It's a May week in June

Our first group of visitors for the summer arrived in June when Mike and Claire May came to Boston for a week. For those of you who don't know, Claire is one of my very best friends from college. We've managed to see each other fairly often in the past six years since we graduated, mostly since Claire always seems to come to me. She has visited me in Washington, Virginia, and now Massachusetts! The last time we saw each other was at our 5 year college reunion in Tennessee in 2008 when I was barely pregnant with Lucy. Originally Kip and I had been hoping to drop into Tennessee to visit the May's in may when we would be in Atlanta and Chattanooga for weddings and graduations, but the timing wasn't working out very well. And then Mike found out he would be sent to Boston for some training, so that created the perfect time for us college pals to hang out and for Claire to get some Lucy time.

During the week Mike and Kip were working, so us ladies explored the state on our own. We did some fun sightseeing, some kind of odd sightseeing, and some great catching up on all things under the sun. In the evenings Claire and Mike did exploring on their own, and on the two weekends that they were here we all hung out together. It works out nicely that we both married men that each other like and who like each other, too!

We spent one day in Cape Cod, but I think the best part of that day was probably how cute Lucy looked during her first beach experience. It really had less to do with Cape Cod and more with our lack of researching where to go, but we were less than impressed. So, we let Lucy hang out on the beach and got a few pictures.

And then Lucy decided to run away, so Claire chased after her. Lucy learned it's harder to run away in sand than on grass when Claire easily caught her and snatched her into her arms.

We left the Cape and went to Plymouth. Which might still be considered part of the Cape. I'm really not sure about that. In any case, we really loved Plymouth and were happy we made the impromptu stop. We saw Plymouth Rock and then Lucy tried to run away again, this time toward the boats. We caught her that time, too.

We also managed to take the obligatory trip to Lexington and Concord and the Minuteman National Park. This is us at Paul Revere's capture sight:

And then Lucy played peekaboo:

After admiring her cuteness we had a picnic where no pictures were taken, probably because we were too busy chasing the 1-year-old, and then we headed to the home of the Little Women! We saw where Louisa May Alcott lived and wrote Little Women and took a really great tour of the home. I think it was one of our favorite things we did all week. We were very impressed with the tour!

When the weekend arrived we all had a great dinner in Harvard Square, where Mike and Lucy got some good bonding time in. She really liked him once she got used to the beard!

After dinner we picked up some delicious brownie batter ice cream and sat on the Harvard Yard to enjoy it. It really didn't last too long, because, I mean, it was brownie batter ice cream! The good conversation did, though, and we had a great time just hanging out and talking and laughing the night away.

And then we introduced Claire to John Harvard. Or so we thought, until Claire and Mike took the Harvard tour and learned that it's really just a statue of Professor Whore! But that's a story for another day.

One of the last things we did with the May's was one of the top things on Mike's Boston to-do list, but one of the last things to get accomplished since Kip also reaaaalllllly wanted to do it, so it got pushed to Saturday when they were both available. We toured the Sam Adams Brewery. At 10am on saturday morning. And drank free beer at 10am. I don't recommend it. The 10am drinking, that is. The tour was actually really fun. 

All in all, it was a great week in June! Claire and I had lots of fun just getting to hang out again and have lots of talks and laughs together. We had some fun adventures. We had fun hanging out with our husbands together. Claire and Mike had fun playing with Lucy. The boys had fun drinking beer in the A.M. We're blessed to have such dear friends, even if we don't see each other very often. Next time we'll have to make the trip to TN. Or maybe the Mays will come see us again in whatever place the Navy decides to send us to next!