Boston

May 21, Thursday

Creepiness at the Wayside Inn

Our summer adventure began with a trip to Boston to celebrate the marriage of our dear friends Amanda and David! We arrived in Boston around 5:30. After we landed and got a rental car, Ryan and the girls went to Sudbury, MA, where we were stayed for the duration of the wedding weekend at Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, a historic landmark just west of Boston. In addition to having 10 historic rooms for overnight guests, the Inn has restaurant, bakery/gift shop, reception facilities, and nearby, a working mill, the schoolhouse where the lamb followed Mary to school, and a historic chapel. Check it out here: http://www.wayside.org .

A picture of the Wayside - our room was the second floor corner that is showing

Ryan and the girls headed directly to The Wayside, but I had a Bachelorette Party to attend! I knew that I would miss the dinner reservation that began the Bachelorette Party Night, but the circumstances actually allowed me to have a quick dinner with my childhood friend, Jamie, who was nice enough to pick me up from the rental car company. We had a quick dinner at a sushi-tapas restaurant, which was fabulous. Jamie then dropped me off at the Improv Asylum, where I joined Amanda and her friends for a Bachelorette Party show. The show was hilarious (and featured the bride at one point). The Bachelorette party had drinks afterward and then the designated driver dropped me off at The Wayside Inn.

While I was out with the party, Ryan and the girls experienced the Wayside Inn in its fullest. Their stay began with a winding route to Room 10, after which Ryan sent me a text message to warn me that I may not be able to find the room on my own and encouraged me to ask the front desk person to guide me. Although Ryan had sent me the message about finding my room, I was not prepared for what awaited me. To begin, no one was at the front desk and I was unable to get into the building. I called Ryan numerous times, but he did not answer the phone. Eventually I got a hold of Amanda’s mother, who was also staying at the Inn. She let me in and I followed her up to the hallway where her room was located. Hers was the last room on the hallway – room 8. My room, Room 10, was nowhere to be seen. So I said goodnight to the mother of the bride and wandered around the Inn for about 25 minutes, enjoying the museum rooms I stumbled upon and the quaintness of the place, while at the same time feeling slightly uneasy about walking around what seemed like a deserted Inn at 1am. Right around the time I was beginning to feel a bit more than uneasy about the fact that I had not found my room, I wandered into a room that had several sofas. To be honest, at the time I couldn’t tell if they were beds or sofas or daybeds in the shadows. Later, I saw the room again and they were sofas. All I saw at the time was the head of a man sleeping on one of them. I stopped short in my steps, turned around, and began to roam the halls of the Wayside a bit more quickly. I turned down an unfamiliar corridor and hoped that I had found the secret passage to Room 10. Alas, the hall led me to a dead end and I was forced to retrace my steps. As I turned a bend in the hall, I was faced suddenly with a strange man wearing the same head of hair that I had seen resting on the sofa bed! Before I could think of how to react, the man introduced himself as the front desk clerk. I thought I should be relieved, but I still found myself somewhat creeped out… I explained who I was and that I was looking for room 10. He said, “Oh yes. The room with the two little girls. They were frightened by the ghost.” Hmmm. “They are still young and frighten easily,” I said.

After stopping at the front desk to get me a key, the clerk led me through the restaurant and to a narrow staircase off to the side of the dining area. He turned to me and without saying a word, pointed up the stairs. (Of course. The stairway to Room 10 is logically located in the middle of the restaurant.) I passed in front of him, stepped up the first step, looked up into the shadowy passageway and almost bumped my head on the ceiling. I looked back at the desk clerk, who wasn’t really looking at me, but had shifted his eyes to the side and was kind of smiling to himself. I debated, “Which is creepier? The staircase or the desk clerk?” The desk clerk won, so I said goodnight and climbed up the stairs and found a small door with an old-fashioned plate depicting, “10.” With a bit of awkwardness due to what little light had found its way to the hallway from the first floor, I managed to open the door to a room with a ceiling about 6 feet tall. I saw the outline of a king-sized bed with a white blanket covering my sleeping family.

After coming to bed, Ryan whispered to me that they had found notes all over the room. Apparently, guests in Room 10 write notes and hide them in the drawers, behind pictures, or between the rafters. Ryan related that Evey had found a note in which the guest mentioned that she was disappointed that she hadn’t seen the Wayside Ghost, which got Evey worked up, so they went to hear the ghost story from the desk clerk. Of course I exclaimed, “Ryan! Why did you read that to her?” To which Ryan replied, “I didn’t, Jenn! She read it herself.” Reading opens doors for young minds, eh? Poor Evey - she was nervous. Ryan also relayed that he had left the girls in the hotel room in order to go back to the car to get luggage and returned to the sounds of two little girls’ shrieking voices (“A spider! A spider!”) echoing throughout the historic building. Good times at The Wayside Inn and I fell asleep wondering what I would discover in the light of day.

Pictures of the Ohs Fam at Longfellow's Wayside Inn:

Can you tell that Cate Ohs is suspicious of The Wayside?

