The best laid plains...
This weekend marks our wedding anniversary. Though the happy date is actually Monday, our goal was to celebrate the joyous occasion this weekend. This year has a nice symmetry to it - it marks 8 years married and 16 years together as a couple. It also marks the fact that I've now known John for half my life; next year, we'll have been a couple for half my life! So hard to believe so much time has passed.
We wanted to do something for our anniversary, but our plans have been conceived of Epic Fail lately. We wanted to do something as a family, since we have Cirque du Soleil coming up - and with the Aralis event following, plus all the upcoming insanity with work, we were feeling pre-guilty about the idea of not including the kids. So, after much waffling, we decided to make our Anniversary celebration a Whale Watch.
While I've been on many Whale Watches - it was a popular field trip in Weymouth, and I think I went on at least four between 6th and 12th grade - it's been quite some time since I had been on one. Like 10 or 12 years, when John & I went on one with my Dad. John's only been on the one, and the boys of course have never been on any.
This Saturday, the Boston Aquarium was also have a Spongebob celebration, so we also thought our boys would absolutely love that. So, off we went.
A late start meant we just grabbed lunch on the go, and soon arrived in Boston. We picked up our Whale Watch tickets. Originally, we planned for the 2pm sailing, but we found out they had a special sunset Whale Watch, and so we decided that was perfect - and would give us a whole half-day at the Aquarium to enjoy.
And that, of course, is where things started to go awry. The Aquarium was insanely crowded; luckily, though, we are members, and bypassed the insanity that was the ticket lines. We got into the Aquarium, and the boys were overcome with excitement. John took off with Joshua, and Zachary and I continued at our snail's pace. I was still a bit tired from getting over being sick - I had an ongoing migraine coupled with a summer cold last week - and preferred the toddler's pace. Zachary and I watched the penguins, wandered a bit, looked at jellyfish, headed outside to watch the fur seals, then came back in and spent another 10 minutes or so watching "Nemo" and friends swim around in one of the tanks. John and Joshua ran into us then - Joshua had just a 30 minute whirlwind run around the Aquarium to see it all, and was now done. And because he declared he was ready to go, Zachary decided he was ready to go.
Which, you know, if we had decided to do the 2pm sailing, would have been fine. But we had four more hours to kill. So we continued walking along. The boys saw the Curious George Play Area, and naturally they wanted to go there and stay there. After a little while, John and I decided we need to motivate the boys. Here we are at the Aquarium, and they just want to stay in this little alcove playing blocks!
So we took them off to the IMAX theatre, where we watched Under the Sea in 3D, which was a really neat show. Zachary promptly fell asleep. The 3D had Josh jumping in his seat every other minute, and it was really neat watching him constantly try to reach out to touch the fish.
Afterwards, we took a stroll outside along the water - they have a nice little boardwalk area - while John held a slumbering Zach. We made our way back into the Aquarium, and eventually wandered back to the kid's area. We kept trying to find Spongebob, who was supposed to be wandering around the Aquarium, but we had no luck finding him. We even went on a mad search throughout the Aquarium at one point - and no luck. Finally, we decided we should grab some food before the Whale Watch.
As we were wandering around - stopping again to look at Penguins - Joshua started complaining that his stomach really hurt. He felt a little warm when I kissed his forehead. So we detoured to the cafeteria to immediately get him something to drink. I also bought a large fruit cup - food and water combined, and the kids love their fruit.
Though Josh ate and drank some, he continued to spiral downwards, feeling worse and worse. By the time it came to go meet the boat, he was burning with fever and clearly in pain.
Luckily, the Aquarium was wonderful about refunding our money - even though they have a no refund policy - and we quickly packed up and fled home.
Joshua gave us a bit of a panic for a while - by the time we were home, he was inconsolable, crying out about his stomach, and running an underarm fever of 103.7. I gave him some children's motrin, called the doctor (got the after hours answering service and thus waited for a nurse to call me back). After 40 minutes or so of crying, he finally fell asleep. The nurse called back, gave us some things to look for, but otherwise we decided to let him sleep. His fever eventually came down, and this morning he is jumping around like nothing ever happened.
I can't help but laugh and smile: it's the story of our life, after all.
