Meri Christmas!

We have not seen our good friend Meri for too long. So long, in fact, that we still had her Christmas presents here at our house and she still had presents (both for Christmas and Rebecca's birthday) at her house that needed to be delivered. We'd been trying to figure out a good weekend to drive into Boston to meet up with her (she lives about 30-45 minutes north of the city) and this weekend it finally all came together. We decided to meet at the Museum of Science and wander the exhibits a bit and then grab lunch. Thanks to our membership with a museum that is part of the ASTC we get free admission to this museum along with tons of others across the nation. Pretty cool!

Estimated launch time was 8:30am to get us to the museum sometime between 10:00 and 10:30 and we actually pulled out of the driveway at 8:35. Quite a feat given the logistics of getting three young children up, dressed, fed, watered and ready for a moderately lengthy car trip. And of course, you can't go on any such day-long excursion without stroller, diaper bag, cooler full of semi-healthy snacks, etc. We even have a DVD player and stash of movies in the car for such trips because without it we would probably never go anywhere that is more than a 30-minute car ride away.

Turns out Meri had some errands that needed to be taken care of that morning so she was running a bit behind but through the wonderful magic of cell phones we were able to leave messages and call each other to determine current locations and the like. I don't know how it all worked before cell phones but I am so glad they exist now. I don't use mine often but in such instances I am forever grateful that I have one. We got to the museum at about 10:30 and after the requisite bathroom trips and attempts to check-in with Meri we decided to just head on into the museum and start wandering around. Meri showed up a short while later and while we managed only a small portion of the museum in the 2.5 hours we were there the kids had fun and there will be other opportunities to return and see the rest!

After the museum visit we headed over to the Cheesecake Factory for lunch and had some time to sit and chat with Meri. I have to say that although the food there was very good the portions were absolutely ridiculous. I could not believe the platter they brought out to me with my fish tacos and assorted sides. I swear it could have practically fed our entire family - given that as a whole the girls don't eat all that much. Insane. I did not come close to finishing my lunch and Rick ate about 2/3 of his salad before claiming he was defeated. Yikes. That's just wrong. To be done in by a salad of all things. Geesh. The girls both ordered some "mini" burgers from the appetizer menu - they got a platter of four such "mini" burgers that were each about the side of a typical fast food kids burger! Again - totally insane. Had we know we would've ordered one serving and split it between the two of them and still might've had leftovers. Oh, and they had no kid's menu, by the way. What's up with that? I can't believe that printing half a page of kid-friendly choices - with appropriate portioning!!! - was out of the question when their entire menu was about 25 pages long (with copious ads, I might add. Huh?). Anyway, that's my restaurant vent for the day. We don't have a Cheesecake Factory near us and the experience did not have me excited about a return visit so I doubt we'll go back. If we do I'll likely want to split an entree with someone else to make the portions more reasonable (and the bill cheaper!).

Here are a few pics of our museum visit to share:

The girls in front of the "wave" aquarium.

Rick hamming it up with E.

Meri explaining early animation special effects to A.
R on a swing (looking a bit unhappy because I accidently bonked her on the head with that wooden crossbar when I tried to help her into the swing. Ooops.)


And for fun comparison here is R last year on the blue swing.

A on the same swing.

And again for comparison - A on the swing last year.

The whole gang in front of a satellite image map of Boston.


After the museum visit and the lunch stop we headed to Meri's car and picked up the gifts she had for the girls and then headed to our car in a different parking area to open all the gifts. The girls were thrilled with their gifts. The older girls got some awesome activity books that have been keeping them quite busy of late and a science kit and Miss E. got an activity book and a play purse with all sorts of accessories to put in it! R also got a game called Cadoo as her birthday gift. Meri is a fellow board game lover so we often find board games as gifts for each other and now the next generation is benefitting from that shared interest. Cool beans! We got Meri a Tinkerbelle snowglobe to add to her ever-growing Disney snowglobe collection and a nice-smelling gift box that had a candle, bath gel, and other assorted things with which to pamper herself. Hope you enjoy them, Meri!

It was awesome to spend some time with Meri! It would have been great if we had even MORE time but I guess that is just a great excuse for another road trip as the weather gets warmer and we can come visit her at her place of abode. Those visits usually include a trip to the beach which the girls always love (as do the rest of us!). I predict fun times in our near future!

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In other news, I figured since I've dropped a bit more than 15 pounds I'd update my profile pic. Here's a side-by-side of the old and the new. What do you think?




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Lastly, I turned in my two winning lottery tickets and decided to just go for broke. I asked for four more quick picks for tonight's draw. Wish me luck (or call me an idiot - your choice).