Jenn & Cate at The Wayside Inn

May 22, 2009, Friday

The Wayside Looks Better in the Light

Despite a rough start to our stay, we slept in a bit and woke up refreshed and ready for breakfast. After searching our room for hidden notes (only a few mentioned ghosts), we were honored to join the Bride-to-Be in the Wayside’s restaurant, which had a divine menu (everything from blueberry pancakes to poached eggs with lobster). Every meal was included with our room, so we lived it up. Afterwards, The Ohs Girls went to the nail salon with the bridal party to have our nails painted. The evening events included the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at The Crown Plaza. (The bride has lovely taste, doesn’t she?) We were ready to return to The Wayside after the day’s events.

May 23, 2009, Saturday

The Most Beautiful Wedding Ever and a Reception Starring the Bride

…and Cate Ohs

The wedding morning started out with a morning of hairdos! I had a great time doing hair for all four of the flower girls. :-) Each one had a different hair style, adorned with little white fabric flowers. We had fun. All of the flower girls were very sweet and patient with the whole wedding weekend, which couldn’t have been easy for them, given their age group.

The ceremony was at 1:30 and all was perfect! Amanda was the loveliest bride I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Her style as a person was the same as her style as a bride –warm, delicate, and congenial in the most picturesque way. Everyone seemed to feel at ease and cheerful, which, given the inherent complexities associated with bringing multiple families and friendship groups together for a wedding, is amazing.

As picturesque and beautiful as Amanda is, someone may have stolen the show from her a bit during the reception… I am not sure whether to be impressed or concerned about the fact that young Cate Ohs was the dance floor star. People from at least six different tables used some variation of the word “uninhibited” to describe her behavior. I was not sure if that was a positive statement, but from my point of view, Cate Ohs, spun across the dance floor in the cutest, most charming way possible and made just about everyone smile. Nonetheless, after the father-daughter dance and until we left the reception, Cate Ohs owned the dance floor. If Amanda didn’t love Cate Ohs so much and have an innately loving attitude, I think she may have been jealous. Alas, Cate seemed to be an endearing feature of the reception. Several people called Cate the Mini-Amanda.

Some pictures from the wedding day:

Evey dancing in the grass after the ceremony

Cate after the wedding

Cate Ohs doesn't always smile for the camera. Sometimes she makes fishy faces.

Cate Ohs! Please smile!

The Ohs Girls at the church, take 35...

One amusing part of the wedding day was playing, "I'm going to Kentucky...I'm going to the fair...I met a senorita..." with the flower girls while we were waiting for our turn in the photos after the wedding:

Even the groom joined in at one point:

A beautiful wedding day indeed. :-)

May 24, 2009, Sunday

Exploring the Wayside & Flight to Madrid

David, Amanda, and Mini-Amanda

The morning after the wedding began with another fabulous breakfast at The Wayside Inn. After breakfast, the Ohs girls were delighted that two of their favorite people (Amanda and David), along with several other members of the wedding group accompanied The Ohs Family to visit the historic sites along The Wayside Inn. We ran in front of the chapel and watched the bride and groom pose for crazy pictures with the best man, toured the Gris Mill, and sat in the schoolhouse where Mary’s lamb came to school. What fun!

Ryan, Evey, Cate, & Amanda at the schoolhouse

The Gris Mill

After a series of goodbyes to the bride and groom, the Ohs Family headed for the airport. On the way, we stopped to purchase a cord that we forgot to pack and a Leapster game for Cate Ohs. (Evey received one for her birthday and Cate loves it, so we thought best to purchase one for her as well to make the plane ride pass more quickly – which it did!)

We arrived at the airport exactly 3 hours prior to our flights, as per recommendations for international flights. We made it through check in with ease. Upon seeing that the security line was rather short, we had dinner as a family just outside the security gate, said goodbyes…and the Ohs girls entered the security line for international flights and Ryan went the other direction.

Soon after Evey, Cate, and I were settled in our seats, Evey fell asleep. That’s right - Little E was completely out before the plane even left the ground. Oh, to be able to sleep just about anywhere… She woke up briefly to try some of the dessert that came with her meal, but she was so tired that she only had a few bites before passing out again. She slept for about 5 hours of the 7 hour plane ride. Cate, on the other hand, read books and played her Leapster for 5 out of the 7 hours before I finally said, “Enough, Littlest Ohs! You must try to sleep!” After wiggling around for about 40 minutes in her seat, she settled down and fell asleep. All in all, the only hitch was when meals were served and we were trapped in our seats with trays of food in front of us and Cate Ohs needed to use the potty. I was concerned because the woman seated with us in our row of four had barely looked at us let alone spoken to us since she had discovered her seat next to us. However, she and a girl who looked about 15 years old across the row from Evey, pulled through for us, though. Each took one of the trays so that Cate and I could escape to the restroom. I felt grateful that the 15 year old girl and her mom were seated across from Sleeping Evey, as I suspected they thought she was cute and wouldn’t let anyone bother her.

We arrived in the Madrid airport just on time at 7:20am on May 25th and our adventure in Spain began…