Boston, MA

Dear friends - this particular trip was a bit of a homecoming.  My wife had some business to take care of, back in the Boston, MA area.  She was shooting kid's portraits for one of the private Montessori schools in Framingham, MA.  This will have been her second trip back to Massachusetts without me...and I thought that people would think I didn't care about them any more ; )  So, I decided to take care of some business in the area and make a weekend out of it, for the family.  I'm so glad that I did.

We had the chance to visit with dear friends in the area.  While I was at work, my wife traveled to New Hampshire with her friends, to see how maple sap is "liberated" from maple trees.  This sap is used to produce authentic maple syrup.  They told me that it takes up to 40 gallons of sap to get a single bottle of maple syrup!  G-Man and L went with her.  G-Man spent time with his BFF, who we'll call "W".  They are good friends, and love being with each other.

It's hard to get them to stand still...

While the folks in New Hampshire were trying to explain the delicate process of boiling down to sap, G-Man and W decided to play a little music on the metal buckets used to capture maple sap...

After this impromptu concert, the whole group was treated to scrumptious pancakes...which were obviously required to actually taste the maple syrup.

W, his mother, and baby L

We had a blast the entire weekend.  We were lucky enough to stay at our good friend's house.  These are amazing people...who seem to throw open their doors for us all the time.  I have a blast talking with them, and spending time with their boys:

They are exceptional young men, who have been raised to be kind, thoughtful and inquisitive.  I hope G-Man can grow up just like them.

To cap off the weekend, our friends threw a giant party at their house.  They invited some of our closest friends from our old Ward (church congregation).  We had over 30 people squeezed into that house!!

We were treated to an amazing dinner.  The funny thing was that the men and women gathered in two separate rooms.  I maintain that the women simply didn't want to be bothered with having to explain everything to their husbands...or there just wasn't room for everyone.  I guess we'll never know ; )

Future Selectman of the city of Northborough

See how much fun they're having without us??

The highlight of the evening was a big game in the backyard, called "Do You Love Your Neighbor?"  It's played with everyone in a giant circle.  You name an attribute of one or many people in the group - and they have to scramble to find a new seat.  Sort of like "musical chairs" on steroids.  

One of the many, many mad scrambles

Everything was going just fine, until things got a little aggressive.  This made the game much more interesting:

Yup - the first piece of furniture to be broken...after two adults were fighting for a chair

The smart kids were simply watching on the sideline...embarrassed by their parents for behaving so badly:

G-Man with some of the girls from the "C" family...his favorites ; )

As the game went on, it was clear that there was one family that took this a little more serious than any other.  The evidence is all in the pictures above, and below:

The fun went into the evening, with the kids rolling down the hills, playing basketball, and a couple of awesome nerf gun wars:

One of my favorite parts was all of the women at the party...each taking a turn to hold baby "L" ; )

Overall, we had an amazing time back in Massachusetts.  We've been convinced/threatened/cajoled to return in the Fall ; )  It's a real blessing to go "back home"and be enriched by great relationships with dear friends.  We're so lucky to know all of these people.  Thank goodness for social networking, blogs and e-mail, so we can stay in touch ; )  We can't wait to see all of them soon.