Winter in the Bailey House

It's been a long winter (aren't they all?) even though it was actually a mild winter, but the fam still got a lot of skiing in!

 

In fact, Natalie actually got new skis and boots this year. We had been renting them (and we still are renting them for Grant) but since we are now sure she is done growing, Todd decided to just purchase the boots and skis as a money and time saver! She tried them out in the backyard!

It was trial and error with these new boots.  Todd and Natalie went all the way out to Wachusett to test them out and one of the boots hurt Natalie's ankle so bad that they left after one run. They went straight back to Ski Haus and had them re-molded to her feet.

Meanwhile, one night when Natalie had ski practice at Ward, Grant and I went out for some Buffalo Wild Wings in Shrewsbury.  

We were a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of TVs! And goofball Grant decided to order some hot wings... and he only ate a total of ONE of because his mouth was on fire!  Sometimes ya just gotta let them learn that lesson!

Speaking of sore mouths... this happened over the winter, too!

Just the top braces for now. He will get the bottom ones in May!

We had a little snow this winter, but not a lot at all.  Boston has only had a foot of snow all season (and definitely not all at once).  Todd shovels our driveway like this and it drives me crazy!

Todd and Grant went down to Grammi and Bean's house one Friday night (the coldest weekend of the year!) and Natalie and I stopped in Foxboro to see BTS Yet to Come in Cinemas!

It was so good!  We agreed we thought Cypher Pt3 was the best and listened to it ALL. THE. WAY. DOWN. TO. PLYMOUTH.  I particularly liked when vocal line did 00:00 and Butterfly, followed by rap line doing Ugh! and of course... Cypher Pt3!

The coldest I saw on my weather app in Plymouth was -6 with a windchill of -26.  However, I have NEVER seen ice that formed on the INSIDE of a window!!! You know that's cold!  

The lowest wind chill I saw for Ashland was -34!

So we stayed indoors of course, and played some golf and did some bowling on the new VR headset that Grant got for Christmas!

Grammi was a beast at bowling!

I need everyone to know that I beat Todd at virtual bowling because I never beat him at anything!

Three generations! 💖💖💖

What?  You want to see BTS Yet to Come in Cinemas again?  Of course we will. This time, Kooky came along!

Todd and I went out for dinner one night in February, too!  We never do that!  We stopped by 7 South Bottle and Kitchen in Natick and it was AWESOME. 

Todd tried the flight of beer. You can see I just go for the big one!  I also got the Prime Angus Cheeseburger and I don't know why, but it was incredible.  The bread was really soft (even if I took half of it off ha ha). It also came with the most perfectly crispy French fries ever! Todd got the braised short rib grilled cheese and he said it was really yummy too. I think it was all so good because Todd and I have been losing a lot of weight since the beginning of the year - so we had to treat yo' self!

Nat has been skating on Sunday mornings with her friend Kaavya and their instructor Barbara. She's getting pretty good!  She loves it so much, she decided to start volunteering at the rink on Monday and Tuesday evenings.  Sometimes she works behind the desk, sometimes she goes out on the ice and helps herd the cats (errr, I mean little kids!)  They told her it would lead to a paying job when she turns 16!

The Super Bowl happened this winter too, as it does every winter.  I don't even know who was playing (just kidding, it was the Kansas City Chiefs vs Philadelphia Eagles).  Because it was THOSE teams, and not Cincinnati vs San Francisco, which we really wanted, we decided to really focus on those snacks!

Samosas, shrimp, Buffalo chicken cheese dip, some meats and cheeses, and toasted cheese ravioli!

I also got cupcakes which had plastic Super Bowl LVII rings on them! Hilarious!

I was super stoked to score $20 tickets to see Forest Blakk, one of my favorite singers down at the Red Room at Cafe 939 in Boston.  Just a couple of hours before the concert, we noticed THIS.

So Todd started to cut a hole in the ceiling...

And it turned into this.  And sure enough, there was a leak coming from the upstairs bathroom, and he spent the entire evening trying to cut out more ceiling and locate where the leak was coming from.  This whole ordeal stressed me out, and I knew I just wouldn't have fun at the concert, so I told Todd we would just skip it.

