What I learned today: Greatest Gift

I have had many great Christmas gifts in my life full of family, friends and great gifts: tickets to Annie, Ski's, the first season of Buffy. This year took the cake, Mel and my sister Jennie arranged for my 15 year old nephew Trevor to visit for six days by himself. After being laid up all last Christmas weekend with a bad back this year made up for it completely. I have been looking forward to the time when he could come up and I could show him the city. Once I found out he was officially coming, Mel and I have been planning for weeks. We had a well deserved week off to spend with Trevor and we kept him busy trying to be the best aunties ever.

Sunday
We started with the 5K Jingle Run in Somerville. I was pleasantly surprised when I turned the last corner toward the finish line and there was Mel, Trevor and our friend Laura cheering us on. It was a fun and festive run with this crew. The medals are bottle openers, of course.

That night the Patriots were playing and many of the Violent Femmes and friends headed to our place for football and pasta. We had a great time cheering on the hometown boys to a close win.

Monday
We headed out into the city and to our pleasant surprise it started snowing. Trevor was so excited he got to see some actual snow while he was here.

We headed through the Public Gardens and over to the Frog Pond to do some skating. Mel and Trevor did not make it too long on skates but they got around the rink a couple of times.

We walked all through the city and ended the night with a Bruins Game! First we stopped at Boston Beer Works for dinner and when you are on vacation with your aunties and want nachos for dinner, that is what you get.

I have not been to a Bruins game in so long. I think the last time was when they played at the old Boston Garden. Though they lost, we geared up and had a great time. A very fun night.

We had great seats too, 1st row balcony.

It was a long day but so fun.

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday
We headed up north to the ski house so Trevor could try out some snowboarding. I was a little concerned he might be frustrated but he took to it really quickly. We put him in a lesson the first day and he actually wanted to go back for a 2nd day. He caught on so quick. It was so great being on the trails together riding down the mountain. I was completely impressed with how fast he learned. I was also so happy he had a great time and really loved it. The ski house was perfect, we played games, had a fire, an amazing beef stew, watched movies. We did not want to leave.

He even went to the top of the mountain with us a couple of times and made it all the way down.

He even went up the chair lift by himself for his last run.

Lucky for us the half pipe opened at Loon that day and we got to sit and watch some cool tricks while enjoying our apres ski.

We were sad to leave the ski house after a wonderful couple of days, but we headed home. When we got home we put Trevor to work helping us make labels for our holiday gifts from H.C. Quimby Brew Co.