Boston Children's

Before any trip, I do hours of research on the local hospitals.  Where is the local hospital in the case we have a broken ankle?  Seizure that needs immediate attention?  Depending on the situation and the caliber of the local hospital, sometimes I will dig further into the "what if we suspect a shunt malfunction, we have some time to drive to a better hospital, and I don't want a rogue surgeon at EBF General messing with my kids head?" 

Our trip to Boston was no different, only the research was a lot easier to do because:

1) We have a great friend who works in the neurology department at Boston Medical Center and did all sorts of research and expert recommendations for me.

2) Our local friends with kids could recommend hospitals based on their experience.

3) Who hasn't heard of Boston Children's Hospital?

And while I am ever so grateful for the hospital help, I am moreover grateful that we did not have to go to any hospital in Boston.  Not once.  Not even for a broken ankle or allergic bee sting. And better yet, not for emergency seizure help or a shunt malfunction.

But we DID go to Boston Children's... MUSEUM.  On our first day post-longest road trip ever.  Everyone did great for the short trip in the car to downtown.  Nate did great driving and parking in the city.  And I did great stopping Luke from peeing in the parking garage... because hey, you can't take ALL the North Carolina out of the kid just because you drop him in a major metropolitan area.

Before I forget... the reason why we went to Boston in the first place.  Most of our great friends from college live in the greater Boston area.  They all moved there after school.  When we lived in Binghamton we were a lot closer, but life and jobs change and we relocated to NC.  Since that time, we've all had children and those children have never met!  So we decided that enough time had elapsed.  The epic road trip to Boston was required... to catch up with old great friends and to ensure that this adorable next generation grows up with fond memories of each other.

So!  The Boston Children's Museum.  Awesome.  All the boys (and girl) had a blast playing with bubbles, building in the construction area, and tromping through Arthur's stories brought to life.  Between me and our friend Jason, we took hundreds of photos that day.  I tried to pick out some of the classics to tell the tale.  If you don't know the child in the photo, all you need to know is that they are near and dear to our hearts, and they were having a ridiculously fun time. And learning. C'mon. You know me.

Two disclaimers:

1) I cannot claim to have taken all these photos.  Of the kid photos above, 5 through 7 and 10 were taken by our friend Jason Nolan... who if he had a photography website or blog, I would link to here.  But he doesn't.

2) The kids really did have fun.  The only reason for the two crying kids in the group photo above is because Nate stepped on one's hand while trying to get back into the photo before the timer took the picture.  The other crier - our Will - well, sometimes you just can't make Will happy.