First Blog

After a suggestion from one of my friends, Kay McGee, i decided to set up a blog. So here it is.....Spring has sprung or so they say. We are officially on Spring Break this week, but it's freezing here!

I left on Friday night and flew to Boston to visit my cousin, Chris, and his wife Brooke. They have lived in Boston for almost two years and I had been wanting to visit them for a quite a while. Chris is graduate student at Harvard Business School, also known as HBS. I'm very impressed with him. He graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and applied to graduate school at Harvard after working for several years. So....I left school on Friday afternoon and headed to the airport with my cousin, Jeff (Chris' brother) and his wife, Elizabeth, and their two boys, Gavin and Griffin. We had a great weekend. It was a little chilly, but not too bad.

On Saturday, we spent the day at the Science Museum. It was very interesting and i think that Chris, Brooke and I enjoyed ourselves as much as the kids. We had dinner that night in Cambridge near their house at a Thai resturant in Harvard Square called 9 Tastes. It was very tasty and I enjoyed it. On Sunday, we got an early start and took the T to Fenway Park and took a tour of the oldest major league ball park in the United States. It was filled with history and tradition and was very easy to see that the Red Sox have a tremendous fan base.

After leaving Fenway, we set out for the Freedom Trail. With Chris as our tour guide, we set out for 16 historic stops in Boston. I'm still amazed after seeing places that played such an instrumental role in the independence of our nation. We also checked out the Harbor, Cheers (the replica), and stopped off for lunch at the oldest restrurant in the US, the Union Oyster House. After a long day of walking, we headed back to their apartment. The boys enjoyed the night playing the Wii and we ordered pizza and hung out.

On Monday, I went to class with Chris at HBS. Brooke dropped us off on her way to work and Chris and I grabbed breakfast at Spangler Hall in the dining hall. Let's just say this is probably the nicest dining facility I've encountered in my soon to be 29 years. Next, we headed for his 8:30 class and at almost 36 hours later, I am still trying to understand what they were talking about! His next class was a little more on my level. It is an education class and they had read a case about a charter school in Boston and spent the class discussing the effectiveness of the school, comparing scores on statewide tests and hearing from people from the school. After class was over, Jeff, Elizabeth and the kids met us for the boys to take a look at Uncle Chris' library and lunchroom. We also stopped by and checked out the stadium, which according to our tour guide is the oldest concrete structure in the country!

Next we set off, for a brisk 1/2 mile walk in the rain. We stopped and bought a few souvieners and then had lunch. Ok so this wasn't just any lunch. Mr. Bartley's in Harvard Square served the best hamburger I've ever eaten. They have thick burgers loaded with an assortment of toppings. They have a wide assortment of intersting combinations with crazy names. Chris had a burger that had bacon and a fried egg. Elizabeth had "Opening Day" that had grilled veggies. Jeff and I both had Ted Werner. Nonetheless, we all enjoyed eating there!

Afterwards, we walked back to their apartment in the rain to prepare for our trip back. I packed clothes while the boys tried to play Mario 3 on the wii. I say tried because for over an hour they tried to get out off World 6 Level 5. These are no slackers when it comes to video games. i can remember when we were younger how easy it was for them to play any type of video game. So...it turned out to be quite comical they weren't able to beat that world!

Considering the weather, we were quite luckily to only leave 15 minutes late! It was a wonderful trip and I'm glad to have had the opportunity to visit! I'll load some pics later this week!