Weekend Activities in New England

We visited the IHOP for breakfast on Saturday before heading up to Boston for the day. Greg had grandiose plans to hop on the 'T' (the subway for those who aren't too lazy to say the whole thing) and visit the Boston Public Library, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Commons and then dinner at Legal. We then rearranged plans a little to see our friend who lives in Cambridge and found ourselves first in Harvard Square for a bite of lunch at Grendel's Den.
Now the weather was so gorgeous that we all only wore our shoes. But Boston got a load of snow in the days before the weekend and in the warm temperature it was all melting so there was water and slush everywhere! Poor Liam got himself a good soaker crossing the streets so he and I went off in search of a change of footwear while Greg and the girl stayed behind at the Coop Bookstore to wait for our friend.

The boy and I ended up at the Coop Clothing store and holy cow was I impressed with the magnificent selection of Harvard-wear available here. A whole department store floor of women and men's clothing (let's not even make a comparison to UofW's sampling of clothes) and a big section of kid's clothes too. I found Liam a pair of thick Harvard socks (hee!) and also got both kids long-sleeved tees with Harvard on the front. The book store was equally impressive with 3 floors of books and they even had a small choir singing Christmas carols for the shoppers.

Once we met up with our friend and trucked on down to Grendel's (thanks to Kanti for asking for directions because Greg would have gotten us lost!) and enjoyed the company and meal there wasn't much time for the museum any longer. But we did get another idea to visit the Museum of Science for a Star Wars exhibit but unfortunately there wasn't much time for that either that day.

We hopped back onto the T towards Boston Commons but had to get off because there was construction to the tunnels about halfway there from Cambridge. So we hopped onto a shuttle to get down to the square but got off too soon and ended up walking a ways. Was good though to get some exercise and the weather was still mild. Got a few pictures along the way.

Once we arrived at the square we checked out the Halifax Christmas Tree. This is a tree that the city of Halifax donates to Boston for their eternal gratitude for the aid Boston sent up during the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion. Now we believe this was the Halifax tree, we didn't see a sign. But it was huge and decorated so pretty.
Walking some more through the square we came upon the Frog Pond which is an ice rink in the winter. Lots of people skating and it was interesting to me that no one came with skates. Maybe it was all tourists just renting from the skate shop there. It was pretty busy though and looked like fun.

The Commons is very large and Greg says that it was originally used by the residents of Boston to graze their farm animals. Near the end of the square Greg thought it might be prudent to check if we could reserve a table at Legal for dinner. Well, it was good thinking on his part because the earliest time they could get us in was 5:45p (we called at almost 5pm), after that we'd have to wait until late late late. So there went our plans to see the public library and we just walked through the park a little more before heading straight to Legal.

We waited about an hour for our table by the time we got there. It was jam-packed with people waiting for tables and we were lucky to have reserved even though we still had quite a wait. The kids were terrific and waited patiently without any fuss for the entire time and we ended up having a lovely meal. I had the Dover Sole for which they had to fillet it right at the table in front of me. That was fun to watch and I enjoyed the fish and wine that was paired with it. To end the meal, Greg and I shared a Boston Cream Pie (I could not possibly have resisted that!). It was late already by that time so we just headed straight home. Winks totally dropped off in the car ride home and it's no skin off my back to say Greg didn't last the ride either. *rolls eyes*

Sunday turned out to be a completely relaxing day for us all. Greg let me sleep in (yay me!) while he brought the kids down for breakfast and then, oh the lovely man, he sent me off to have breakfast on my own at the Panera downtown. Panera is a favourite coffee/pastry/sandwich chain of his that he thought I would enjoy. So at about 11am I set off with camera and book in hand to enjoy a morning off.

Because it was yet another gorgeous day I walked through most of historic downtown Newport taking pictures and then down to the wharf to see the water and more pics. Then I had my breakfast at Panera reading my book. I figured that so much time had to have gone by this point so I headed back to find that I'd only been gone for 2 hours! Wow! It was a great treat though.

Then we pretty much vegged all afternoon and at 4:30p Greg decided that it was time to take the kids swimming in the hotel pool. It was at this time that I realized I forgot to pack Liam swim trunks. oy! After it was obvious that he would not fit into Greg's shorts (!) I stomped off to find a place that sold kids clothes and that was still open on a Sunday evening! oh what a dolt I was not to have packed swim trunks! But lo and behold I was lucky enough to find a place open (as well as pretty lucky that everyone is on holiday hours!) and found a few pairs of shorts for Liam to choose from. In about half an hour the family was in the pool!

Afterwards we had a nice Mexican dinner and that was the weekend.

now I have some pics from the weekend at Flickr and you're welcome to check them out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47091617@N00/sets/1564762/

Here's a little sample

Newport City Hall art shot
Originally uploaded by Lara K.