Five kids, two strollers, and a trip on the T

My friend Brooke, and her three kids, and (until yesterday when he took a train down to Philly) her husband Brian are staying with us this week, and it's been a whole heap of Adventure Days in a row. Beth is thrilled. Exhausted and all, but thrilled. She has two friends to run around the house with, which is what they've done for HOURS — they run shrieking and chasing each other around the loop in the house. It's going to be Very Lonely when they leave, and I'm not looking forward to the tears and the hangdog looks. (Beth may handle it fine. The tears may be mine.)

Today we took them to the Boston Children's Museum, and we had the extra-brilliant idea of doing the trip on the T. We are INSANE. And it was FUN. We walked down to the bus stop, wrangled the strollers onto the bus, got off at Harvard Station, took the Red Line down to South Station (the view as you're crossing the Charles is gorgeous), got off, found the right elevators to get out, and walked three blocks to the museum.

Silly us — today is Veterans Day, and every kid who was out of school was at the Children's Museum, and the Boston Ballet was doing a special Nutcracker presentation. The museum was packed. We holed up on the upstairs floors, avoided all the little ballerinas standing in line for the performances, and had ourselves quite the good time. I think Beth's favorite thing was playing with the gigantic chess set. And we're going to have to take Scott back just so he can see the Japanese house (shipped in pieces from Kyoto) they have on the third floor.

On the way home we piled all three girls on the double stroller, and since they'd played hard and hadn't had naps, they all conked out. That's a successful outing!