Grandpa Wes

My dad came to visit for two weeks, which was awesome, and actually gave us enough time to do a few of the things we'd planned, in between everyone's naps. (He flew out here on his 74th birthday, and I teased him that he and Sarah were on the same nap schedule.)

So we dragged him to Beth's last gymnastics class, where he took a bunch of pictures, and he helped Scott and our downstairs neighbor with the weekend yard work (I hid inside the house, which has never been cleaner), and we saw the baby giraffe at the zoo, and at some point he discovered Linda's Donuts, so we feasted on fried sugary goodness for pretty much the whole time he was here.

We also got up reeeeeeeeally early on Patriots Day (sans kids and Scott) to see the reenactment of the Battle of Lexington. Dad loved it, and especially loved the fact that the historical society rep who was keeping our corner of the crowd entertained before the battle started had a lot of information about clothing and the different dyes used by the British officers and rank-and-file for their red coats.

We spent a lot of time downtown: a trip to the aquarium (way cool, but which I will never, ever again attempt during school vacation week), a day walking most of the Freedom Trail and taking the ferry up to Charlestown to tour the U.S.S. Constitution, and one great evening when the girls woke up quite late from their naps and instead of running to Star Market to find something to cook for dinner, we parked at Alewife and took the T to the North End for Italian food. (To be fair, here, the day we walked the Freedom Trail we ended up meeting Scott for Japanese food in Porter Square, which was equally yummy.) The girls love the subway — Sarah is big enough now that she insists on climbing out of the stroller and pressing her nose to the window next to her big sister. I'll never understand this, since there's nothing to see. Keeps them happy, though.

Oh, food. We took Dad to Legal Sea Foods, which of course was good, but the hit of the stay had to be the stuffed clams we picked up at Frankie's Catch of the Day, five minutes away. It was like a clam cake stuffed back into the clam shell, and we all sat there making happy noises about how good it was.

Somewhere in the two weeks Dad was here I finally pulled together a cover for the 43-year-old cradle my mom made (yes, made) for my oldest cousin — said cousin's sister is having a baby this month and the cradle, now with a fleece-lined denim cover that was the cause of much bad language and some very sore knees (from kneeling on the floor to cut out the huge pieces of fabric), is on its way back to her in Salt Lake via UPS. I felt an odd sense of relief the day I shipped it off: I won't be the next person to stay up all night with a crying baby. Felt good to get the cover done, though.

Anyway, the day before Dad left the weather finally turned ugly (we'd had clear days in the 70s and 80s for two weeks) and we got drenched walking around Bentley. Beth got to use her new umbrella, which made her week, and I think Dad enjoyed himself. Miss him already. It's hard to be this far away from my family, especially with little girls who need to know their grandpa.