where to eat in boston

for fourth of july mark and i went with some friends up to the greater boston area for one of my best friends' weddings- i speak of kristen marvelle, now kristen kavanaugh. we went with our other dear friends from charlotte and had a really great time, AND we went without verity for almost a week. that was hard - we missed her, but we got to do a lot of fun stuff that we wouldn't have been able to do with her there.


the couple :)


at the rehearsal dinner


at the wedding!

so let me get to the point of this post - food. food can really make or break a trip. mark and i went to jacksonville, florida on vacation one year and we hated it. we had a horrible time. when someone asked me why, i was like, well for one, nowhere we ate had good food. good food at a good restaurant can make a bad trip way worse or a good trip a million times better. so i thought i'd share about the places we ate in case you are headed to boston. which i'm sure is not likely. so i guess i have no idea why i'm actually writing this post.

in plymouth, ma (where we stayed for the wedding):
t-bones roadhouse: for breakfast. the best breakfast i've ever had for this little - mark
and i ate breakfast with tip and coffees for under $10.

blue blinds: this was a really cute breakfast and sandwhich shop with homemade organic breads. i had a delicious sandwich here but i wish we could've eaten breakfast here too, it looked awesome.

ali's galley: so this was a random little "butcher shop" right near our motel that i never would have gone in, but staci and tanner did and then flagge us down. they had awesome sandwhiches with meat that they sliced right there. i had a sweet n'sour sandwich and when i ordered it on wheat bread the woman behind the counter said (in thick boston accent) "wheat bread? why don't you just order it on cardboard?"

in brookline, ma (where mark and i stayed for a few days after the wedding):
upper crust pizzeria: this was a great pizza place a la brixx in charlotte, but i thought it was better. mark thinks brixx is still better. anyway- thin crust, whole wheat and great topping options.

j.p. licks: this is an ice cream place. when tanner and staci were dropping us off in brookline we looked for a place to get coffee. instead we found this place and got giant ice cream cones. they had a lot of crazy flavors, like cucumber (which staci got) and el diablo, which had cayenne pepper in it.

boston, ma:
sam lagrassa's sandwich shop: we ate here because we tried to go to a place i read about in fodor's boston and it was closed. and the two guys in front of us who were trying to go there were like, "oh it's closed. let's go to sam's." and of course we didn't know where else to eat so we just followed them. it was HUGE sandwiches, really fresh and yummy. we had to eat in a standing room only section.

quincy market: this is like a mall's food court basically. it was my least favorite place we ate, but it was still good. i had a lobster roll from one of the vendors. it was yummy. but it was also a greasy $14 sandwich on white bread. there was tons of other options though and you could get fresh lobster. and giant cookies and giant slices of watermelon. giant a lot of things.

so if you're ever in the plymouth, brookline or boston, these are my recommendations :)

verity's favorite game

v's first steps!

my favorite part of church

well, ONE of my favorite parts of church, is the "kids corner." I know a lot of churches don't do this anymore, but during our service, before the message, our pastor asks all the kids to come up front. and then you know, he has a microphone and asks the kids a question and lets them say their answer into the microphone. i already have a little anxiety about what verity might say into a MICROPHONE in front of our whole church someday.

i've heard some funny stuff in the past few years. (yes i record these right along side my sermon notes) here's a taste:

pastor: what is a toy that you have that you used to really like to play with but now you're kind of bored with?
kid: my sister.

pastor: what are some things your mom doesn't like?
kid: my mom doesn't like coming to church

pastor: do you know of any sports that are in the bible? (he was looking for fishing by the way)
kid: golf
kid #2: lacrosse

pastor: (the week of Christmas) what's going on right now that you're probably excited about?
kids silent.
pastor: come on, what season is it? what time of year?
kid: winter!

but there are also some really good kid answers that make you realize kids are listening and they're understanding important concepts. like these:

pastor: what was the deal with the pharisees?
kid: they were hypocrites because they said they loved god but on the inside they really didn't. they were just pretending. (this was a 4-yr old).

pastor: when you sin, does god punish you?
kid: no, because he already punished us in jesus for all our sins (again, a 3 or 4-year old).

so "kids korner" is my favorite part of service b/c 1) it's funny, but because 2) it reminds me what a serious task we have in parenting and what sponges our kids are at ages 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. it reminds me that god has entrusts a child to me to shepherd, raise, parent and guide, and that it starts now.

FINAL thing- related to this, Mark and I are doing a parenting small group now, watching a video series and doing curriculum called "Getting to the Heart of Parenting" by Paul Tripp and it's really good. We recommend it. :)

verity in the tub

yikes, it's been like a year or something since i've updated our blog. what have we been busy or something? here's a new video of the bebe:

she's 13 months now and a ton of fun. she is on the brink of a lot of things. she can take a couple steps, but isn't quite walking. she can say a lot of mumbo-jumbo but no actually words. except for "no," "uh-oh," and "yeah."

daddy's girl

verity is teething. maybe. she drools like crazy and is OBSESSED with chewing things, particularly this frozen teether (pictured above) in the shape of a foot. but we have yet to see any teeth.

also hilarious: she is obsessed with cups and drinks. as soon as she sees one of us pick up a drink, she tries to pounce on it. her eyes get really wide and she starts reaching out for the drink and opening her mouth. i have some video of this i need to share with you. i've tried to get her interested in a sippy cup so she stops trying to grab my coffee cup but she gets frustrated because she can't figure out how to get the liquid to come out of the sippy cup.

so we're having a lot of fun with her these days. she smiles a lot and laughs a ton and she is such a great, chill baby. and mark is still his funny self. here's one of our latest funny conversations:

me: guess what size pants verity is wearing
mark: um, i don't know...small? medium? large? how fun can this game be?
me: no. baby sizes are by AGE. guess what size her pants are.
mark: 10 months? 11 and a half months?
me: do you honestly think they sell clothes in size "11 and a half month olds"?

(by the way, she is 5 months old but was wearing 18 month pants. it's the cloth diapers- they make her bum huge.)

video of verity

well it's about time i bring you a video of verity. she IS over four months old now. so this is her. warning - this video may be boring to those of you who are not family or those who are not in the mood to watch a swinging infant talking to herself. also. it may give you a little motion sickness. i had to tape her in her swing because the time she talks the most is in the swing. and if she sees the video camera, it's all over. she gets quiet b/c she's so entranced with the camera. hence, the poor angle this is taken from. but maybe you'll like it anyway :)



and here's one with her face :)