boston trip: day one.

well, it is about time, eh? two weeks later, and I feel on top of life enough to post some pictures of the great adventure we had.
This was the first REAL day we had in New England.
We decided to start it off with a trip out to Lexington and Concord. Wise decision. It was beautiful.
Here is Walden Pond in all of it's autumn glory.


Next, we ventured into Concord (which happens to be the town right next to Lexington). Our trip wouldn't have been complete without seeing Louisa May Alcott's home!!?! I know, I was really excited about this part. It was wonderful. Any kinks? Yes, we almost missed our guided tour b/c of our little Tillie. She decided to show her love to us by BLOWING completely out of her diaper right as we sat down to enjoy the little precursor movie. Not so cool. Yes, that was RIGHT after this picture taken below.



Luckily, I was prepared with an extra little pair of pants and onesie in the car. I had ALMOST taken it out of my diaper bag, thinking, I've never needed one before. hA! Serves me right! So, poor baby, we had to strip her down completely in the freezing cold (we didn't dare get the rental car messy) and try again. We ran back into the house and joined back up with the tour. It was great! I am such a fan of Little Women, they could have said pretty much anything and I wouldn't have been disappointed.

It was awesome to see so many of "Amy's" or in real life, May's, drawings and sketches all around the house. She even drew on the borders around the windows. It was crazy to see that these were REAL people! with REAL lives.

But, I must say, I was a little sad to learn that even though this was the house Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women in, she had moved into it when she was 26 or 27. Meaning her childhood and all the stories had NOT taken place in this house. Cool? Not so much. So, we found out, that actually, this house, NEXT DOOR was the one they actually grew up in! Unfortunately, after the blow out situation and busy time line, we decided to forgo the ACTUAL house of her childhood. But, we did take a picture of it (see below). Neat tidbit, right?

Next, we drove into Concord. It is such a cute little town and we ate the most amazing paninis at Main Streets Market and Cafe. I was brave and even had "roasted red pepper" on mine. Delicious. My mom will be so proud of me.

Oh, did I mention that we drove by this, the Sleepy Hollow Cemetary? Yeah, it was right there too. So neat.

It was about 2:00 pm-ish and we were feeling good, so we decided to venture out to the Berkshires. Even though we knew it was a few hours away, we thought maybe we'd hit it in enough time to see the "most beautiful fall foliage in New England" before sundown. So, we left. I fell asleep (my favorite past time), and when I woke up, I see that we aren't on the freeway anymore, but we're winding around these small little country roads. Confused, I turned to Aaron to ask if we were there yet. He was smiling and really excited. He kept wanting me to guess where we were going, and that he'd changed his mind about us really making it so far away in time to see the leaves, so he had a surprise up his sleeve. I kept looking for signs to see where we headed----and then finally I saw it, "The Red Apple Farm"!!!


Aaron knew I had wanted to go to a real farm to pick apples in my life, and he found this one! And they had lots of pumpkins and all sorts of fun things! Apple doughnuts, apple dumplings, a huge fun barn, a crazy store, petting zoo, and of course... beautiful apple orchards! One tree had 108 different types of apples growing on it! Can I get a what?! what?!

One word? Incredible.

As we were walking into the orchard and the sky was starting to turn to a pretty golden color, Aaron and I looked at each other and realized life is good. We hoped that heaven would be like this. This amazing-ness. It was perfect. I told him I would never forget it.
-----then I told him I had to find a bathroom!
Nice, I know. Way to kill the moment, but I was ready to die! We'd been driving around for hours... luckily, they had some nice restrooms, and all was good. We ordered up some apple dumplings and doughnuts and ate and headed back on the road.

We were sick, however, that our camera's battery had died! We took some pictures on my cell phone, but it was all we had. So, I went to the "Red Apple Farm" website and found this picture to illustrate it's beauty (you'll have to click on the link, b/c the picture is copyrighted).

Anyway, it was a FANTASTIC first day, wouldn't you say? We finished it off by introducing Matilda to all of our favorite Disney songs---a'capella, of course. Aaron has the best version of Timone and Pumba's "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"---in case anyone was curious. I don't know if I have ever laughed harder.