BOSTON

So, I went to Boston this weekend. Not only did I go, but 4 other people also traveled there (well, 4 that I know personally and that have any relevance to this post, but probably hundreds of other people also went to Boston.) Why Boston? 1) Wonderful Jen Campbell lives there 2)Best city EVER. And who is Jen Campbell, you say? Well, Jen is one of 6 girls that was a freshman on 2CO (read: Second Center Olson) the same year I was. I'm sure you are beyond intrigued at this point, right? Of course! Jen Campbell, Laura (Scott) Goley, Jessica Cuthbert, Katie Clum, Melissa (Cairns) Reed, and Tressa (Ribaudo) Weber were six lowlyfreshman at Taylor University starting the fall of 2002. We stayed close through the 4 years at TU and now meet up once a year at one of our houses. This year was Jen's turn. Lucky for us, she lives in Bo-town.

I will spare you most of the details as they involve hundreds of memories, ridiculous giggling and heart to heart conversations. However, I will share highlights!

Highlight 1

Dunkin Donuts- They all laughed at me, but you have to understand, I don't have one here in Hutch or Wichita. Therefore, it is a highlight! (Yes, that is a giant inflatable iced coffee that I am so convincingly drinking)

Highlight 2

Boston in the Rain

Yep, we trekked from the T to Quincy Market, to the North End, back to Quincy Market and back to the T all in the rain. And it was wonderful! We had a strange man tell us a horrible mushroom joke underneath an awning (he was a fun-gi),

we had some slipping and falling mishaps, we had awesome cannoli, found my brother-in-law's Israeli twin selling zipper purses, and had many laughs.

Highlight 3 (and the mother of all highlights)

Whale Watching- yes, that's right. In that picture is a humpback whale that I could have touched ... had I not been on a tall boat held back

by a guard rail. Famous last words of our tour guide Joanne, "I encourage you to go on a whale watch again. You're just going to have to lower your standards because this doesn't usually happen." We had two humpback whales, 747 and Basin, playing around our boat and following us as we drifted. The would stick their "noses" out of the water and turn circles, roll over and show us their belly, swim all around us and just generally check us out. IT WAS AMAZING. Jess and I even got spit on by a blowhole. You would have thought that we had just met *fill in amazing band or musician here*, we were giddy! To quote Jess, " People wanted to be us!" It was that cool. Sadly my camera died right as the whales started hanging out with us. Go figure, the photographer's camera dies. If you look in that picture the white spots are the whale's flipper fins (I've forgotten the accurate name but they were about 12 ft long). It's "nose" is at the very bottom - which was about 5 ft. from me. And it's dorsal fin and blowhole are above the water. They were so huge and graceful and AWESOME!!! What a testimony to God's creative genius and majesty!

So in a nutshell, that was the trip. We got to eat some amazing seafood, revisit old memories, catch up on each other's lives and just have good ol' girl time. What a blessing!

On my way home I had a 3 hour layover at DFW. Usually this would be tragically dull but I got to hang out with my dear friends the Rosses. They only moved away from Hutch a week and a half ago but it felt like much longer since I had seen them. It also was a definite highlight! They showed me their apartment, houses their looking at, took me to the Four Seasons Country Club, and took me to Chipotle! I couldn't have asked for a better time.