When my mom arrived on Saturday morning I was finishing up a bit of work so that I could have the rest of the weekend free to hang out with the gang. That was wise, because no sooner did everyone finally arrive and get filled with donuts and snacks than we packed up Maria (no Maddy... she opted to stay home and TV shop and Wii with Mike, Doug, and Frankie) and headed to the American Girl store. I don't know who was more excited about this trip, Maria or Grandma, but Maria's the one who got stuff and my mother was the one who had fun paying for it. This place was huge. Huge! And amazingly calm for a Saturday I heard. I thought it was crazy enough, with a slew of pre-adolescent girls wandering around with either their friends or their mothers and grandmothers. We actually were able to get a table in the Bistro without needing reservations, which apparently is unheard of. Here's a photo of my mom and Maria waiting for their lunch,
and then after lunch we finally made some purchases. Most of what is in the below bags belongs to Maria, but we did get a couple of things for Maddy - a book and a softball outfit for her doll (and yes, Maddy has one of the dolls, which she rather likes).
The day was overwhelming enough for little Maria, but after the American Girl experience we went into the rest of the mall to seek out a store that would pierce Maria's ears. Yes! Maria is now the proud owner of holes in her ears, home to lovely, sparkly pink flower earrings. Aunt Rosanne was the only one with a camera on this trip (reason # 42 why carrying a large bag is a necessity), which was good because I was able to document the whole of this most momentous occasion. First we have the ladies who were doing the piercing drawing the little dots on Maria's ears so that they would know where to shoot the holes:
Maria looks a little apprehensive... she was a little unsure of how much pain to expect; if it would really just pinch like everyone was telling her or if it would hurt much, much more... You'll see in this next photo that she's thinking it's going to hurt much, much more as she braces herself for the guns:
And here's the actual moment when the earrings are being shot into her ears... note the look of pain on her face, but there were no tears!
The end result was definitely worth it, though, and Maria could not stop touching her ears, looking at them, talking about them, pointing at them... 
She made sure to point out to everyone she saw that day that she had just had her ears pierced. Think about it, though - this is a big change. A minute before she had no earrings and now she does and will for the rest of her life, unless she lets the holes close. She'll have to swab her ears each day for the next 6 weeks to avoid infection, and from then on she'll always have to wonder if she's wearing the right earrings with her outfit. Big stuff! But the earring fun doesn't end there... once Maria had her ears pierced she needed to have her American Girl doll's ears pierced, too, and yes, you can have your doll's ears pierced at the doll salon in the store (but not for free, of course). So we went back to the store and had the doll's ears pierced, too. Maria couldn't have been happier.
Once Maria and her doll were properly pierced, we left the mall and headed back to the homestead to show the gang Maria's stuff and to collect them for dinner. We headed out to Vello's, which was a great choice for the kids, and then came home to wind down. Winding down consisted of turning the basement into a slumber party zone, complete with a 5 piece family band. After the air mattresses for Grandma and the kids were pumped up, someone started banging on the drums (maybe Maddy?). That led to Frankie grabbing the mike and Maria grabbing the tambourine, and Laura leading them in song. Instruments were eventually switched, though, and Doug ended up on drums, Maddy on lead vocals, Frankie on guitar, and Maria kept the tambourine, until it was her turn to do the singing. Grandma and Laura were excited fans in the audience, and I took photos and videos galore.
You can find more videos at the Semantic Mather, Doug's oft-forgotten blog, or you can see the previous post for a snapshot of the talent we assembled in the basement that night. I do think that the Perrino Family Band could refine their gig and take it on the road - each of the members is a big enough ham to make the act work no matter what instrument s/he plays at the time. And they have good tunes - I had never heard the Tutitata song before, but the chorus is now in my head for most of the day and I have my nieces and nephew to thank for that.The next day we all got up early, or at least Doug and I did, and after breakfast (and more donuts) decided to head into Boston to go to a couple attractions of Boston's National Park. We took two cars into the city and were planning on parking in the garage at Boston Common, but the road was blocked off so we split up after that. I decided to park in the garage at the Prudential Center because a) it was close to where we were at that point, b) I knew how to get to it, and c) it was convenient to the Prudential T stop. An added bonus for parking there was that we got to see the anime conference that comes to Boston each year. What a treat to see masses of people in wings, ears, paws, and tails, poofy dresses with giant lollipops... these people really get into their anime characters. Not an added bonus was the money that we had to dish out to park there for about 5 hours... $35! But we all eventually met at North Station and headed over to the Charlestown Navy Yard so that the kids could get their National Park stamps at the USS Constitution, and then the plan was to walk over to the Bunker Hill Monument to get more stamps and to see a panoramic view of the city. The kids did get their stamps at the Navy Yard's visitor center, but we didn't tour the USS Constitution. The line was enormous and the air was too hot and heavy. We made a command decision to head over to the USS Cassin Young instead, a WWII Navy destroyer docked across from the Constitution.
It was a large, gray, oily-smelling ship that reminded me why I am not in the Navy. I am sure that conditions have improved a little, but probably not to where I would prefer them to be. Nothing is soft on that ship, not even the beds. I doubt I'd be able to get used to being surrounded by tons and tons of cold metal. But the tour was fun, and after scoping out the torpedoes, the laundry room, the control room, the kitchen, and the sick bay, we headed over to the Shipyard Galley for a light lunch.
Ice cream for everyone! My mother had a yogurt and fruit, though, and Doug and I had giant pretzels (and we've decided that giant pretzels are a must with yellow mustard), to fortify us for the trek over to and up the Bunker Hill Monument. This is the first time that I had ever been to the monument, and it was my first real walk through Charlestown. Wow, it's a nice neighborhood! I can't imagine parking in it, though, and I do wonder where one would buy groceries and other necessities. I've never lacked for a store more than 5 minutes away, so that made me wonder whether or not I could ever live in Charlestown.To visit, though, is fun, and the monument was very cool.
It's just this giant obelisk-like structure in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It reminded me of that monument in Washington D.C... right, the Washington Monument. Don't know how many stairs are in that monument, but in this one there were something like 294 and we all climbed up to the top, even Maria and Grandma. Of course, there were rumbles of thunder as we started our climb, and the park ranger did tell us that if there were lighting strikes while we were at the top she'd have to come and tell us all to leave immediately. And wouldn't you know that as soon as my mother and Doug got to the top the park ranger made the call for everyone to come down! We were able to get a few shots in before leaving (my mother was adamant about staying for a bit, seeing how she risked a heart attack to climb to the top):
I bet on a crisp and clear winter day the views would be even more spectacular, but they were still pretty impressive on this day with air thick with heat, humidity, and summer smut. Still, though, we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon by heading across the street to the Bunker Hill Museum and learning more about the battle that occurred on Breeds Hill. There's only so much museum that you can take before you begin to tire of the experience, so we eventually left and made our way back to the cars and back to the house for dinner. After dinner everyone packed up the cars and headed back to CT 
leaving Doug and I to flop onto the couch and decide that having family over is certainly fun, but definitely tiring! Come back soon, though! There are many more parks waiting for us to explore.
