Boston Architectuer

While my family was visiting I happened to be in Boston for the first time after dark. I love this clock tower at night!

Here is a night view of the Cricket Weather vein atop Faneuil Hall in Boston.

This is the Marriott Hotel on Long Wharf in Boston. From the harbor end of the building it looks like a ship.

New England Aquarium Final Episode

The NEA had Sharks and Rays. We could actually touch them. We were instructed to place our hand in the water palm down and wait for the Sharks and Rays to swim to us. Then we could touch them behind the eyes as they swim past. The Rays really seemed to like being touched as they frequently came to hands in the water. My niece was loving touching the Rays. My son and older nephew touched the Rays but weren't as into it as my niece. I didn't like the feel of them. The sharks weren't swimming around, they were sort of in a pile near the edge of the tank. I believe each of them were able to get near to touch them.This is my niece touching a Ray.
Here was a Jelly Fish. I loved trying to get a good picture of them.

It was a great trip to the aquarium!

New England Aquarium Continued

They have a great touch tank at the NEA. The kids can pick up the animals as long as they don't take them out of the water and are gentle. My niece, nephews and son really enjoyed it.

Here are the three of them looking and deciding what to touch. "Touch it with me..." My niece wanted to touch the Horseshoe Crab, but didn't have quite enough courage to do it alone. Her big brother was great and obliged without even a hint of giving her a hard time!
Here is the 3 year old nephew. He was having a great time too!
Here are, from back to front, my niece's, nephew's and son's hands exploring. This is a moment in time recording I believe the first time my son has touched, but definitely picked up any water animal.

New Engalnd Aquarium (NEA)

My sister and her family was in Boston last week. My son and I went into Boston 5 out of 6 days. We took the commuter rail in a few of days and drove and parked at the U.S. Coast Guard station a couple of times. We walked a lot and had even more fun. I hadn't seen her for 8 years. So it was a great reunion and I had the opportunity to get to know hew wonderful kids over the week.

Here our son was watching the penguins. They have 3 or 4 different types there.

Here is my 15 year old nephew, my son, and my almost 10 year old niece. Behind them is a gigantic Loggerhead Turtle.
This guy has been at the NEA since the 1960's. I didn't catch how old he is.
Here is a view of him from the top of the tank. He is about 4 feet long I'm guessing.

The tank is a 3 story tubular tank with a ramp spiraling along it to the top. The kids were totally enthralled with this turtle. There were racing up the ramp trying to keep up with him as he swam around the coral in the center of the tank!

Bubbles

Our neighbor has a pool and our son goes down there all the time. For their son's birthday they bought a bubble blower. The boys had a natural lesson in surface tension. When they got out of the pool and went and stood next to the bubble blower the bubbles would stick to them. As they dried off they popped. After they were too dry the bubbles popped as soon as they touche teir skin. They were entertained just jumping into and them out of the pool, getting covered in bubbles, watching them until they were too dry and then starting over again!

Kazakhstan

Today we went to a presentation by a woman who lived as a missionary kid most of her youth. As a teenage girl her family lived in Kazakhstan. She spent 9-11th grades there. In her 10 grade year she focused on learning Kazakh so she could attend local schools as she wanted some friends. She would spend 5 hours or more a day learning the language. It is a very melodic and beautiful language.

Above you see a Dombra, an ornate tapestry, a head covering that matches the blazer of her native formal wear, and a blue head covering from Afghanistan (I do not remember what it is called, I will try to look it up), a vest, and a staple food that is a fry bread similar to donuts.

Here she is demonstration the head covering she would wear when she was in public while serving herself in Afghanistan.
Next you see our son playing the Dombura.

It was really interesting listening to her share about what is was like living in Kazakhstan. I'm guessing our son would say the best part was the bread (we got to eat it) but he did enjoy playing the Dombra too!

This is the Kazakhstan Flag.
The Kazakhstan flag has sky blue background. In the middle of the flag there is a golden sun with thirty two rays and this sun is placed over an golden eagle. On the hoisting side of the flag there is a golden ornamentation. The ratio of the flag 's width to its length is 1:2. This national flag was adopted first on 4 th June 1994. The sky color signifies several Turkic people and also indicates the sky god. The ornamentation stands for the cultural heritage of old Kazakhstan while the eagle indicates to the golden rule of Genghis Khan empire in Kazakhstan.

Great Spring Weather

It was so nice here this week that we spent the better part of each day on the deck. It was too nice to be inside. Rain is coming sometime and we can do inside stuff then!
This week the city is flushing the fire hydrants.
What fun for two boys! ...........This............
Led to this........after they shut the hydrant off and it was no longer deep enough to just scoop up
..............which led to this...............!
They did get muddy, and they had great fun.

Beautiful Day!

After heavy rains yesterday and most of this morning we had a very nice afternoon. I decided to take our son on a nature walk through the woods behind our house. We know the deer walk through there regularly so we were watching for deer sign (which we saw lots of) and anything to indicate spring might be coming along soon. Here are some deer tracks in the snow. I elected not to photograph the copious amounts of other signs we saw of deer! :0

Here is one of the signs of spring we saw while out and about. I am so excited to see the leaf buds on the trees!

We then walked up the road to the power lines. Our son sometimes comes here on the skimobles with the neighbor boy and his dad. He was showing me where they ride. Did you know these big power lines actually "hummm" with electricity? They do! It is really quite disconcerting.
Here is our son, with a stick~isn't that how all boys are outside if we ain't saying, "Put that stick down!" So he would start running and and drag the stick through the water and watch the splash and wake. (He loves it when daddy drives fast through puddles too!)

When we walked around the corner and our house came into view our son said, " Thank you mom for going on a walk." How sweet. As we walked in the front door my cell phone rang.

It was my husband. (The car was in the drive so I figured he was seeing when I would be back.)

Me: Hi honey.

Husband: Where are you?

Me: We just walked in the door, I was calling your name instead of answering the phone.

Husband: That's too far.

Me: Oh? Why. where are you in the back? (I'm thinking he is in the back yard looking towards the trees as he knew we were going on a walk.)

Husband: No, I tracked you. But you left the dirt and snow and walked into the street and I didn't know where you went for sure.

Me: {laughs} Sorry, we were to quick for you! We went up to the power lines, then walked around the long way home.

Husband: Yeah, I figured that's where you went because that the direction your feet walked out of the snow.

Me: Well we will walk up and meet you. Which way are you going to go?

Husband : Past Eric's.

Me: OK, see you in a few.

Well, we didn't go home, we walked back up to the power lines. Then we went for a walk through another woods.

Look what we could see! The ground!

Here is our son sitting and a rock in the sun, isn't he handsome!

Here we saw this sign up high in a tree. We looked around and there was obviously NOT a tree farm anywhere near. Our son is about 4 1/2 feet tall. The bark has grown over the top of the sign. We figure the sign was about 6 foot off the ground when it was first posted. It looks to be about 13 feet high now. We thought it was pretty neat to know that the area was once upon a time a tree farm.

We walked along the skimoble trail until the water became deep from melting snow to go on. We found some owl pellets, we brought one home to dissect later. They are $5.00 to order by mail!

So we had a great walk that lasted a little over 2 hours.