A dream come true and Paul Revere

Yesterday our adventure started with a visit to a local LDS church in Cambridge. Let me just say it was the most unique sacrament meeting I have ever been to. The organist was outstanding, but slightly neurotic. But boy, could he improvise counterpoint and interludes! The first speaker turned out to be the only speaker, as he never stopped talking, and the meeting ended with skipping the closing hymn in favor of a very odd musical number....very interesting to say the least. We caught the subway back to the hotel, and once again ditched Mark for an adventure.

Where did we go? Why, to Dorchester Heights of course. If you have not read about my obsession with Henry Knox, I have blogged about him a couple of times. He saved Boston from the British in 1776 by hauling 59 canon from Fort Ticonderoga 300 miles away and secretly installing them on top of Dorchester Heights on the foggy night of March 17th, 1776. The British woke up and thought they were surrounded by an immense army, and they left Boston with no bloodshed.

Abram and I had always dreamed of actually standing on the spot that Henry and his men had fortified. I absolutely love the story, and I wanted to see the spot for myself. It was amazing. Probably the highest point in Boston, with the bay on one side, and all of Boston on the other. There is a beautiful monument there, but sadly it is locked up because nobody visits there. It was well worth the subway ride and 1-mile walk through south Boston to get there. It is holy ground.

We walked back through South Boston, sticking out like sore thumbs. We had an excellent lunch at Broadway Cafe, and finally made it back to the T. We decided to go visit Paul Revere again, which meant a lot more walking. As we arrived at the Paul Revere Mall, a very crazy thing happened.

Actually, it wasn't too crazy for me. I tripped. I am clumsy and extremely uncoordinated--that's no secret. But this trip ended with me falling hard. Really hard. I cut up my knee and knocked my forehead on the bricks. After a few seconds, I was able to get up and walk over to a nearby bench. But I felt really, really weird and shaky and dizzy. The boys sat on either side of me, which is a good thing, because within 4 seconds I fainted.

That's right. I fainted right there at the feet of Paul Revere. Fell right back, and if the boys hadn't caught me I would have ended up cracking my head on the bricks. I was out for about 10 seconds, during which I started dreaming, until I was shaken awake by Abram and Jacob. I had no idea what had happened, but as I came to the red bricks clued me in to where I was, and I realized that I had fainted from hitting my head when I fell.

The crazy thing is that the boys say that my eyes were OPEN the entire time! So creepy.

I laid down on the bench for about 30 minutes and stared at Paul Revere while Abram ran to buy me some water. I finally was well enough to walk again, but still was rather shaky the rest of the night.

Good times.

Paul Revere--the only man to ever make me faint.

Then an early bedtime so we could wake up at 5:00 am to get ready for Marathon Monday.

Freedom Trail

Saturday was cold and windy and not a great day to go sight-seeing. But that didn't stop us. We had breakfast with Mark and then ditched him so we could walk the Freedom Trail. I have good pictures on the real camera, so you'll have to wait for pics until I get home.

We walked to the north end, and visited Paul Revere's house, where Abram found some revolution-era currency replicas for a souvenir. At about this time I saw a little boy wearing a 3-corner hat from a gift shop, and I asked if either of them wanted one. Abram said, "I already have one." Jacob said, "why in the world would I want one of those?" Two boys, same parents, totally opposite.

We scooted on to the Paul Revere Mall where we gazed at the magnificent sculpture of Paul on his horse. We continued on to the Old North Church, and then decided to make a trek across the Charles River to the USS Constitution. It was so stinking cold and windy, and the marathon had brought out ridiculous crowds of tourists, so we opted out of waiting 90 minutes to go onboard the ship. We instead decided to hike up to the Bunker Hill monument. And hike we did. When we got to the top, we saw the picture I have attached, which I cannot make go the right way. It shows a group of tourists on Segways. As we had walked at least 6 miles at this point, we thought the Segways looked like a good option. We decided to climb the 294 steps to the top of the monument, and the views of Boston all around were amazing from the top.

