After a week of sick kids (hand, foot, mouth) and a quick visit from my dad, preparing to leave my kids for a week, our first real getaway since having kids was a welcomed relief. We were in Boston for Andy’s Emergency Medical conference. First, here are some snapshots of the week before.
We started the week off rough with HFM. Max and Harvey had it the worst. 
It meant a week off of school for these kiddos 
But we made the most of our time at home! 
We did crafts, play doh, sibling time, painted pumpkins, read books, practiced sight words and math, and much more. 
“Hold me Papa,” or in other words “tickle me…” 
Mav played catcher for a bit. 
That is a look of pure joy on Harvey’s face. 
Mav was lucky enough to have Papa come watch one of his games. 
When Mav finally made it back to school, he made sure to bring home a fireman hat for all of his siblings. 
This does not look comfortable. Andy says he frequently checks on them at night before going to sleep to move them around so they’re not always smashing each other. 
I got a babysitter for a girl’s night on Friday night. It was the first time I’ve done this and it was so fun to paint and get to know ladies in the area better.
It was so nice to see my dad, even if it was only for one night. We watched a movie, ate pizza, attended Mav’s tball game (which is quite entertaining in the comedic sense). It was a very wonderful evening. The next couple of days were a blur as I run ragged getting ready for our trip. I had close to 15000 steps a day the week before our trip and the same on our trip. We had so much fun exploring the city despite the cold and many sight seeing cancellations. We were going to go to a Boston ghost tour, but it got canceled. We thought about going whale watching, but it was the last week of the season for whales and it would’ve been canceled anyway due to the gale warning. Many locations around Boston had no power. We were fortunate and didn’t suffer any power outages and I didn’t mind bundling up in boots and my new coat to wander the city. We ate some delicious food, got to know Andy’s coworkers a lot better (maybe a little too well, as they drank a fair bit and wound up very inebriated and free to saying whatever was on their minds). One of the funniest moments was when one of his coworkers– at an open bar networking party– said to Andy, “Hey Andy now that you’re drunk (he wasn’t obviously), what do you really think about me?” Andy’s response was, “I’m not drunk, but I’ll tell you what I think about you anyway…” Andy has no problem being blunt and honest. It’s refreshing and one of the things I love about him. I had a gospel discussion with another one of his coworkers who told his wife later that he doesn’t remember what we talked about but that he knows it had something to do with religion. I thought we were having a good conversation, but Andy whispered in my ear, “it’s not worth your time, he won’t remember anything.” And, he was right. But I still enjoyed the conversation. He asked me a question that really caused me to think. He asked me how I could believe in a church that believed they were the only ones with the right answer. I told him that God loved all of his children equally and there were many people who have lived who had never even heard of the name of Jesus Christ and that when they die every person will receive and equal opportunity to accept the gospel and Jesus Christ. He then asked, “So what’s the point of living it on this earth if you can just do it later?” That’s when Andy popped in and told me he was too drunk to remember anything, but that question stuck with me. And here is my response. “Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.” But in addition to that, living the gospel of Jesus Christ on this life brings peace and happiness in family life. There were many unhappy wives during ACEP due to the money and worry that the alcohol caused. Living the gospel of Jesus Christ protects us and families as we live it to the best of our abilities. I have a tiny hope that some of the truths seeped through the waves of alcohol. I have actually talked to his wife about religion a fair bit and thought he was a lost cause, but I now think deep down he actually wants more direction in his life than he lets on.
Our last day was my favorite day. We wandered the booths in the morning and got swag for our kids, had an incredible lunch at a seafood restaurant. I got scallops and lobster bisque and Andy got the lobster Mac n Cheese. It was all delicious. I am super glad we don’t live in Boston though because we would go broke super fast. It is expensive to eat, drive, and live there. We went to the job fair Monday night and stopped at one booth because they had a pink stress ball we wanted to get Beverly. They are from a hospital in New York. I said, “How is the work load at the hospital.” Her response definitely did not win me over. “If you can work here, you can work anywhere. My kids all turned out well even though we had to work long hours and we were both working to provide a good life for our kids. If you are resilient you will do well here. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger…” And other similar points of interest. I do not think New York was on our list before, but it most definitely is not now. We were able to learn about some of the new tech the world is coming forth with in Medicine and it is pretty amazing. I think about how far we’ve come in the last twenty years and can’t even imagine where we’ll be in the next twenty. We met some potential locum employers (they contract out extra shifts for extra pay), some disability insurance companies, and potential future opportunities for employment once Andy gets out of the military. That evening we walked to China town and ate Ramen. It was delicious and the cheapest meal we had in Boston. We walked a little further and got some Chinese merchandise for our kids and mom, since she was watching our kids, and then we walked the freedom trail for a mile. It was actually really cool. If you play video games at all, Fallout 4 uses the freedom trail in their game, so it was kind of fun to live the trail in real life. It was also really neat to look up the history of the church, the subway, and the old capitol building is now a fancy steakhouse. After a while we walked to the movie theater to watch the new Venom movie. It was well done, but the cool part was the the theater. It hasn’t really been updated since maybe the 70’s or earlier. The decor was very retro and neat. Since it was late when we finished we talked about getting an uber, but we found a rent-a-bike station close to the theater and rode back to the hotel. It took about the same amount of time as an uber would and a heck of a lot cheaper and it was so much fun! I wish we had discovered the rent-a-bikes earlier in our trip. The trip went by fast but it was long enough that I was ready to get back home to my kids and my routine. The kids had so much fun with my mother-in-law and I think she really enjoyed the time with them too, especially Harvey.
Headed out 
We had fun walking around the city 
There’s the Boston Harbor where the “Boston tea-party” event happened 
We took this picture for Maverick who loves firetrucks 
First night. Behind us is a out door concert amphitheater 
The airport is actually across this bay. 
This was a cool statue. It is called “The Partisans” It depicts Polish underground fighters who battled the German Nazi and Soviet Russia forces during WWII. I have to admit I had never heard about them before! 
We did actually attend some classes. 
The ACEP welcome party was later named “the funeral” by Andy’s coworkers. It started with a ten minute vigil for all who have died from COVID. The residents were annoyed by this because they grieve on a daily basis with all of the deaths due to COVID (and other unrelated ER visits), they were just there to forget all of their sorrows and ACEP didn’t make that easy. 
But Andy made the most of it. 
This is all of Andy’s coworkers that attended ACEP (and one other wife I believe). 
After the party we went to a dive bar. It was a cultural experience for sure. We found a quiet corner with his coworkers and swapped stories from the ER and had a lot of laughs. 
Tuesday night was “open bar” night at the hotel. 
Wednesday we did lunch right with some delicious Lobster 
This was our view at lunch. 
On our way to China town 
China Town was quite pretty right smack dab in the middle of the city. 
Andy had a headache (which unfortunately isn’t out of the norm for him) 
But this spicy Ramen bowl helped kick it. 
This is the Boston Massacre memorial 
This is Benjamin Franklin monument 
Here was the first school in the United States 
Andy told me I needed a picture by it. 
Standing on the freedom trail. I wonder how many people walk on this on a daily basis and take their freedoms for granted. 
Biking back to the hotel 
night views
Back at home Grandma took the kids to their sports games and snuggled with Harvey. I think it was a good week for all of them, though maybe a little on the exhausting side for Grandma.
When we got back we got into the Halloween spirit and watched some scary LifeTime movies with mom before she took off on Saturday. We had a ton of fun with her and our kids did too. We hope she loved it enough to do it again some time ;).