Lots of Rain

We landed Tuesday, got to the Renaissance Waterfront Hotel, and ate a nice dinner in the North End. 2 tables next to us got into a heated discussion about the Red Sox and jobs for their kids, typical for a North end restaurant. Dinner was followed by cannolis at Mike's. The new park is terrific where the freeway used to be and we ate our cannolis there. MB then stepped in a common Boston Pothole injuring her ankle with a severe sprain. We went to the ER, Mass General, and Maddie made the unfortunate trip as light hearted as possible by posting a picture of MB's foot on facebook. A nice lady with a cool Boston accent helped us with a set of crutches and an air cast and sent us on our way. The whole trip took us over 3 hours in the Mass General hospital. Btw, in Seattle this would've taken us over 5 hours as MB has accompanied Jason on 4 such trips in the recent past.

Day 2's highlight was a trip to the garment district where we got clothes from the $1.50 per pound pile. Maddie and Jason took the T to Kendall St, meeting a rocket scientist, well, a genetic engineer for bio fuels on the T. On their walk to The Garment District Maddie found a vendor for maple syrup cotton candy. She really wanted to take some home with her but Jason denied her. The rule is that if Maddie wants to get cotton candy she must find something "junkier" in order to persuade Jason to buy it for her. At The Garment District Maddie found a pair of lucky jeans and a Boston T-shirt for Jason and she got a bunch of stuff for herself. $47 for 10 pieces of clothing and 1 pair of red canvas sneakers. We had a delicious dinner at a restaurant around the corner called, Salvatore's. Yummy pizza!

Day 3 Val and the kids came in the morning, as did Grandma Anne and Grandpa Bob, Susannah, Darrell and Sharon. MB had a delightful time at Starbucks attempting to get a "perfect" coffee for Sharon. This involved a lot of cream, then because she added so much cream the coffee became cold, we needed to get more coffee into the cup. Sadly, the line had now increased to more than 6 people. Darrell announced very loudly that he had to get out of there. Chaos ensued but finally, we were able to obtain the perfect coffee and get Darrell out of there.

Then when it was time to leave for dinner and the red sox game, another Gill family moment. In order to save the gimps some walking time, Bob offered to take us to the restaurant. Unfortunately, Bob couldn't find the car and so the gimpers actually walked double the distance than the T travelers. While in the sweltering heat, after having walked an unbelievable distance with Bob (listening to his not too complimentary comments about Anne's directions), Sharon, Darrell & Sue, got into the car and hoped for air conditioning. No such luck. Bob was conserving gas by not using the AC. Finally, he acquiesced. Unfortunately, 2 seconds into the blessed cold air relief, Darrell farted. Down went the windows for the rest of the hot trip in. MB & Susannah arrived at the restaurant and we ate Sean's simple Chicken at the Parrish cafe on Boylston Street between Arlington and Berkeley. However before ordering, Darrell proclaimed that we should not order food for him because if we made him eat it, he would puke. After the lovely dishes of chicken arrived at our table, Darrell decided he was hungry. When asked about Darrell's fickle appetite, he replied "well when we ordered I wasn't hungry, but then after the food came I decided I was hungry". When we got to Fenway Park we gave everyone a ticket but found out we were at the wrong gate. When we got to the correct one we asked Darrell if he still had his ticket. As he searched through his pockets vigorously we became nervous. Anne, not helping at all, was yelling at Darrell the whole time. Saying things like "Darrell where'd you put the ticket? The one we just gave you! where is it? Find it now or we can't get in!" did not help Darrell as he looked for his ticket. Finally Darrell pulled out a crumpled piece of paper shoved at the bottom of his pocket and we got into the stadium.The Sox lost 7-2 but the seats were pretty good, about 10 rows back in the center field bleachers. Throughout the game Darrell could not stop rocking back and forth. When Jason leaned over to ask him if he could sit still, Darrell stopped rocking but then proceed to bounce his leg up and down. After about thirty seconds of the leg bouncing, he returned to the rocking. "How come you started moving?" asked Jason. Darrell, slightly angry replied "well, am i bothering you?" Trying hard not to laugh out loud, Jason answered "no, it's just a fun game to play". With a look of relief on his face Darrell responded "well it's too hard, I can't sit still!"

Day 4 we did a canoe trip on the Charles, dodging the kid's camp for junior sailors. On our way around the river we spotted a small red eared slider turtle. Unfortunately our canoe crashed into the rocks and scared off the turtle. Dinner was remarkable at Anthony's pier 4. Jason had lobster bisque, MB gazpacho, and then main courses of a steak, seafood casserole, and shrimp scampi were delicious. The lemon tartuffo and blueberry deep dish pie with ice cream were delicious.

Day 5 we drove to the Cape, dropping off Sue in Cohasset. First home made dinner, chicken sausage over pasta after getting all of the free stuff from Roche Bros for the morning breakfast. We stayed at the South Beach Club and Resort in Mashpee.