We walked back across the bridge and through Quincy Market, where we had planned to catch the subway to the Museum of Fine Art. However, there was an incredibly talented group of street performers doing cool gymnastics and feats of strength, and it reeled us in. Then we had just enough time to meet Mark for dinner--back to the North End for some pasta. Along with 26,000 other runners and their families.

Then an early bedtime, and more adventures on Sunday.

Boston day 2

Today was exhausting. But so amazing. We woke up at 6:30 am and went for a run along the Charles River. We saw some elite runners who also had the same idea, and that was pretty dang cool. On the way home we happened upon the Granary Burial Ground, where Paul Revere, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and many other revolutionary heroes are buried.

After breakfast, the boys and I ditched Mark so he could rest his feet, and we set off to tour the state capitol and to see Fanueil Hall. I was unbelievably ecstatic to find my favorite Gilbert Stuart portrait of Henry Knox there, along with a portrait of George Washington on top of Dorchester Heights. What treasures. The NPS ranger was amazed that I knew who Henry Knox was. He told me how to get to Dorchester Heights, which I plan to do tomorrow. Oh, Henry!

We then met up with Mark for lunch.  After lunch we went to the running expo where Mark picked up his bib and shirt, and we spent too much time and money on souvenirs. Hope the kids like their shirts when we get home.

We headed back to the hotel for a quick change into our winter gear to see the Red Sox play at Fenway. Again, Mark stayed to sleep, and the boys and I had an adventure, complete with" partially obstructed view" seats and a wrong turn onto Boylston after the game that took us on an extra long walk back to the hotel. It was so fun.

Abram is in love with all the quaint and historic buildings and streets--and he hasn't even been on the Freedom Trail yet. What will he say tomorrow?

Beantown!

We made it to Boston. I have dreamed of this day since I was 14. That was the trip of a lifetime with my family in the purple station wagon for a month-long odyssey across the county. The trip today was nearly as traumatic.

It all started with an all-nighter for me, as I frantically tried to get our house and kids ready for us to leave for 10 days. Plus, we had 70 shrubs I had to place in the beds in order for the planters to get them in the ground today. I finished everything I needed to do at about 2:30 am, but I figured that going to sleep for one hour would mess me up more than staying awake, so I stayed up.

Our taxi came to the house at 4:15. We hopped in and he asked where we were flying. Mark told him we were heading to Boston to run the marathon. The driver said, "no kidding? How far is your marathon?" I was stunned. 3 minutes into our trip and my second-least favorite question had been asked. My ultimate least favorite question is when I have all the kids with me and someone asks, "are they all yours?" Duh. Look at them.

Anyway, we sailed on to Denver without an incident. While waiting for our connecting flight to Boston, it started to snow. I was in heaven. We hopped on to the plane and made our way out to the runway. The plane started to take off, but then stopped. Sadly, we were without a functional engine #2. We spent an hour on the plane while they assessed the damage, and then spent an hour in the terminal while we waited for a new plane to arrive. We loaded up on the new plane, where we sat for another hour while they loaded bags and 2 entire trailers of US mail.

Finally we were on our way.

Tomorrow we are going to run around the commons and then go walk the freedom trail before the masses arrive Friday night. I also must go find Dorchester heights and a memorial to my hero Henry Knox.

Good night.

Where is heaven?

I have always told Zachary that he came from heaven and that he is an angel. He loves to look through his baby pictures and have me tell him about the day he came from heaven. He tells me that he "pickeded" me to be his mom and that I cried when he came out of my tummy because I was so happy.

He has been asking if we will ever have a new baby, and also asking where heaven is. I tell him that he is our baby, and that I don't exactly know where heaven is. He says that "we need a new human baby to play with because we love babies."

I did not know these questions were related until today.

Zack told me that if I would not buy a new human baby, then he was going to sneak out of the house tonight with Jacob and go to heaven where he could get a baby for us.  He told me that Jacob knows how to drive there.

I love my Zack.

