Make Way For Swans

May 3 was a beautiful day for an outing in Boston. We took the train with our friends the Robertson's and met about 50 of our friends from church for the annual celebration of "Returning the Swans to the Public Gardens." We were all a little "high" on Spring. We'd suffered a long winter and this day was perfect--not too hot, not too cold, all of the trees in bloom. It was absolutely lovely.

I might have copied the above paragraph almost verbatim from my friend Megan's post about this same outing but it was REALLY good!

David is ready for a story!

You can't complete a trip to the Public Garden without a photo of those famous ducks!

William is wearing one of his expressions...

I have to say this rendering of the book wasn't as grand as I had hoped. Maybe they can hire Danielle to read it next year? She'd nail it.

Cute friend with a cute baby.

The swans are about to be released into the public garden pond...their home for the summer.

We are all watching on the grass...I look thrilled. This might have been after William tumbled down the hill and almost fell into the pond.

We were further away from the action after the little parade but the real treat was the weather...SPRING...FINALLY! In the words of Jamie Cook another friend the it was just an "iconic Boston experience" She was interviewed by WBUR and made it onto the NPR broadcast in the evening!

More of little boys playing. Interestingly it was when William was up the hill and not playing with the water that he almost took a plunge!

A swan boat ride. Ahhhh...SPRING!

We only had to wait until May.

I was very pleased that so many enjoyed the outing because I organized it. I only really sent out a bunch of e-mails but we had a GIANT group of friends there to celebrate the swans and a new season.

Art in Bloom

I enjoyed Art in Bloom at the Museum of Fine Arts so much last year I had to go again.

Luckily Jenna and Landon came along so that made it even more fun! I got to take a glimpse at the Art of Americas exhibit I was able to enjoy a few impressive Cassatts even though they weren't part of the Art in Bloom.

The displays of flowers were exquisite. Some of them made sense with the paintings and some didn't but really how much better could it get? Beautiful art. Beautiful flowers. I was in heaven.

Obvious.

More obvious...

One of my favorites! Aren't they all lovely? This was just a fraction of the pictures I took and the arrangements and art that I saw.

There was an outstanding acapella choir there that the boys LOVED watching and listening to. Who doesn't love live music? It was delicious! We ran into several other friends making their way through the arrangements in the Art of the Americas exhibit wing.

Brad was able to meet up with us and he took William home on the T.

I am very proud that we got three boys to sort of cooperate at a museum!

Sheep Shearing Festival

We live down the street from a mansion called the Gore Place. For all those history buffs out there Gore was a former governor of Massachusetts (very early 1800's or during the Federal Period.) Anyway, the mansion has beautiful and extensive grounds which are a nice change from block after block of city. Each spring the Gore place holds a sheep shearing festival. After almost three years of living here we were finally able to attend!

The kids liked getting close and touching the sheep that had just had a hair cut.

Shaving an alpaca...

Playing with a big mask.

Watching sheep.

Sheep shearing the old fashioned way...

look at those huge shears! This was an impressive sight.

See how the fur looks like one big blanket?!

All of my boys, two of them sporting their favorite froggie rain boots.

This was a really fun family festival, however, I was shocked that my boys weren't that interested in the sheep dog demonstration! Maybe it was too late in the afternoon or too hard to see what was going on.

Playing with masks continued...

The Waltham garden club had a plastic swimming pool filled with bark mulch. They hid potatoes in the bark mulch and the kids used shovels to dig the potatoes out. Dave and Will did this over, and over, and over again. We had to drag them away from it screaming when it was time to go home.

Since the Gore place is less than a mile from our house Brad was sure he could walk home faster than I could drive. He took David by foot and I went with William by car. I beat him home by a good twenty minutes but he claims he would have been a lot faster if he could have cut through a fence and didn't have to around it to get out of the parking lot. :)

It was fabulous to enjoy this perfect spring day outdoors. We only wish we had gone earlier and seen some of our friends who had attended this festival in the morning.

Admit it...

I wasn't the only one who got up early to watch!

Because of a morning run I missed the balcony kiss which I had to watch later online.

And yes, I do believe it was a true fairy tale.

Another Car Road

Dave and Will are always making car roads and the most recent variation on this idea was to unroll toilet paper all over the house for their cars to drive on. I've pretty much accepted the fact that in order to complete any task I have to be ok with another mess somewhere else...hence me allowing them to unroll the toilet paper and mess up the living room.

I have to say it was pretty creative and kept them busy for awhile. It also went up and down our stairs, down the hallway and into our playroom.

Easter

Easter Sunday was wonderful. The drive to church was bright and lovely. Our services and classes appropriately and beautifully celebrated the Savior. I noticed so many family gatherings and children playing on the drive home from church as well. New England takes Easter more seriously than any other place I've lived. Lots of concerts at local churches (there is a church on the end of every street it seems, including ours) and white cakes in bakery windows.

It was an experience just to take all of that in.

We had a fantastic dinner with close friends. The spread was impressive. Our hosts had little details like handmade paper baskets for the kids, personal trifle dishes with grass and candy for the adults, and an an elegant table runner to name a few. It was really a peaceful afternoon!

The one thing that wasn't peaceful: trying to get the boys to cooperate for pictures before we went to church...

Egg Dyeing