New England Vacation...

We just got back from our much needed summer vacation (July 23-28th) as a family! We went to New England area and had an amazing time! Ash had been to Boston before, but it was a first for Lincoln and myself!

We began the trip by flying to Boston last Thursday (July 23rd) night! (Lincoln is such a great little traveler!)

Friday we began our journey! We spent the day driving up the coast and seeing the little fisherman towns. We went through Gloucester, MA & Rockport, MA! The towns were so neat! I loved all the little streets lined with shops and restaurants. It rained all day, but it didn't stop us for getting out and enjoying ourselves! We bought raincoats and Lincoln got some cute whale rain boots and we were good to go! Seeing the coast was amazing! The waves were so high and I imagine VERY COLD!

Gloucester, MA

Rockport, MA

We stopped and had a great lunch of lobster bisque and clam chowder at a cute little restaurant on the water called The Lobster Pool! It was yummy!

Then we headed on to Newburyport! It was again a small town that was full of such charm and character! It was the little "big town" closest to where we stayed while we were there! We stayed on Plum Island and it was pretty much just homes, cottages and small restaurants.

It was still raining when we got there, but that didn't stop us again! Lincoln had a blast jumping in puddles with his new rain boots! And he really enjoyed jumping in them when they splashed me! It was such a great time!

Newburyport, MA

Plum Island was such a treat! Our cottage was right across the street from the beach and such a peaceful and beautiful beach! Our little home away from home was so adorable! I definitely hope we get a chance to go back there!

Our cottage

The ocean and first glimpse of sun coming out!

Saturday we spent the day again in Newburyport, where we went on a whale watching cruise.  It was so much fun! It was about 4 1/2 hours long, meaning they took us way out in the Atlantic. We got to see several Humpback Whales! They are huge! And amazingly the people who do the tour actually can identify them. They actually name them! Apparently they identify them by the markings on their tails, pretty cool I thought! Lincoln had a great time! It was a blast for all of us!

We saw Raccoon, Tigris and Filament. In my pictures, I have no idea which is which! :) Here are a few pictures of us waiting to board the boat...

And these are from the trip to sea...

It was so quiet on the boat, everyone was watching the water and all of a sudden Lincoln yells out "oh no, the whales going to eat the birds!" The people on the boat started roaring laughing! It was priceless! This is the shot of everyone laughing at him!!!

Snoozing at Sea

A view of Plum Island from our boat...

To see some more pictures of the whales and learn more about them here is the Whale Watching companies blog:    http://whalesightings.blogspot.com

On our last night there we went out to the beach for night treasure hunt! :) Lincoln had a blast ...and I think his Daddy did, too! It was such a wonderful ending to our time there!

Sunday we headed to Nantucket!  We did a day trip to Nantucket instead of staying the night.  We decided we timed it perfectly because unless we had planned on playing on the beach, we were able to see everything we had planned on seeing!  This gave us more time to spend in Boston.  

Nantucket was fabulous and one day we plan to go and just stay on the island and just relax! I loved all the precious little shops along the cobblestone streets and all the cute cottages and restaurants on the water! Here are some pictures from the ferry ride over and pictures of the island itself.

On the ferry ride to Nantucket...

I wanted more than anything to see a true lighthouse on this trip and as the days went on, I didn't see one! :(  Finally on Nantucket I got to see one!  Yay!  Our cab driver was awesome and took us to the other side of the island to the cliffs edge to see Sankaty Head Lighthouse.  It was awesome!  Here are some pictures from the cliff...

Sankaty Head Lighthouse

Sunday night we headed back to Boston for the night and the rest of our vacation.

Monday we had a busy, busy day and night!  It was our last day and night on vacation!  Monday morning we headed to the Boston Naval Shipyard & Bunker Hill!  We had an awesome time!  Lincoln was in aww, just as we were of the two ships!  We got to see the USS Constitution and the USS Cassin Young!  We actually got to board the Cassin Young to look around, it was amazing!  We had a great time!

Here are the pictures from The Boston Naval Shipyard & Bunker Hill!  

The USS Constitution & USS Cassin Young....

The USS Constitution

The USS Cassin Young

View from the ship of the Boston Gardens, Home of the Boston Celtics Basketball

"Look at me..."
Giving the U.S. Navy a big THUMBS UP!

The communications desk
The USS Constitution

Bunker Hill

After leaving the Shipyard, we headed to Cambridge to see Harvard University!  It was so cool to walk the campus like we did!  I don't know if it was because it's summer or if it's always that open to people walking around.  We saw lots of groups who seemed to be on tours, so maybe they thought we were too ...you know, I'm sure there are always parents and their almost 3 year olds taking tours!  I guess, it's never too early to start looking, right? :)  ha!

The campus was really pretty and seemed so peaceful!  We were also shocked at how busy Cambridge is as a town.  There were shops, restaurants, etc. everywhere! I guess those students are so busy studying that when they do leave the campus they can't go far before getting back to studying so you can find anything and everything RIGHT THERE!

Cambridge

The campus of Harvard University

The Harvard University Library

Everyone is reflecting and feeling smarter just sitting on the steps of the library...

After leaving Cabridge & Harvard we headed back to downtown Boston!  The architecture in downtown Boston is AWESOME!  I could have driven around for hours just looking at buildings!  They were amazing!  There were also churches on every corner and each one was more beautiful than the next, we couldn't get over the architecture of this town!  

We also went to the Public Gardens, which reminds me of a smaller version of Central Park in NY.  It's a huge, wonderful park right in the middle of downtown.  The public gardens was great!  We walked around and also took a ride on a swan boat!  It was so much fun!  Lincoln thought it was so neat to be on the water ...with a swan ...ha!

