Becky's photoblog

Regular Thursday morning meeting, regular amazing view!

 

I stopped dead in my tracks as I walked towards Kenmore Square and saw that Fenway Park now has an enormous ramp dominating the skyline! It’s humongous (140 feet), and I had no idea at the time what it was for. Now I know that “Big Air at Fenway” is this week … a huge snowboarding and freeskiing event. This article explains it better than I can.

Friends got a new dining room table so we let them make a delicious bolognese pasta dinner for us to try out the new table. We’re such good friends.

I walked over the Mass Ave Bridge on my way to meet a friend.

We had a delightful New Year’s Eve with a few friends who are all planning to celebrate wonderful milestones in 2016! And it was lovely to see our friend’s mom … it had been too long

On the drive home, I took a handful of terrible photos that show the Prudential Tower lit up with ’16’. Welcome 2016!!

We had a great view of Old South Church from an office in Back Bay

When we were in Halifax Nova Scotia recently, we learned about the reason that Halifax sends a ginormous Christmas tree to Boston every year, so this year, we decided to attend the annual Christmas Tree Lighting in Boston Common, with a gajillion other people.

In 1917, two ships collided in Halifax harbor, and since one was fully loaded with explosives, this caused the second largest man-made explosion in history. Since the city of Boston provided lots of support to the devastated city, they have been sending us a Christmas tree every year since.

A lot of people gathered on the Common for a festive Christmas concert, followed by an exciting countdown, the tree-lighting, lots of fireworks right near the big tree that seemed destined to start another explosion, and then a Christmas carol sing-a-long. It was a lot of fun 🙂

I had an appointment in Copley Square in an office with a gorgeous 6th floor view, and I got to see some lovely colors in my favorite part of town, just as the sun was setting.

 

It was incredibly cool to leave home in a cab at noon, and arrive at our stateroom aboard the Maasdam  less than 90 minutes later! We wasted no time in exploring the ship, our home away from home for the next week. It’s very similar in a lot of ways to the other Holland America ship we were on for our honeymoon, and it brought back great memories. We were up on the top deck (14th) to watch as the ship pulled away from our beautiful city, with planes flying overhead and landing at Logan, and past all of the harbor islands. Boston’s skyline kept getting smaller and smaller, but we could still see it as the sun set behind us and the nearly full moon rose ahead of us. It’s so rare for me to be able to see so much open sky that the sunset is on my right and the moon is rising on my left!

Brian’s Photos:

We decided we needed a full-week vacation, and it was time to cross an item off of our bucket list so, we took a New England and Canada cruise! We loved our honeymoon cruise so much, so we booked a week on another Holland America ship, the Maasdam, then we overpacked, we charged up our cameras, and headed over to Boston Harbor!

We spent 7 days watching the sunrise at sea, exploring beautiful cities, relaxing on the ship, watching the sunset, and having lovely dinners with lovely people. It’s a pretty good way to live!

Check out this map for our itinerary: we left right from our very own harbor, which we were so excited about, then we headed up the coast of Maine, to Nova Scotia, then Prince Edward Island, around New Brunswick in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Quebec City, then down the St. Lawrence River, ended in Montreal, and drove home through Vermont and New Hampshire. Click here to see our photos!