15 YEARS of marriage! Woah crazy. I don’t feel old enough to be married this long 😉
You can look back at Zach’s proposal here and our wedding day here!
We did a Europe trip for our 5th anniversary (Italy!) and a more chill 10th anniversary (Mexico!) so we’d originally planned to do Europe again for our 15th (Greece).
However, it just didn’t make sense to try to do such a huge trip right now. We were in the process of purchasing land for our build and Zach’s parents were living in a single-wide trailer while building their home so we didn’t want to burden them with FOUR KIDS during that situation either!
Plus we had JUST gone to Hawaii! Neither of us wanted to be away for long and it made sense to keep it shorter, cheaper, and schedule the trip when the older kids were at Georgia Bible Camp to keep it smoother for G-Mama with Spear.
It has always been a bucket list item for me to visit Boston. I used to always say that my back up plan if things didn’t work out with Zach was to move to Boston. Get a job at a Starbucks near Harvard and meet me a Harvard guy 😉
We’ve both always wanted to visit Boston and are enjoying visiting historical locations for our anniversary trips. Not only was Boston a pretty easy trip to plan but I also really wanted to have our new home have a Cape Cod vibe so it made sense to actually VISIT Cape Cod prior to building!
We checked the kids into GBC and hit the road to Atlanta. And literally got about halfway there and got the dreaded phone call.
Britt puked. In the pool. At camp. And then she puked again.
And then Tess puked. And then on Mrs. Charlotte’s way to get them from camp – Spear puked.
We later also found out that Kye puked but just went outside and puked as to not have to leave camp. That is how much my children love camp! I felt SO BAD that they were miserable, that poor Mrs. Charlotte was dealing with it all and especially that they had to miss out on camp!
We ended up finding out that the water slides our neighborhood had set up got over 25 FAMILIES sick! Isn’t that crazy?!!
Thankfully they fully recovered within a day and were able to be back at it. Quite the wild start to our trip!
We stayed at Loews Boston HOtel (which has since changed it’s name!) and the location was perfect!
We had a very split up trip – 1 night in Atlanta, 1 night in Boston, 2 nights in Chatham, 1 night in Boston again!
Our hotel was located by Trinity Church which was beautiful (and Spear’s dream church – worship God then hop on a tractor after!) and also a pick up spot for our tour. We like to do a full tour of any city that we visit for the first time on the day we arrive to give us a good lay of the land and background of the area and help decide our plans moving forward.
We booked a two day hop on hop off tour. Our gameplan was to ride the entire route on Day 1 and then use it for transportation on Day 2. It didn’t really work out so great as they didn’t have a lot of buses running so there were LONG waits and often the bus would be full! Lesson learned – just do a tour!
My fun fact of the tour: Seattle is the home of Starbucks and Boston is the home of Dunkin’ so I guess my plans of working at a Starbucks near Harvard wouldn’t have worked out anyway huh?
Sites around the city – including Boston Harbor
Love the old gas laterns!
We also made a stop at Cheer’s – we didn’t go back to look at it as the site from the bus was enough for us.
I love all the arctecture especially all the beautiful rounded windows. I also ove the blend of the old and new. So neat!
I was very nervous that Boston wouldn’t live up to the hype I’ve always had about it in my head (and the countless times I’ve belted “Boston” by Augustana) but it was even better!
We grabbed dinner at Luke’s and it was delicious!
We headed back to the room to get changed and then rode the Subway to FENWAY!!!
Even though we aren’t baseball people we both really wanted to get to watch a game at Fenway. I have great memories from going to Brave’s games as a kid and who wouldn’t want to experience such an iconic park?
SO AWESOME. The weather was flawless and the vibe was SO fun!!!
Our night at Fenway was one of my favorite travel memories with Zach. I loved that it was something we BOTH wanted to do and that we’d both never done before!
The crowds were hilarious. It was exactly what you’d expect – so animated and so much yelling and cussing in that epic Boston accent but like in a kind way if that makes sense. The locals weren’t rude or mean, they were all super nice to us but they were ALL the coach haha.