Status symbol

In the running world, there is perhaps no status symbol as prestigious as the Boston Marathon jacket. It has always been a very nice looking jacket, with beautiful embroidery of their unicorn logo all over the back. I mean BEAUTIFUL embroidery. But manly. The embroidery was what made this jacket so authentic, and so elite. Runners wear these jackets when they want to get noticed. Not exactly subtle, and perhaps a bit in-your-face, but the Boston jacket is something to envy. If you see someone wearing it, it means that person is a faster runner than you are, or has achieved the unachievable by qualifying for the Boston Marathon. These jackets aren't free, typically $95 at the running expo. But almost everyone who runs Boston buys a jacket. You just have to buy one, even if you are a big, buff guy who doesn't typically wear unicorns on your apparel. It's just THAT cool to have one.

During the past 2 1/2 years as Mark and I have become runners, we would see someone at a race with a Boston jacket and stare. As Mark's BQ became more likely, he really started watching for people wearing their unicorn jackets--at stores, at airports, at races. They are all over when you start watching for them. When Mark qualified last summer, he couldn't wait to buy a jacket and wear it as a real Boston 2011 runner.

Well, Adidas is the official sponsor, and when their product line for Boston 2011 came online, Mark went to take a look. He noticed at first that the logo colors have changed from the historic blue and gold to black and bright green. Fine. Whatever. But then on closer look at the jacket back, it was OBVIOUS that the logo was screen printed. Yeah. Like that guy down the street can do in his garage. Not that there's anything wrong with screen printing. But for the Boston Marathon official jacket? What?

Upon reading the comments, everyone was complaining about a screen printed jacket. So many people complained that Adidas posted this lame-o excuse on their website:

We sincerely appreciate your feedback on the Official Boston Marathon Jacket. You helped us discover an error made in our supply chain that resulted in a screen printed logo instead of embroidered logo. As seen in previous images on shopadidas.com, we thought we were getting embroidered products too. We apologize for the confusion and thank you for alerting us. While not what was anticipated, the Official Boston Marathon Jacket for 2011 is screen printed.

"Helped us discover an error????" How dumb do they think runners are. Crazy, yes. Dumb, no. Nobody on their design team noticed? Nobody in manufacturing or shipping? Nobody? They had models wearing the jackets and photographers shooting pictures for the catalog and website, writers inspecting and handling the jackets to write their little blurb sales-pitch to go alongside the picture, other promotional materials made showing the screen printing, but it took some consumers purchasing these jackets to help them discover the error? What planet are they from?

To compensate the 20,000 runners who were so excited to buy and wear this jacket, Adidas slashed the price by-----$10. Are you kidding me? Lame, lame, lame, lame, LAME!!!!

Of course, Mark will buy one of these jackets, even though Adidas thought they pulled a fast one. Who knows if we will ever be back for the Boston marathon? And everyone knows I love a guy in a unicorn jacket.

Let's hope Adidas had no involvement in the medals.

The snoring granny

Zachary is a pretty tough kid. He doesn't complain about things, and he has a very high tolerance for pain. He doesn't scare easily, but he is terrified of one thing---the snoring granny.

I have no idea what it is about the snoring granny in this book that gives him nightmares, but boy, does it ever give him nightmares! We have had this book for about 16 years since Abram was a babe, and all of our kids have had it read to them, and the pictures were always just a fun part of the story. But Zacky doesn't like that snoring granny. Not one bit.

He wakes up about once a week in the middle of the night screaming and crying. He is inconsolable. When you ask him what is wrong, he tells us that he had "a snoring granny dream." What happens in a snoring granny dream? Well, turns out that the snoring granny tries to take Zachary away from his family.

This is one reason that Zachary is afraid to be in any room of our house alone. He is sure the snoring granny will be able to get him if nobody is with him. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the youngest of 7 kids, who has rarely ever been alone in his life, is terrified of being alone. Especially when there is a snoring granny involved. It makes for some complex psychology in a 4-year-old's brain.