Well, this literally brought Natalie to tears, because she knows what Forest Blakk's EP Minutes means to me (I listened to it a LOT when my dad passed away). So with not much time to spare, we SPRINTED into Boston and were able to get to the show just after the first song started!

He did not play Heaven's Telephone but his setlist was so good! Songs from his whole catalog, including Tread Lightly, Easy to Lie, and If You Love Her!

Me and my girl, who cried when Forest played If You Love Her!

Whoa!  The Red Room at Cafe 939 at Berklee College of Music is giving me European vibes!

Forest Blakk is INCREDIBLE with his fans! He waited after the show and spoke to and took pictures with everyone who wanted to meet him.  I told him the story of how I listened to Heaven's Telephone over and over when my dad passed away, and he said, "I really want to play that song, but I just can't!"  (I can totally imagine that would be hard!)

He's hilarious!  Funny story too - I told him how my daughter stepped in to go to the concert because my husband was at home fixing the rain shower that was happening in our downstairs bathroom. So he recorded a little video for Todd to thank him for working on the bathroom, and letting Natalie and I go to the concert! AND ... you might notice his name (which is just a stage name) is a reversal of the Black Forest from Germany.  He spent some time in German and speaks some German - so he was totally talking to us in German!  Really, the guy is amazing and he's had such a crap life but really turned it around - this site did an excellent write up of his terrible childhood - read about it here: 

https://traceypepper.com/past-writing/bios/forest-blakk/

I came home from the concert to THIS!  Todd and our neighbor Brendan rigged this up and all I could think of was "this looks like a couple of breast pumps!" But hey, it did the trick.

You could even see the water seeping into my grout in the UPSTAIRS bathroom. So where was this water coming from?  Well, we finally had a plumber show up and we thought it was going to be like, thousands of dollars, but for a whopping $300, he was able to fix it!  The leak was coming from behind the shower handle where there was a missing screw (face palm.)

And then... there was Valentine's Day! And look! There's bourbon, and lotto tickets and Butter Jungkook Funko Pops!  This is like, everything I love in the world outside of my family. BTS, bourbon and the ability to dream of traveling!

Meanwhile, the AHS ski team was ready for the slopes!

Here comes Nat, down the mountain and crossing the finish line! I think this was the first meet of the year.

To get good use of their skis and gear this winter, Todd and the kids went up to his cousin Darryl's house for the first weekend of February break.  Darryl's sons Will and Alex work at Sunapee, so they were able to hook these three up with some lift tickets.

Nice views from the top of Mount Sunapee!

Darryl likes to pretend he's also not a giant!

Todd and Big D at Sunapee. I'm sad I didn't go but I had THINGS TO DO at home!

Another shot of Grant, Todd and Natalie at the top of Mount Sunapee. They had really nice weather this particular day.

Following Darryl up the mountain on the ski lift. While eastern Massachusetts got very little snow this season, New Hampshire actually got a lot more. But you can still see them making snow ahead of Darryl!

On the second day, Todd, Natalie, Grant and their cousin Jonathan decided to head over to Vermont and ski at Okemo.

Here they are, ready to head down the mountain!  The top of Okemo is 671 meters, which is considerably taller than either Pats Peak (where they went last year at 246 meters) or Sunapee at 443 meters.  There are 70 kilometers of trails at Okemo! There are 33 meters of trails at Pats Peak and 30 at Sunapee.  Meanwhile, Wachusett sits at 305 meters with 12km of trails!  And don't get me started on Ward... only at 55 meters with 2.1 kilometers of trails!  When the kids were little, we used to ski at Shawnee Peak in Maine (now called Pleasant Mountain) and that is at 390 meters with 23 km of trails.

Todd and all of his kids!

Okemo, being considerably higher than the other mountains they've been too, has some beautiful views, even on a cloudy day.

Well that's quite lovely! I'm kind of sad I missed this! 

Meanwhile, Natalie's boot issues returned and her ankle hurt so bad, Todd found her like this! (It's okay to laugh - I did!)

So Natalie went back to the lodge to hang out and wait for everyone else to finish skiing (she felt really bad about it).  Grant continued on skiing with Todd for a bit longer.

Grant speeding under a bridge at Okemo!

Back at home, I did THIS. A massive cleanout of his bedroom.  

