Blackout

Hi all,

No, no. Although it's true that I managed to fit a good amount of wine, beer and even Hennessy in, I do remember everything from my family vacation. I just was looking for the fuse box tonight and accidentally shut off the power for the house. It explains why the "opening mechanism" on the "fuse box" was so complicated. Whoops.

My parents arrived at about 5 on Tuesday. I swept them off to Hudson where we ate at Baba Louie's. Great salad. We chatted a bunch and I got back in time to help Maria go to bed. My mother had brought this ultra-light cot, which I elected to sleep on. Yeah, so that didn't work out so well and I spent my nights on the couch. It's brand new, so it was hardly a burden. I also went to Pix's going away affair in Hudson. It wasn't too hard, since I'll be seeing her in Germany in just under 3 weeks!!!

Wednesday morning they met everyone in the house and observed their first house meals. Then I shipped my dad off to the Co-op and my mom stayed in the house to cook. We got done in plenty of time between us and Okiwa. That afternoon I shipped them off to the Norman Rockwell Museum. They came back for dinner and I took them out for another walking tour of the village. I also went to Pix's going away affair in Hudson. It wasn't too hard, since I'll be seeing her in Germany in just under 3 weeks!!!

Thursday my dad went to the Healing Plant Garden and my mom stayed with Hum to cook. Hum was full of fun facts from the time spent with my mother. Nothing too embarrassing, I hope! They then went to the FDR estate in Hyde Park. They were getting pretty worn out at this point. My dad didn't have the energy to go out to Karaoke, by my mom tagged along. She even had a rather wasted man urge her to sing. She came up for a group number. It was a pretty fun time, even though it was a small group that went that evening - we were missing the German contingency!

After pancake breakfast, the garden/meat market and a quick gift shop stop, we were on our way to Boston! We checked in with my dad's friend when we got there in the afternoon, and discovered the apt that she'd thought would be empty wouldn't be. So we found a hotel. We had just enough time to go out to dinner - to have it absolutely pour on us. My shoes just dried out today! We at dinner at The Barking Crab, which must have no over-head - you got paper plates and a roll of paper towels as napkins! It was crazy to see lobster for sale for 23 dollars a pound, when I'd seen it for 3.99 in Maine! However, we went with other seafood options and I had some great shrimp scampi!

We went to bed early and were up by 7:30 to start off the next day. We took the Charlie to the Boston Commons and picked up the Old Town Trolley Tour and rode that for about 1.5 hours. Our tour guide, "Eck", was great. It was hard to snap pictures from the Trolley, but I managed on Friday. We took the Harbor tour as well, and wound up wandering around the USS Constitution - "Old Ironsides". USA's oldest warship. Nice.

We had lunch at a local cafe, and it was nice to get out of the blazing sun at that point. However, as it wasn't raining, we certainly weren't going to complain. We went to the Museum of Fine Arts, and spent about 2 hours wandering around. It was nice to see some of the masterworks. The mummies were interesting, as were the cylindrical seals. It was also interesting that I was able to pick out some Turkish tiles. I wish I'd had more time to spend in the Chinese publications section, and the musical instruments as well. As it was, we had just enough time to zip through the gift shop.

Well, I'm beat and need to go to bed now. I'll continue with Saturday dinner and hopefully get some pictures up tomorrow...

Hope all is well,
Steph