locations didn't seem to help much.

After naps that afternoon we went to Castle Island. It is this little island in the Boston Harbor with a beach and playground. Planes fly into Logan Airport right over it.

More sand and water. The kids all wanted to be mermaids.

We ate dinner at the park and then played for a while.

The kids ran around and explored the island a bit. There is an old military fortress built hundreds of years ago. When we went to see that at the top of the hill, we spotted this old ship sailing around the bay. Couldn't pass up the chance at this picture.

How John cousins eat ice cream, from oldest to youngest.

On Tuesday it was rainy again so we hung out around the house. I went running down to the Charles River.

Goodness, I love this view, which was must less spectacular with the rain.

After lunch Carrie and I took the the older 4 kids to the Boston Science Museum. We used our AMSE passes to get in free. Otherwise the tickets were $25 for adults!

At first we didn't think there was a lot for the kids. The dinosaur exhibit was fun and then we attempted to attend the show on electricity. It was one of my favorite things as a kid. They have the world's largest Van de Graff generator, which is super loud and bright. Sadie freaked out right away, with Elise following shortly after. I took all the girls out while Will and Carrie watched the show.

We then made our way up to a bunch of kid-friendly activities. These magnet boards with colored chains could have kept the kids entertained for hours.

There were not just 1, but 2 different shadow rooms. One with music and colored shadows and the other with the flash that records your shadow on the wall.

Elise laid on a bed of nails and told me she was playing dead for the picture.

In the end we way underestimated how long we'd spend there and didn't bring much food. We finally forced the kids to leave at dinner time. We had lots of hanger on that ride home. We also had lots of traffic, which provided this gorgeous photo.

After dinner the kids helped Nana make some cookies, which is always a hit.

Wednesday was another fun day. We went to Boston Common to visit the ducks and take a swan boat ride.

It is funny that when I was growing up in Boston we never did these things, but this is the second time I have taken my kids to the swan boats. It is super fun to do kid-focused tourist stuff in my hometown.

The swan boats are not super exciting, but our kids are great ages for it. It was very bright on our ride.

Super cute shot of the oldest John cousins

Following that we walked over to Frog Pond.

We spent more time on the playground than the pond, but both were fun.

We realized we needed to get lunch if we were going to have time for Carrie and her kids to get on their flight that afternoon. It was really nice to eat in the park.

The walk back to the car was as fun as usual with Millie the Menace. Elise wanted me to carry her, while Camille wanted to run away from me.

After the Johns left for Kansas City that afternoon I went to one of my favorite childhood parks, which we called the big slide park. It has 2 huge slides that run down the side of a hill.

My childhood friend Meredith met us there with her baby boy Logan. He is one adorable kid. I love that my friends from home are starting to have kids now too. It felt weird to realize Sadie and Elise are older than when I first met Meredith.

On this trip Camille started insisting on longer back rubs. I told her I would rub her back as long as she would close her eyes. She would pretend to sleep until I stopped rubbing her back. No matter how long I rubbed her back, she would open her eyes as soon as I stopped. Little booger. I sent this picture to Daniel on our last night.

The next morning the girls and I woke up bright and early to make our flight to Austin

When we were laying out summer vacation plans we decided on driving down to Texas right after school got out, like we did last year. However, on our drive back from California in May we decided we weren't up for another long road trip right away. We hoped to do it later in the summer. We also hoped to visit my parents. The main problem is that Daniel's schedule in June and July was full and he only had the first 2 weeks of August free, while my parents would be out of town starting August 5. Then we found out the Tony & Carrie John family would be in Boston the end of July/early August and it made me want to go even more. I tried all different ways to work it out to visit both places for the cheapest possible price and in the end came up with a kind of crazy sounding trip that ended up being great.

Here's what it looked like:

July 22- Daniel flies to wherever he was recruiting

July 27- Carly and the girls fly to Boston

July 29- Daniel returns to Utah

August 3/4- Daniel drives to Austin

August 4- Carly and the girls fly from Boston to Austin

August 12/13- The whole family drives from Austin to Utah

Our one-way flights to Boston and then Austin were actually cheaper than us flying round-trip from Salt Lake to Boston. And bonus: the girls only had 1 long road trip. I was nervous my kids would be so terribly behaved by the end of the trip that we would all hate each other, but they were good. That's not to say they behaved perfectly, but it was no different than at home.

Day 1: To me, the most stressful part of flying alone is getting to the gate with the perfect amount of time. You don't want to cut it too close and be sweaty and anxious when you arrive (or miss your flight, obviously); however, you also don't want to be sitting there for 2 hours with your kids when you are about to sit on the plane for several more hours. I was on fire the day we flew out. We walked up to the gate (after going potty, filling water sippies, and purchasing milk for Millie) with 20 minutes to go. Unfortunately, it was then we found out our plane was delayed 2 hours. So we wandered around killing time.

This was the first flight we had to pay for Millie's seat. I decided to go with a middle seat, aisle seat and then another aisle seat and middle seat all on the same row. Millie threw a tantrum about being the loser sitting next to Mom so she sat in the window seat until the ticket holder game. Our seating arrangement (L to R) ended up Elise, me-- aisle --Millie, Sadie). The touch screens with games were a lifesaver. My girls watched shows/movies/games a lot of the time. Millie was exhausting the rest of the time. She didn't cry but she was loud and wanted to run around. None of them slept on the flight at all.

