This ended up being such a wonderful trip (even with the craziness at the parade). I absolutely love spending time with my siblings, going to conferences and seeing new places. I got to do all three for nearly a week and a half! I think Chris and I both fell in love with the city. All the brick. It's so gorgeous. We don't have that back home! David and Cory packed up and left early that morning so they could get back to work. I headed to my final day of classes. During my lunch break I hunted down my final lobster roll for the trip. Such sad partings. But goddamn are these things delicious! I went to nearby Luke's (really close to Boston Public Library) and the wandered around briefly taking pictures of Copley Square. ... read more

Today was day one of the AACN conference so I was up early, fighting with the coffeemaker. It was one of those single cup coffemakers that really have no bearing in my every day life considering I drink so much coffee. David had to teach me how to use it the night before and I STILL struggled with it that morning! I'm still not convinced they're amazing. It was a typical freezing Boston morning as I walked over to the convention center. I slipped in as the opening speaker was already into her life discussion. Apparently the actual start time of the conference was a little earlier than what I'd thought. No one noticed me late, though. I quickly realized who our speaker was- the Miss America contestant who used her nursing student career as her ... read more

Have I mentioned before how much I love that Salem is literally a fifteen minute drive away? It's awesome! So today our big plan was to explore as much of Salem as possible. Unfortunately, Chris woke up with a migraine, and he was out. So he stayed at the house to pound meds and sleep it off while the rest of us went on our daytrip. I took the baby with me. Thankfully I had my brothers to help keep an eye on her. Our first stop was the Nathaniel Hawthorne House of Seven Gables. The only Hawthorne book I've actually read is Scarlet Letter (which I loved back in high school) but I was interested in seeing the house anyway, which was inspiration for one of his other works. We paid for our guided tour, ... read more

Today's plan was to explore Boston, with the aide of our local guide, Cory. He only had one full day with us today before he had to drive back to Vermont for work for a couple days. We decided to drive all the way to Boston today since the parade wasn't until the next day. Cory and David figured parking wouldn't be a huge issue, and it wasn't. And then we could ride the subway to jump from place to place as needed. We were right by the Holocaust Memorial, so we wandered through there first. Next, we walked through Quincy Market but didn't spend much time there, just sort of glanced around at shops, and then moved on. Too may tourists kinda turned us off. I knew the Freedom Trail wandered through this area. I ... read more

Today was our final day of the trip. Leaving on this adventure both seemed like so long ago and just yesterday. I was glad to be headed home at least. I got really good sleep, and the sickness had slowed down quite a bit. I had put on a scopalamine patch the night before to help with the seasickness later. It made my mouth dry. I also just felt really stoned in general. I wasn't sure if that was the patch or dehydration, or both. Then we heard the drums for the mantarays. Chris didn't feel like going again today but he saw I was better and badgered me into going. As a nurse, I'd never tell my patients to do something stupid like that. But that's the same with backpacking only three weeks after surgery, ... read more