When we returned from New York we brought my in-laws and Thomas' sister with us. None of them have been to Boston before so we tried to show them a good time. Whenever someone comes to visit we like to see something we haven't seen before. We've done the Freedom Trail about 24 times so if we can get something new in there it makes things a little more interesting.
On this tour of downtown we decided to go to the Mapparium. They have a 30 foot tall stained glass globe built in 1920 that you can walk through the center of. Like, you're inside the earth! It's amazing! They don't let you take pictures in there which is lame but the rest of the building was pretty great too. We spent a good amount of time trying out the acoustic tricks in the globe- you can whisper at one end of it and 30 feet away another person standing opposite you can hear it loud and clear. You guys, it's pretty amazing.
From there we had some lunch at the Prudential Center which is right around the corner from the Mapparium, and got on our way to the Freedom Trail. We hit the major spots- Quincy Market, Omni Parker Hotel, some ancient graveyards and of course the Boston Common.
Don't let these pictures fool you, Thomas can not ice skate. Like, at all. It was really hard to not giggle as he gripped the boards and scooted around the edge of the rink. Thomas is so good at everything, especially things like sports, science, cooking and math but ice skating might just be his Achilles heel.
On Sunday we had Thomas's aunt and uncle over for dinner. They live about 45 minutes from here and it was nice to have such a big crew to cook for. We had a rousing game of Split Second and talked until late in the evening.
It must have been Monday evening that we drove out to Gloucester for some lobster. Thomas's dad Harlan had been talking about it all week so he and Angie shared one after we stopped to see the lobster trap tree. New England has the strangest little traditions sometimes!
Later in the year this tree will be covered with lobster boyes painted by local schools and businesses. It looks really great when it's all decorated and lit up.
It was an incredibly busy week seeing all of the other Reeds between New York and Boston but it was so great to actually spend a significant amount of time with them in person. I feel so grateful to have married into such a great clan.
