One year in Boston!

We celebrated our one year in Boston.

What an amazing year!

We are loving our time here.  It's been such a growing experience for both Mr. H and me.  

We love having so many new places to explore.  We love getting closer as a family, and we love making great new friends.  

We are loving watching our boys grow up.  

We miss our families, and are glad we get to see them pretty often.  

I decided to make a 'boston' themed dinner to celebrate. 

We wanted to celebrate:

-we can drive downtown without a GPS!
-I can now parallel park with (nearly) no problems!

-we have experienced lobstah rolls, as well as the real thing

-our escapades getting lost in the city
-not having to move for a LONG time!!!
-and mostly, getting so closet together as our little family unit.

We made Boston Baked Beans, Durgin park Cornbread, and a Boston Cream Pie.

Note to self: NEVER attempt to make all of these at the same time ever again.

But, it was delicious.

We sure love 'our' boston!

then

now!

Beach Day!

I convinced Mr. H to take a day off and head to the beach with us.  We headed up to Good Harbor.

Such a dreamy place.

If you ever come and visit Boston, please let me take you to this beach!!!

Perfect, soft sand.

Lighthouse in the distance.

Clear blue water, with perfect rolling waves.

Anyway, we had a great time with the boys.  We are so proud of C.  He's been terrified of the water for a long time, and he conquered so many of his fears that day!!

This is what summer dreams are made of.

Not to be left out...our beach babe daddy!

Miss Cutler (or Mrs. Priedman) comes to visit

This summer has been full of fun visitors.  

One of my very best friends was able to come visit for a week.  It was such a BLAST!

I was exhausted every night but that is a good sign of how much fun we were having.  

I'm super bummed I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to.  Oh well. A sign of a good time.

The first day driving her home from the airport, we actually got caught in a FREAK hail storm.  It was a little scary.  Ha...but we made it home in time. :)

Night one we drove into Boston and enjoyed Little Italy at night...it was magical. 

The next day we headed up to Good Harbor Beach.  This beach is becoming one of my favorite special places in Massachusetts.  It is so beautiful.  We had a great day.  Perfect weather and perfect company.  

We attempted a fun dinner in Harvard square that night...which ended up being quite stressful because A. ZERO parking B. The places we had chose were closed.  Katie was a saint and it all worked out, but it was nice to get home and relax.  

The next day was C's birthday, which was so great.  

We spent the morning downtown, and it was so great showing Katie the place we had both loved studying growing up.

Our final day we spent in Concord.  We toured the Little Women house which was amazing.  The house is so so sweet.  It was us and a couple of older women and it was great.  

We ended up at Walden Pond...it was beautiful.  

It was so great spending time with Katie.  She is such an amazing girl and we had a special time together.  

Grandpa W comes to Boston

We were so lucky to be able to have Mr. H's dad, Grandpa W come stay with us for a weekend.  It had been FOREVER since we had seen him, and it was a fantastic weekend.  

The Garden's are so beautiful. 

you can't see, but Thomas is right behind us.  Cutie boys. 

We had such a random thing occur: as we were hanging out in the Common's, we noticed a guy from our home ward in Centerville walking around.  We were all talking, when then we noticed our neighbors that lived on our street in Centerville walking around too.  What are the odds???

Dinner at Durgin Park (a delightful Bostonian restaurant)

Snapshots before church

we found a spider man at the temple...I think Mr. H thought it was cooler than T did.  

We headed out to the nearest city beach in Revere.  It was cool to see a new place!

They had just finished up the sand sculpting competition...some really cool stuff!

Thanks for the visit Grandpa W!