Boston 2008!

Our family just returned from a very large family reunion (24 people) with the Mangums in Boston. We had so much fun that no one wanted to go home. We had to leave a day early so that Matt could get to his class on Saturday morning so we missed the last day but we had our own interesting last day on our drive home to Virginia.

We started out the week on Saturday the 5th with a 10 hour drive from Virginia to Boston. It took longer than normal with a 3 year old and a 7-month pregnant lady. We did stop often to eat and walk around and even stopped to buy some fresh fruit and jam from Dutch Country also known as amish country. We drove the back roads in Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York so that we could avoid the holiday traffic on the interstate. Wish we would have thought of that on the drive home.

Maxwell enjoying the ride....mostly!

Once we arrived we finally got to see all of the cousins and Maxwells favorite cousin is Jake who lives in Texas and just 3 months older than he is.

We stayed in this huge old bed and breakfast that was built in the 1800's. It was awesome and had enough rooms so that each family had their own room and everyone had their own bed. To find a vacation house to sleep all of us is a very hard thing to do. Rachel found us the "Idlewild" in Plymoth, MA right on the beach. The morning sunrises were very picturesque. The only modern convenience that the house lacked was AC so we would all sleep with our windows open and fans on all of the time. Having to get up a few times a night I was able to see the ocean at all times of night. Our window faced East which helped us get up in the morning once the sun came up.

These were the stairs that led you to the beach. Our house was at the top of the stairs but in my current condition I didn't spend much time at the beach because I knew once I went down I had to come back up.

We went to the Boston temple on Sunday which has great significance to the Mangum family. they were all able to be a part of the open house and dedication. We took some fabulous family pictures there with everyone.

All 11 of the grandkids. We snapped this picture right before Jake, on the left, ran out of the picture and then Maxwell follwed him. It is always a chore to get this many kids ages 15-3 months old to sit and smile for the pictures.

Our little Maxwell is such a character and enjoys the spotlight and is a great storyteller just like his father. While on the temple grounds we had our oldest nephew David tell this story to all of us about when he was younger and sitting in the temple for the the dedication, President Hinckley singled out David and started talking to him about the temple in front of the whole meeting. It was a truly inspiring event in the life of David and the whole family. Well, following Davids remarks Maxwell stood up in front of the circle and got everyones attention and said that it was his turn to tell a story. He proceded to tell us a story of a creepy monstor and the temple and something about Joseph Smith visting the monster, or something. We were laughing so hard we couldn't really hear the story.

On Monday we visited the Plimoth Plantation and went to see the Mayflower II. It was a very hot day and by the end my feet were very swollen so I didn't take very many good pictures but here are a few. Both Matt and I had ancestors who came over to America on the Mayflower so it was great to see where and how they lived.

Maxwell practicing grinding corn with the little pilgrim girls.
Max ringing the bell on the Mayflower and Max and Dad looking out the portholes to see the ocean.