My marathon

Mark may be running the Boston Marathon on Monday, but I have begun a marathon of my own.  It's called "getting the house and kids ready for me to be gone for 10 days."

Bathrooms to scrub, kitchen drawers to organize, lunches and meals to plan for, bedrooms to clean, sheets to wash, laundry to do, taxes to get mailed off, bookkeeping to finish, and a schedule of every place kids need to be and what they need to have with them needs to be written.  I suppose I should pack a suitcase as well.

We'll see how much I can get done in the next 36 hours.  Last time we went to Boston I was up until 2AM finishing things.  We were leaving at 4AM and so I decided that I would be more messed up with an hour of sleep than I would be if I just stayed awake until the taxi arrived.  Hopefully this time around I will get to sleep the night before we leave.

I can't wait to go back to my favorite Boston places, and then go to New York for 5 days after the marathon.  We are taking Aubrey and Joel with us this time, and I can't wait to show them my two favorite cities.  They have no interest in history, but I won't let that slow me down.  I still plan to make them cover the entire Freedom Trail...and parts of it twice.  Off the freedom trail, I can't wait to trek back to Dorchester Heights in south Boston and show the kids where Henry Knox and his troops surprised the British with 60 scavenged Ticonderoga cannon on the morning of March 17, 1776.  That's where the picture above was taken 2 years ago.

Let's hope I can keep my footing this year and avoid a repeat of my faint and concussion and the feet of Paul Revere.  My boys are still a bit traumatized from that little incident.