And an even more massive cleanout of Natalie's bedroom! This was my prized project of the weekend!

After everyone got back from skiing in New Hampshire and Vermont, we all went to see 80 for Brady. It was hilarious! 

I love it when Grant comes to our room and still wants to snuggle with us.  I try not to embarrass him too much, but it really makes my heart happy. He's gonna leave me in 5 years and I won't get a chance to do this anymore!

I randomly found this picture attached to an email from like, 2004.  My dad took it, and we must have thought it was super funny that a Bailey was buried next to a Swales!

Hard to believe the girl in the picture above this one now has a son who is taller than her, but here we are.  It's finally happened.

THIS overtaking might not EVER happen though! Good luck with that one, bud!

One of our big winter projects (I say "our" like I had any part in this!) was to finally paint the living room!  Awwww!

Who does Grant love? Nobody knows!  (We asked him and he said, "Zendaya!" HA!)  Natalie loves Kim Taehyung, of course. Everyone gets love on this wall!

Natalie also finished up ski season and they had their end-of-the-season banquet where Natalie was voted most likely to have the best attitude!

And quite surprisingly, she also earned her varsity letter! 

Here's Nat hanging with Leo, who likes to make fun of me because I love BTS.

What is this even!?! I have a kid who is a varsity athlete?  She was pretty certain she was JV all year, so this was quite a surprise and an honor!

You know we had to go out for our favorite holiday - St. Patrick's Day!

I got the LAST Shepherd's Pie at Stone's and Todd got corned beef and cabbage!

After we ate, our neighbor Brendan came down to Stone's to join us for a couple of pints and some NCAA tournament viewing. Unfortunately, his team, Providence College did not win. Boooo.

But we did enjoy watching Fairleigh Dickenson beat #1 ranked Purdue! (Sorry to all of my cousins who went to Purdue ha ha).

Hey, it's looking good!  We just need to put the living room back together now! Brendan let Todd borrow a more sturdy ladder and some scaffolding, which was helpful.

The most fun weekend we had was when the Lightning came to town to play the Bruins!

AND we met up with Mikey and Bryan for a continuation of beer drinking that began back at Oktoberfest in 2019.  And of course, Todd took this picture.

Oh. There I am!

We had a great lunch at Tavern on the Square - I don't think I've ever had a Reuben as good as the one they sell there - highly recommended!  Then we headed into the Garden for the game! 

Todd, me and Bobby Orr. Bobby totally looks like he is photobombing us.

Brian and I say, "Prost, and GO BOLTS!"  Mikey and Todd, not so much.

Bolts starting lineup!  Victor Hedman is my favorite player and I have never seen him play before today so that was awesome! He scored the Bolts only goal! (We won't talk about how one of the Bruins goals went off of his skate though ha ha).  And of course, Vasy is one of the best goalies in the league!

HEDDY!!!

Hilariously, puck drop was the calm before the storm.

Because 9 seconds into the game, this happened!

Pat Maroon's gonna fight, that's for sure.

This is two grumpy Tampa Bay Lightning fans AFTER the Bruins beat the Bolts.  I mean, it wasn't totally unexpected. The Bruins are absolutely crushing it this season, but we were kind of hopeful. Maybe next time!

After the game, we ran over to Night Shift Brewing for some post game dinner before saying goodbye to our friends.

Even if the Bolts lost, it was super awesome to reunite with Mikey and Brian - we really had a fun day!

You wanted to see the post living room paint job with all of the furniture back together?!  I need to take another one now that our paintings/pictures are (finally) on the wall.  It's only been 3 years since we moved it, so we figured it was finally time!

And we're on to spring! Let's goooo!

Historic Boston - All Along Congress Street

 Congress Street is wedged between Boston's City Hall Plaza and Faneuil Hall, and there's actually a lot to see and do around this area!

City Hall Plaza is bordered by Congress Street, and has always been bustling with people since it's opening in 1968.  This is where all of the sports championship rallies are held, where the parades end, and where many festivals are held throughout the summer such as the Pride Festival and the Jimmy Fund's Scooper Bowl.  From here you can peek down toward State Street and see the (super small) Old State House.