We landed just after midnight in Boston. It is a long walk out to the baggage carousels in Logan Airport and Camille insisted on walking the whole way, while pulling a small suitcase behind her. I think it took us almost a half hour to get out there. Bonus, when you do that there is no waiting for checked luggage. It is circling alone when you arrive. My dad parked and met us so we had another long walk to the parking garage. As we walked Elise said, "So...Papa, how was your day?" like she was some adult. I love the things that kid says. The girls got to sleep around 2 AM. I think I slept in my clothes.

One would think that since Boston is 2 hours ahead of Utah my kids would have slept in. It was not to be. At 7 AM they were ready to see Will and Lauren. We sat around a lot of the morning while the kids played.

My girls particularly enjoyed going through boxes of stuff in the attic closets. Millie enjoyed pretending these massive bubble wands were swords, but they were difficult to carry on the stairs.

Anthony and Carrie returned from a short get-a-way to the Cape that afternoon and we drove up to Ogunquit, Maine. Ogunquit is a coastal town, mainly populated in the summer. Right after high school I lived there with my friend and worked at a restaurant right on the water. I haven't been back in almost 10 years.

We hit up the beach first. The weather was slightly overcast which meant there weren't too many people. The kids loved the sand and the waves. Elise and Lauren made us a little nervous with how confident they were in the water.

Mills and Elliott were mighty cute together.

Following the beach we went to eat at my old employer- the Oarweed. While we were eating it poured rain outside so we were glad to have left the beach.

I ate my favorite dessert. The strawberry shortcake is out of this world. It looks huge but I easily finished it.

By the time we finished eating it was only sprinkling rain. We let the kids climb on the rocks outside the restaurant. That's when the trouble began. We wanted to walk along the Marginal Way, which is a scenic path along the water in Ogunquit.

Millie wanted to continue to climb on rocks. This lead to the biggest meltdown of her life. When I kept walking, which usually makes her join us, she just laid down in a puddle. My mom stayed back with Camille while I attempted to stay calm. She ended up soaking wet, with a poopy diaper (don't know when she found time to poop) and screaming her head off.

The way the car seats were arranged, Millie was in the John's rental car so they got to deal with her screaming until she ran out of energy and fell asleep on the drive back. And yes, I installed the seat incorrectly on that drive. We fixed it after.

The next day brought more rain. And Sadie's actual 7th birthday. That morning while the kids were playing in the basement we got a visit from the Belmont Police. Apparently the kids were playing a game about a fire and Sadie picked up my parents' landline, dialed 911, reported a fire and hung up. Sadie was terrified to talk to the police officers. I am fairly confident she won't be prank calling 911 again.

After a hearty breakfast (ha, with cousins around food is a low priority), we went downtown to the Children's Museum. Before we got to Boston Carrie and I bought AMSE family passes, which get you into various science and children's museums around the country. The catch is that you can't go anywhere within 60 miles of your driver's license address. It was well worth the $45 pass with the high cost of museums in Boston. Just the visit to the children's museum would have been more than $45 for me and my girls.

Camille kept stopping other kids golf balls on the tracks. So typical. And it probably didn't help that I giggled about it several times. Such a typical youngest child.

Sadie got a crown from the museum for her birthday, but after about 15 minutes realized it wasn't conducive to most of the exhibits.

We split up our group fairly quickly. The age range was too large to all stick to the same activities. I was with Millie most of the time. Consequently, most of my pictures are of her.

The shadow room is always fun. Elise performed some serious dancing.

Nana played some geography games with the kids. Let's be honest that it was only Will who had any idea what was going on. Elise just liked to think she was involved.

We lasted in the museum for over 3 hours. The sun was out when we exited so we forced the kids to pose with a pretty backdrop.

There was much fighting upon our return to Nana and Papa's. I was very sick of it and I made the girls have a hug time-out. Elise immediately got happy and enjoyed the hugging. Sadie stayed grumpy.

After the youngest napped we went swimming. Ben Gaines happened to be in town visiting his mom with his oldest 2 girls. His mom has a pass to a local pool that allows visitors. We were having fun until the life guards decided that our kids couldn't swim in the deep end and Sadie and Will both took deep offense to that. They ended up playing happily on the playground next to the pool.

I love the lighting on these pictures of Millie.

Day 3 of our trip was just as jam-packed. My mom generously arranged a little birthday party at Chuck E Cheese for Sadie. When my parents were in Utah in June Sadie basically declared that we would do that in Boston and my mom obliged.

On the way there I took this picture to document some of the struggles. These 4 cousins don't seem to be able to play together well. The older 2 tend to tease and then get one of the younger girls to gang up on the other one. Not only that, but Elise and Lauren just seem to clash a bit. Hopefully that gets better with age.

Back to Chuck E Cheese. They had this kinda weird cut out as part of the birthday party package. I accidentally forgot it.

Millie and Elise stuck to rides, while Sadie and Will seemed to play a lot more games.

Elise really liked to think of herself as helpful.

The birthday party was really cute. Sadie loved all the attention.

Elise turned down the photo op with Chuck E.

Sadie and Will got to go in the ticket blaster. None of my pictures from when it was turned on came out. It blew tickets all over while they tried to gather as many as possible. There was 1 golden ticket that was worth up to 1,000 tickets. When Sadie scratched it off, it was worth 1,000! The employee there said it isn't very common.