So, I shall end with the refrain taken from the song that, should our lives ever become a sitcom, would surely be the theme song (full lyrics & song here for those interested:
Well, it's ok. It's so nice
It's just another day in paradise
Well, there's no place that
I'd rather be
Well, it's two hearts
And one dream
I wouldn't trade it for anything
And I ask the Lord every night
For just another day in paradise
We wanted to do something for our anniversary, but our plans have been conceived of Epic Fail lately. We wanted to do something as a family, since we have Cirque du Soleil coming up - and with the Aralis event following, plus all the upcoming insanity with work, we were feeling pre-guilty about the idea of not including the kids. So, after much waffling, we decided to make our Anniversary celebration a Whale Watch.
While I've been on many Whale Watches - it was a popular field trip in Weymouth, and I think I went on at least four between 6th and 12th grade - it's been quite some time since I had been on one. Like 10 or 12 years, when John & I went on one with my Dad. John's only been on the one, and the boys of course have never been on any.
This Saturday, the Boston Aquarium was also have a Spongebob celebration, so we also thought our boys would absolutely love that. So, off we went.
A late start meant we just grabbed lunch on the go, and soon arrived in Boston. We picked up our Whale Watch tickets. Originally, we planned for the 2pm sailing, but we found out they had a special sunset Whale Watch, and so we decided that was perfect - and would give us a whole half-day at the Aquarium to enjoy.
And that, of course, is where things started to go awry. The Aquarium was insanely crowded; luckily, though, we are members, and bypassed the insanity that was the ticket lines. We got into the Aquarium, and the boys were overcome with excitement. John took off with Joshua, and Zachary and I continued at our snail's pace. I was still a bit tired from getting over being sick - I had an ongoing migraine coupled with a summer cold last week - and preferred the toddler's pace. Zachary and I watched the penguins, wandered a bit, looked at jellyfish, headed outside to watch the fur seals, then came back in and spent another 10 minutes or so watching "Nemo" and friends swim around in one of the tanks. John and Joshua ran into us then - Joshua had just a 30 minute whirlwind run around the Aquarium to see it all, and was now done. And because he declared he was ready to go, Zachary decided he was ready to go.
Which, you know, if we had decided to do the 2pm sailing, would have been fine. But we had four more hours to kill. So we continued walking along. The boys saw the Curious George Play Area, and naturally they wanted to go there and stay there. After a little while, John and I decided we need to motivate the boys. Here we are at the Aquarium, and they just want to stay in this little alcove playing blocks!
So we took them off to the IMAX theatre, where we watched Under the Sea in 3D, which was a really neat show. Zachary promptly fell asleep. The 3D had Josh jumping in his seat every other minute, and it was really neat watching him constantly try to reach out to touch the fish.
Afterwards, we took a stroll outside along the water - they have a nice little boardwalk area - while John held a slumbering Zach. We made our way back into the Aquarium, and eventually wandered back to the kid's area. We kept trying to find Spongebob, who was supposed to be wandering around the Aquarium, but we had no luck finding him. We even went on a mad search throughout the Aquarium at one point - and no luck. Finally, we decided we should grab some food before the Whale Watch.
As we were wandering around - stopping again to look at Penguins - Joshua started complaining that his stomach really hurt. He felt a little warm when I kissed his forehead. So we detoured to the cafeteria to immediately get him something to drink. I also bought a large fruit cup - food and water combined, and the kids love their fruit.
Though Josh ate and drank some, he continued to spiral downwards, feeling worse and worse. By the time it came to go meet the boat, he was burning with fever and clearly in pain.
Luckily, the Aquarium was wonderful about refunding our money - even though they have a no refund policy - and we quickly packed up and fled home.
Joshua gave us a bit of a panic for a while - by the time we were home, he was inconsolable, crying out about his stomach, and running an underarm fever of 103.7. I gave him some children's motrin, called the doctor (got the after hours answering service and thus waited for a nurse to call me back). After 40 minutes or so of crying, he finally fell asleep. The nurse called back, gave us some things to look for, but otherwise we decided to let him sleep. His fever eventually came down, and this morning he is jumping around like nothing ever happened.
I can't help but laugh and smile: it's the story of our life, after all.
So, I shall end with the refrain taken from the song that, should our lives ever become a sitcom, would surely be the theme song (full lyrics & song here for those interested:
Well, it's ok. It's so nice
It's just another day in paradise
Well, there's no place that
I'd rather be
Well, it's two hearts
And one dream
I wouldn't trade it for anything
And I ask the Lord every night
For just another day in paradise