Martha's Vineyard

An amazing day to play at the beach... and mommy plays with the camera. Really we went to MV because of its historical significance in the deaf community... it once was an island with a significant population of deaf folks... the whole island either had a deaf person in their family or was married to one. As transportation increased, the deaf folks moved to the mainland (mostly to ASD), and the tourists came out. The social/political significance is probably greater... it was an island where deaf or hearing, everybody knew sign language. There was unlimited access and no stigma attached to deafness as a handicap.

We didn't see any deaf folk, and we didn't see Carly Simon. However, we loved every minute out here, and we did see the Celtics owner coming off the ferry, carrying the recent NBA trophy. The guy was showing all the workers, doing photo opps. Oh, I forgot to show you. This is the capital in Boston... with a celtics banner hanging from it! The city has a lot of pride!!

Now we're headed to New York for the weekend, then back to school. Cheryl is logging off as your main blogger, kaler kids and daddy logging on. Thanks for coming with us!! Probably one of the best weeks of our lives, thank you Lord. Nite nite!!

(Be quiet Gladys!!)

Boston, cont.

Right along side the Freedom trail is a Holocaust monument. It has the numbers of 6 million people who were killed, 6 glass towers going up, one million numbers on each. It was strategically placed at a place where Americans are contemplating the revolution and their own story of freedom...

Then we moved on to the "First public park" paid for by our very own taxes. (This was a celebration, rather than burden back then!! The taxes were not going to the King!!) The park was beautiful and we found two interesting monuments, I call the rest of this blog "a monument for everything..."
A monument of a Duck crossing. Seriously!! We learned about a famous book, author is from Boston, and maybe you've heard about it? We seem to be the only clueless ones. So I had to look it up:

The ducklings in the monument are in the very same poses. I need to read the book, but I guess some guy stopped traffic here. Other counselors seem to know all about it... it was even used as an illustration in an "allies for parents" workshop.
This next one though... not even the local Boston folk knew what is was about. It had on one panel "and there shall be no more tears..." (a quote from Revelation) so I thought is was about heaven? I thought maybe this was a Christlike figure up on top:
But no.... you'll never guess what this one if for!! No more tears!! It's honoring the Boston Memorial hospital... they did research... and now have a monumnet.. for creating ether.

CHEERS!

Boston

Boston is an amazing town!! We barely scratched the surface but thanks to Jim, we got to see a whole lot and had a blast!! We explored part of the "Freedom Trail"- which we all kind of expected to see a dirt trail... but ha! Its a brick trail through the city that takes you to points of interest related to the Revolutionary War. We started off in the historical north end, checking out Paul Revere's house and hearing some less well known and controversial stories from the day. I love the streets!!

Here's Paul Revere's monument, right outside the church that held the lantern signal to John Hancock and Samuel Adams: one lantern, the Red Coats are coming by land: two lanterns, they are coming by sea. My precious kiddoes, they haven't tired yet of my endless photo opps! Here's some more shots of the sights around town....

Here's more of my cuties: (Shayna posing her magnetic bears, Twainy and Metsy, outside the church where JFK's mother Rose was baptized.... and my GQ boys. )

We then went over to Fenuel Hall for some dinner, and took off to see more sights by car. Stay tuned! Oh! Need summer reading? try:

Meet Gladys

Alas!! We have welcomed a new member to our family. Her name is Gladys (Glad-us). She already adds a new wonderful dimension to our travels. Here's what we love about her:

1) Unlike the rest of us, you can adjust her volume.
2) She remains totally neutral in temporary delays. All she says is "recalculating"
3) She can predict!
4) She always knows where we are. Except for tunnels and some tall builings in New York, she hasn't lost us yet.
5) She is almost as good as Cheryl at finding points of interest, such as Chic-fil-A's.
6) She was on sale at Target!! (We got lost trying to find the store, but hopefully its a commemorative last time...)


P.S. One thing Gladys doesn't do, she doesn't turn on the blinkers for you. We're in New York this weekend (tired and trying to catch up on blogs!!) and Greg thinks he's getting good... what with this being our third time, and Gladys at the helm... but as he was manuevering pedestrians and trying to follow her commands, a NY police guy in his Golf cart pulls up along side. "Hey! They let you drive in Virginia??" (we're in a rental car) We laugh. "Actually, we're from Washington!"
"Even worse!! Turn on your blinkers, man!!"

Fenway for Dad

Now there's a picture worth a thousand words! Greg had tolerated Plymouth in the morning... it was a hard sale knowing Fenway was the next stop. And then, our "temporary delays" were seeming permanent an Greg's gasket was surely gonna blow.... when we finally found Fenway, it was a thousand amens, for sure!!

We met up with our friend Jim, and got in for the last available tour. (Ok! It's all good now... we'd been missing the 'last tours' by a hair all week...) PLUS Jim had the last ebay ticket in hand... which had just arrived overnight mail from Gally (long story, but thanks team!) quite a feat, getting 6 tickets to the game, and having them all in hand even better! So here we are... the baseball capital of the world!!

If you know anything about Fenway, you know about the "green monster". Here we are sitting in it, pretending we could afford the seats!!
Do you know about the red seat? Apparently, a Yankee fan was sitting there one day... with a straw hat... fell asleep, right in the game. Then Ted Williams comes up to bat, "sees the straw hat from homeplate" and apparently had really good aim.... hit the guy in the head. It's the longest homerun recorded at Fenway, and they've made a red seat to commemmorate the event. The guy afterwards became a Red Sox fan, so they affectionately call this the "conversion seat"! There's tons of stories to tell, at Fenway and all around Boston... the city loves history. We'll keep it at that one for now! Before the game, the boys played catch with the famous "tall guy." (Josiah thinks he's their first baseman) And we bought a few more caps!

JJ picked his to match his buddy Jim's!!


We had a great time at the game, surrounded by "serious baseball fans"! Funny, we've met quite a few people who have either done baseball tours like this, or are wishing they were. There's quite a comraderie out here! We've also met a bunch of people from Washington!! Boston is like the University capital of the world, there are like 50 colleges in the down town vicinity. Its very upscale!! Anyway, we've met a lot of students. Someone even stopped Greg because of his Edmonds Woodway shirt!! Crazy.

Here we are, happy Kalers!! Fenway, check!!!