Our Vacation in Lowell Massachusetts...

Inside the mill museum


Riding the trolley.

Our new crocs.

We left for Boston on Tuesday and arrived about midnight Wednesday morning. Shara and Aaron met us at the airport. It was so fun to see them. We went back to their house in Lowell. It's about 45 minutes outside of Boston. I'm not sure which direction though. Since there are no mountains, I could never tell which direction I was going. The streets are so funny. It looks like you go down a bunch of alley's. They are very narrow and they change from two lanes to one lane with out any signs. I'm glad that we had Aaron to drive us around. I wish that my parents and Jessica could have gone, but I think they are planning to go when Shara graduates next June.

Wednesday we toured around their town of Lowell. We went to the Cotton Mills. It was so interesting to see. It's amazing what people use to have to do. We also went inside one of the boarding schools that all the girls use to sleep at. There average work day was about 14 hours a day. That's crazy. So many of the girls were making the money for their families.
We took the trolley around, which was fun and Lucas really liked it. They have tons of different churches back there. They are so old and cool looking. Most of the homes are right on the street. They don't have a front yard. The schools have no grass, it's all cement. The Lowell High School was huge. Shara said that they speak 50 different languages in the high school.

I have lots of posts below...I hope you enjoy the pictures. Sorry if you get bored, but I'm using this as my journal.

Miniature Golf & Ice Cream

Wednesday night, after Aaron got off work, we went to Kimball Farms to do miniature golf and eat some ice cream. The miniature golf course was awesome. It had tons of water features. The ice cream was really good. We all got a kiddie cone, which is at least 3 huge scoops of ice cream.

A Day at the Beach...

I liked this picture of the light house....the homes are huge along this beach.

Jed and Landon played with the Aerobie

Picture happy!! :)

Eating Lunch.

Thursday we went to Wingearsheek Beach. It's about an hour away from Lowell. It was so pretty. We got there during low tide so we could walk out to the sand bar. Lucas had a great time covering his hands with the sand. He thought it was so funny. The water was just his size. In the really shallow places it was quite warm, which was nice. There were these schools of little fish that we would try to corral. It was so funny to watch. We looked pretty silly. The sand was so nice and soft. Nothing like Utah beaches!!

Beach Pictures

Shara, Me, Lucas, Jed, Tawnya, Landon...Aaron had to work.

So tired...

Lucas loved to dig his hands in the sand.

More Beach Pictures

Sisters

WOW...

You only see about 20 percent of a humpback whale above water. Imagine if you could see all of it!!

If you look to the left hand side of the picture, you can see two dolphins riding along the boat.

Rolling over...

Humpbacks use their tail to propel back into the water on a dive. It's huge!

We even got to see them breach the water. It was so cool. They come straight out of the water. Unfortunately I didn't see much of that because I was trying to watch Lucas. I did get to see it a couple of times. Tawnya will have some more video on her blog that's really fun.


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Whale Watching

Lucas fell asleep on the boat ride out. It was about an hour long.

Aboard the Yankee Spirit


Waiting for the whales!!

A Day at Sea...

Friday we went to Gloucester to do some whale watching (girls) and deep sea fishing (guys). We all had a blast. The guys left on their boat about a half hour before we did.

Boarding the Yankee Freedom

A little shark that they caught.

Aaron and his fish.

Jed and his Haddock.

The people on the boat fillet them for $1.00, which is really nice. This is what was for dinner that night. I even tried it. It wasn't bad.


















We went to Rockport to eat lunch. They have a lot of shops that you can buy things at.

A Day in Boston

This was a street that Paul Revere walked down. It's now called an alley. I love the cobblestone roads everywhere.

Paul Revere's home.

Some random statue that we thought we should let Lucas sit on!

The Big Green Monster cow that was at Quincy Market.

On Saturday we went to Boston to see the sites. I can't believe how far we walked. People in Boston walk everywhere since there are hardly any places to park. What's funny is that they walk right in front of cars! We drove by Fenway park, but didn't stop. A game was going to be starting and they were playing the Yankees! Shara and Aaron are great guides. We saw a lot of historical and not so historical things. It's a little bit to crowded for me. We walked around some of the vendors and bought us each something.

The Freedom Trail is a tour that takes you around a lot of the historical sites in Boston. Our tour guide was dressed up and told about many of the events that took place. Although it was a bit long, it was still interesting to see all of the sites. Some of the sites were the graveyard where Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Mother Goose are buried, the oldest building/road in Boston, Paul Revere's home, Boston Massacre site, etc.

Boston Commons

Boston Commons is like a miniature central park. People come to walk, jog, or just hang out.

Waiting for the tour to start.

Boston was full of these cow statues.

I had to take this picture. On our way back through the park, the group had liked tripled in size. I didn't get a picture of that though.

Giacomo's Restaurant

This is Shara's favorite place to eat. It's italian food. All of the food was really good. She had talked up the Butternut Squash Ravioli so much that we had to try it. It was delicious. It's so funny because the restaurants are very little and seat maybe 20 people. Crazy!

More Pictures of Boston

USS Constitution...aka "Old Iron Sides"

More of Boston

Downtown Crossing in Boston

The original Cheers bar.

Last Day...

Down by the Merrimack River.

Lucas thought it was funny to give aunt Shara a piggy back ride.

Waiting for the plane in Boston!

I can't believe our trip has come to an end. It was so much fun. On Sunday we walked down by the Merrimack River in Lowell. It's extremely pretty. The mills are now full of studio condos. Shara and Aaron about bought one of them in the picture above. We were going to go to Sharon, Vermont, on Sunday but Landon had an unexpected golf size infection form in his cheeck. We figured it was better that he find a doctor. We played games and learned a new card came called Hand and Foot. I think we all really liked it.
Yesterday we packed and got ready to fly home. Luckily Lucas slept on both flights which made it nicer. I think we were all exhausted.
Thank you Aaron and Shara for a great time!! Love ya :)