The Walker Family: Our Boston Summer: Week 6

Another week to remember in the books! Week six means we are half way through this adventure. It's bitter-sweet. In lots of ways I am ready to get back to our normal life, but I am also starting to panic that we don't have enough time to do everything we want to do here in Massachusetts!

The big news of the week is that we moved out of the hotel!! I make it sound like I couldn't wait to get out of there, and while I was definitely ready for more space, we had it pretty good. I mean, I'm not complaining about the hot breakfast every morning (I think I gained 10 lbs.), and the housekeepers (who became some of our closest friends here), and the cable (some of our favorites...Modern Family and Naked & Afraid...unfortunate title, I know). We had fun. A lot of fun. In retrospect, hotel living was really good for our family. We had to be creative, and we had to learn to love being together...like really close together. It really was a good time.

During our time in the hotel, we obviously had to have some ground rules. But, on our last night, we broke all the rules and ended up with this...

I also tried to snap a few pictures of things that were a big part of our stay. One being, this telephone. It was Grant's favorite toy, and I spent more than half of my time trying to keep him away from it. About half -way through however, we got smart and just unplugged the thing. Best thing we ever did.

This is where Christian slept (with sheets of course). Every single night we would unfold the couch and transform it into his bed. and every single morning, I would fold it back up. He may or may not have wet that bed once or twice. Oh, and if you were wondering about Christian's night light? We just opened the microwave. We're so classy.

We were able to borrow a little high chair for Grant from a friend which was a life-saver, and we attached it to the office chair. It was perfect for trapping him, and wheeling him around the room. It did take me a good long time to get all of the crumbs out of the tiny crevices when we left.

All such fond memories.

On Monday morning, we were out. Mark obviously had to work, so it was up to me and the boys. Christian was a big help, except for when he insisted on riding on the luggage carrier, making it just that much harder for me to push the darn thing.

Bye Bye 305! You've been good to us!

In the weeks before we headed to Massachusetts we spent a lot of time house hunting. Places were limited, and expensive. We thought we had found the perfect place and that everything was working out how it was supposed to, but a week before we were supposed to leave, the perfect place fell through. We were devastated. Not to mention, terrified to be travelling across the country with our two little kids, with no where to live. I should have had more faith, because of course, all of the pieces came together just how and when they needed to. We have been so blessed. We are now living in a beautiful mother-in-law apartment of a family in our ward. They are the most wonderful, selfless people I have ever met, and words cannot express how grateful I am to be here.

The other beautiful thing about this place is that there are eight kids in this family! Talk about built-in friends! I'm sure you will see more of them in the coming weeks. We couldn't be happier here.

After taking a few days to get settled into our new place, we enjoyed some time with friends. We live for play-dates around here!

Especially when they include bubbles, face paint, and ice cream!

Oh, and a dog!

On Friday, we decided to be super spontaneous (maybe a little too spontaneous) and drive to New York City! It's definitely been on our bucket list while we're here, and let's just say it's a weekend trip we'll always remember! We booked a hotel in Queens (sketch) and within the first few minutes of being there, I was pretty sure I was going to hate New York. I was a little terrified of all the cars, and people, not to mention to the subway (I mean, is that not the best place to commit a crime? No supervision, tons of people packed into a tiny tunnel... I was sure there was going to be a bomber, or anthrax at the very least.)

Although we seemed to be the only ones to have our babies out on Times Square at 11:30 pm, I was really glad I braved the subway to get there. It was unbelievable. So fun to see and be right in the middle of all the excitement.

Aside from walking up and down the streets to see the street performers and characters, We visited M&M World, the Hershey Store, and Toys R Us.

Christian and Mark were the very last ones to get on the Toys R Us Ferris Wheel for the night, and felt pretty lucky to have gotten the fire truck car!

After all the festivities, we finally made it back to the hotel after midnight. The kids thought it was the coolest thing that we were all going to be sleeping together in the king-sized bed.

But just two hours later, it wasn't that cool anymore when we were all woken up by Christian throwing up all over the bed, and Grant. While I certainly felt bad for everyone involved, I couldn't help but be so grateful that he was sick in the hotel, where I didn't really have to clean anything up! An hour later, more vomit, and finally, we all fell back to sleep for a few hours.

The end result... Poor Christian. Poor Grant. Poor Mark.

Because of our rough night, we were sure that we would be turning right back around and driving the three and a half hours home. But fortunately, Christian started to feel better and we were able to enjoy a little bit of sight-seeing around the city.