There's a great statue of Celtics legend Bill Russell at City Hall Plaza too. He was a five time MVP and won 11 (!!!) NBA championships when he played for the Celtics between 1956 and 1969. There are 11 smaller statues surrounding Russell here, each representing one of his championships.

While City Hall itself might be the ugliest structure in the entirety of Boston, there has been a lot of construction around the area, particularly north of here. 

I love this Boston sign and I love seeing Faneuil Hall peeking out over the top of it.

Speaking of Faneuil Hall, it's right across the street from Boston's City Hall, also on Congress Street.  Although Peter Faneuil was a known slave trader, he built Faneuil Hall as a gift to the city of Boston (I dunno, send it back?)  He died in 1743 and the building actually burned in 1761, but was rebuilt in the same spot at the same dimensions with a new roof.  It was expanded to look as it does today in 1806, AND Mayor Josiah Quincy added the rest of Quincy Market (behind it) in the 1820s. So IS this even Faneuil's hall?  He wasn't a very important guy - just a guy with money who didn't do very good things with it.

However, Samuel Adams stands in front of Faneuil Hall!

Not too far from Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market is the Union Oyster House, a National Historic Landmark.  The sign says, "The oldest continually operated restaurant and oyster bar in the United States. Constructed between 1716 and 1717, it is a rare surviving brick example of Boston's Georgian architecture." (As designated by the National Park Service in the Department of the Interior in 2003.)  The restaurant has actually only been here since 1826, and prior to that it was Hopestill Capen's silk and dry goods store (since at least 1742.) The bay backed right up to the store at the time, so it was convenient for ships to make deliveries here.  In 1826, Atwood and Bacon started selling oysters, clams and scallops among other things. Did you know that the toothpick was first used in the US here at the Union Oyster House? 

The superlative next door is the Bell in Hand Tavern, which wins for the oldest continuously run tavern in the United States (from 1795 onward, but not during Prohibition from 1920 to 1933!) The first owner was Jimmy Wilson, who was Boston's last known Town Crier who established the first Bell in Hand in Congress Square under the Exchange Coffee House.  It was then moved to Williams Street at Pi Alley, and eventually to 81 Devonshire Street before landing here on Union Street.  Samuel Adams, Daniel Webster and Paul Revere were known to visit the Bell in Hand! Lights and darks were only served until 1919 with liquor added to the menu after Prohibition ended.

The nearby Green Dragon Tavern, although not the original that was founded in 1654, was the site of many meetings that were had regarding the "detested tea" leading up to the Boston Tea Party. While the Freemasons held their meetings on the first floor, secret meetings of the Sons of Liberty were held in the basement.  Historians call this tavern the "Headquarters of the Revolution."

The original Green Dragon Tavern was demolished in 1832, but was rebuilt very close by the original.  On the night of his famous ride, the Green Dragon Tavern was Paul Revere's starting point on his way out to Lexington.   

The Boston Tea Party was planned right here! (Ok, not RIGHT here because that building was demolished but in this vicinity!) Other famous patrons of the Green Dragon include John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Dr. Joseph Warren.

On my way back home, I walked through the very powerful Holocaust Memorial (which basically sits in front of the Bell in Hand, right along Congress Street). This memorial was founded by Holocaust survivor Stephan Ross who lost his parents, a brother and five sisters before being set free at Dachau by American troops when he was 14.  When I walked in, you can read "First They Came" by Martin Niemöller, a German, once-Hitler-supporter-turned-anti-Nazi Lutheran pastor.

 The memorial has six 54-foot glass towers - and the website reads, "The number six has many meanings here: the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust; the names of the six main death camps; a row of memorial candles; and the six years, 1939-1945, during which the infamous “Final Solution,” the most deadly phase of the Holocaust, took place. In addition, millions of numbers are etched in the glass, representing the infamous tattoos inflected on many of the victims’ arms."  If the sun is out and it hits you just right through the glass, you might find yourself with one of those numbers etched on you, as well.

Steam rises up from the grates as you walk through, and along with the numbers on the glass, there are short stories and messages about people's time in the concentration camps that are INCREDIBLY moving. This is one of the most compelling memorials I have ever been to, aside from the actual concentration camps. It's very thoughtful and well done, and I definitely shed a tear here.

Until next time, Boston!