Whew!

I am so glad to be back home with all my kids.  Well, at least 6 of my kids.  Abram flies home tomorrow night after he takes his last final.  Then it will be really amazing to have everyone together again, even though it will be for only one week because Abram will be leaving for 2 years on May 1st. We will have a lot to take care of in that one week getting him ready and all packed up to go.

I wish I could have written more while we were in Boston.  Our hotel in Boston did not have a computer for guests to use, and I really, really, really hate typing on my phone.  When we got to New York, our hotel there had a computer, but it was really old and really slow, and there was always a huge line of people waiting to use it.  I finally went to the Apple store on 5th Avenue to get the pictures off of our memory card and to write the few posts I was able to do last week.

We were glued to the news in NYC.  We did our tourist thing (which will be detailed in some following posts) but every TV in every place we went was showing the news about the manhunt.  We were so relieved when it came to such a quick end.  Forever we will be grateful for the law enforcement community who tirelessly worked until the bombers were captured.  And it wasn't out of vengeance that we watched this manhunt.  Although we had been so close to the bombing, and had been affected profoundly by it, our great interest was purely wanting to know that the city of Boston was safe!

So now I am home and ready to get back to my real life.  I started to look through the compact flash card from Mark's camera, and I found some pictures from the week before we went to Boston.  To lighten things up, I think I'll start detailing the events in the few days before we left on our trip.

If you ever need to find Savanna or Zack, the are usually sitting at the bar in the kitchen working on some sort of art project.  This is what they were doing in the days before we left for Boston.

 Aubrey was designing a t-shirt image for our upcoming youth conference.  It is this Saturday, and Mark and I are in charge of it....This week is going to be a killer.

Mark was battling a knee injury, and he spent the week icing his knee and resting.  I am sure that because he did this, his body was able to make it through the race with his knee working fine.  Everything else was cramped and in pain, but his knee was alright.

Noah learned how to mow the lawn.  He had to do the traditional "Mow your name in the lawn on your first time" thing.

Savanna did some pushups.  She is a very strong girl.  When she was very little she would sometimes dress like a superhero (wearing a cape and undies over tights, you know) and tell us her name was "Stronger Girl."  She really is.

 Zachary read some books.

I took care of everything else.  It was a very tiring week.  But I actually had fun cleaning the house.  I had been teaching so much and taking care of other things, that by the time I had two days to work on cleaning the house, I actually enjoyed it.  I sure was tired by the time I sat down on that airplane, though.

I think I'll finish with one of my favorite stories to come out of Boston.  If you've seen this, sorry.  But I love it.  At every Red Sox game, in the middle of the 8th inning, the entire crowd gets on its feet and sings "Sweet Caroline."  It is so fun to be part of that excitement.  This trip, my Red Sox game got rained out, unfortunately.   This week, the Yankees played "Sweet Caroline" to honor those affected by the Boston tragedy.  I thought that was pretty sweet to see rivals showing solidarity. I learned that Neil Diamond himself showed up at Fenway Park on Saturday to sing "Sweet Caroline" in person as his way of doing something small to bring joy and hope to that beautiful city.  We all want to do something to help, but most of the time, we don't know what to do.  I am so glad Neil knew what to do to spread some cheer to the people of Boston.  Yes, I do love Neil Diamond.  Always have, always will.