The Swan boats

After a great afternoon in Boston, it was time to go back to the hotel for an hour nap (or actually just a rest break) before we headed to Fenway Park for a Boston Red Sox Baseball game!  Wahoo!!!  The ball game was a blast!  Lincoln was in awww of it all!  He was cheering and even learned to crack his own peanuts!  We met a great group of people behind us and they were just in love with Lincoln!  He was putting on the charm for them for sure!  Great night! So.much.fun!

Here are some pictures from the game...

Approaching Fenway Park ....ahhhhh!

And of course it wouldn't be our New England trip without thumbs up!!! :)

Lincoln giving the Red Sox, a big thumbs up!

Ummm, blue cotton candy!

Uh oh, playing great ....got two thumbs up now!

The Big Green Monster

Cracking his own peanuts!!

Great sky...

#34 Big Papi

Jumped in a Pedi-cab (bicycle cab) after the game
And within  5 seconds, he was out!

What a great vacation and the perfect ending to a wonderful 4 days!  New England was amazing and can't wait to make it back there! Hope you enjoyed our pictures!

Love...

Ash, Shanna & Lincoln

(PS- I've been typing this for over a week, so sorry for any typo's I didn't catch!)

Rain, rain go away...

The rain has been coming down HARD for several hours now! We made it to the park just before it started coming down and Lincoln got to slide a few times before it did.

It got so dark so fast outside. It was great napping weather! And Lincoln took advantage of that for sure! He slept for 2 solid hours on the couch. I managed to snap a picture of him snoozing hard!

So sweet and so peaceful!

Springtime in the middle of July...

The weather has been amazing the last two days, definitely hasn't felt like summertime in Memphis! Ash, Lincoln and I went to the Botanic Gardens for a few hours to enjoy the breeze! It was our first time on the grounds! I've been there before at night for a few functions and never new how big the gardens were ...had I realized it we would have been before now! Shame on me!

It was just wonderful! We spent all our time in the Japanese Tranquility Garden feeding the geese, swan, coy fish and the turtles. Lincoln loved it! The fish were so big and so aggressive that they were literally jumping over each other to get a bite. I thought it would freak him out because it kind of did me, but he just laughed and thought it was hilarious!


We had such a great time walking around the gardens and can't wait to go back and walk the entire place and see everything! The new Kids Backyard project is going to be great once its done! Can't wait for that too!!

Here are some of the TONS of pictures that I took yesterday! Enjoy...

Some ME enjoyment...

Reading! Ahhh! What a great way to relax. I never liked to read until I was in my early to mid-twenties! I had despised it growing up and never did much reading other than Cliff notes (you know the little summary books to cheat your way through summer reading in school)! But in my 20's I found it to be so relaxing and started reading a good bit. I always seem drawn to books like the love stories of Nicholas Sparks to the chick-type-books by Jennifer Weiner and Emily Giffin. But I think I have found my New.All.Time.Favorite.Author (if you read her books, the periods will make sense) ...Jen Lancaster!

Nadeen introduced me to her books, starting with the first Bitter Is The New Black. I haven't been able to put her down ...I'm now on my third of her books and I only started reading them a few weeks ago. I don't get much time to sit down and read, but I've been reading them any free moment that I can! She's is HILARIOUS! So, if you are looking for some good reading ...check out her series of memoirs! You will not believe that this is all one persons LIFE!

Bitter Is The New Black ~ Bright Lights, Big Ass ~ Such a Pretty Fat ~ Pretty in Plaid

Aah Yah!

Ash was putting together my new computer desk and it came with a thousand pieces of Styrofoam ...and well, this is what happened...


Lincoln inspires to be just like his cousins ...and that means Karate, too! :)

Gone fishin'

Lincoln and I went to the Children's Museum today. I'm not sure why we haven't been more often, but we haven't been there in probably over a year. He had a great time. We looked at everything and played in all the areas, but his favorite was BY FAR the fish and fishing poles! He spotted the fish and fishing poles when we walked in and I pretty much had to pry him away to look at everything else! We even went back to the fish to play some more before we left! We will definitely be going back more often! I will enjoy going more when school starts back for the bigger kids, there were kids everywhere, it was insane!

Family, food and fireless-poppers...

We had a great 4th of July! We grilled out with Sedo to celebrate. Aamo Iymon and Amto Samia made dinner for all of us (which was yummy). Amto Seema was off work and got to join us as well! Ammo Abu Sultan is still in town so he was also there to enjoy the night. We had a great time!

(Yes, that is me barely making it into the picture ...my timer is broken on my camera, so it only allows me 2 seconds and it was quite a leap to my spot ...ha)

After dinner, Lincoln and Ash went outside to throw poppers and shoot confetti poppers! We decided firecrackers might not have been a good idea so we opted for the fireless ones! They were perfect because Lincoln could partake in the fun without getting hurt! He had a blast! He loved throwing the snap-pops at Sedo and Abu Sultan's feet. They would die laughing and that tickled Lincoln. He also got a kick out of laying out a hand full in front of the door and then calling me to come outside ...and of course I would step on them and cause them to pop! I didn't fall for it once, or twice ...but three times! He thought it was hilarious!




It was really nice to relax and enjoy the evening with family! Hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday!

Loving the summer sun and sprinkler...

Just another summer day enjoying the sun and the sprinkler...

Up...

"Hey, Mr. Fredrickson..."


Today my good friend, Lori, and I took Lincoln to see the movie Up that is out! She had already taken her students to see it a few weeks ago and said Lincoln would really enjoy it, so we all went! He LOVED it! We had a blast! He sat through the entire movie without needing to get up or taking a nap. He sat so quietly and ate his popcorn! I was so proud of him!

It was such a sweet little movie, sad at moments, but such a good story. We will definitely have to add that one to our collection!