As a kid we’d drive to Maine in the summers and visit the LLBean store so it was neat to see it so represented in Boston 🙂
And I even found MICKEY!
It was really neat to be there on Memorial Day. Loved the patriotic moments!
We didn’t stay for the whole game and leaving early gave us the chance to get some cool pics with no one in em! Plus we didn’t have to deal with the crowds on our way back on the Subway either.
While the crowd was fun for a bit, environments with alcohol involved tend to escalate and that vibe can shift from fun to uncomfortable pretty easily so leaving early helped us leave with happy, wonderful memories!
Def THE highlight of our trip!
On our 2nd day we had one mission – HARVARD!
I couldn’t come all the way to Boston and not see what my alternate life may have looked like, right?
Again we lucked out a bit as they had just had graduation so the campus was quiet and we could take our time walking around and checking it out and did a self guided walking tour.
It’s a tradition, apparently, to touch John Harvard’s golden foot for good luck!
The earliest surviving buildilng on campus is Massachusetts Hall (dated 1720) where several of the founding fathers (John Hancock, Samual Adams and others) took classes. Super cool!
In seeing some of the guys who graduated from Harvard I learned that a) I could still technically still follow through with that plan as I’m still younger than many of them haha and b) my non-Harvard guy is much cuter than any Harvard ones I saw 😉
I love walking college campuses – they are always so beautiful. I never took my time at FSU for granted and loved walking to class and soaking in the gorgeous trees and buildings.
Had to pretend to be a grad 😉
Memorial Hall was constructed in the 1870s.
Stopped by a book store on the way out so I could grab me a Harvard sweatshirt – who needs a Harvard husband when you can just get the tshirt instead?
It was a really fun experience getting to visit the campus and kinda a bit surreal for me and just a “Sliding Doors” kinda moment. Made me so thankful for the life I have and the choices I made back then that lead me to the family I have today!
We got an Uber back to Boston and hit up Quincy Market for lunch and found a super cool gift shop with tons of cool gifts for the kids!
I LOVE crab cakes. Prob one of my fav foods but the clam bake I had at Wicked Lobsta was better than even THE best crab cake of my LIFE. Mouth watering just remembering it!
Zach’s mission was to try World Famous Regina Pizzeria bc One Bite rates it a 9.1! If Dave says it’s a 9 then Zach’s gotta try it!
We did mobile pick up and then walked to picked it up and found a random bench on the side of the street to eat it – but it didn’t disappoint.
More exploring – there is a red line through Boston you can follow to ensure you hit all the historical spots. We followed it on and off a good bit and hit the highlights!
Saw the Bunker Hill Monument and the Old State House (the belcony is where the Delclaration of Independence was read for the first time in 1776).
Zach loves little old book stores and especially cool old maps! We also checked out the Irish Family Memorial.
And the Old South Meeting House which was the meeting place prior to the Boston Tea Party. We said hey to Ben Franklin in front of the Old City Hall
And then explored through Granary Burying Ground. We got to see where John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere are buried
So glad we took a good chunk of time to just hang out in Boston Common. It was beautiful! We couldn’t get over how CLEAN everywhere was…even though there were no trash cans really anywhere .
Ha to do the touristy things and ride the swan boat! Only $4.50 per person and just iconic.
We saw lots of statues (this one is of Washington) but never saw a Paul Revere one!
First public guarden from 1837.
This was during one of those long trolley waits. We def rgretted that decision – Uber is just SO much faster, easier and even cheaper!
Another lesson learned – before you pay for an Uber ride over to the Boston Tea Party Museum…make sure it’s actually opened. Oops…
We saved that Uber money and rode the Subway (the first in America!) back to get to see the Boston Library and grab some dinner before meeting up with our Torro to drive to Cape Cod!
The first leg of our trip did not disappoint! There is a lot to see in Boston but it did not feel overwhelming at all. We felt very chill and relaxed and like we did all we wanted to do and saw all we wanted to see in just two days.
And so many bucket list items checked off for us both!
