Boston

One o'clock church is just brutal.  To make Sunday's start a little sooner and enjoy the day in it's entirety we've been starting to walk along the Charles River on our way to church.  Kids get their wiggles out, I get some pictures and sometimes, like the day pictured here, Boston shines. 

Ahhhhh, so beautiful.

Despite the recent crazy events, Boston will always shine to always - and probably even brighter because of them. 

I recently took a house hunting trip to Minnesota - solo.  I flew out on a Thursday night, April 18, and we had arranged babysitters for times when Spencer was in class and the rest of the weekend we had activities laid out for the kids to make it a fun time with Dad. 

I landed in Minnesota to a blizzard :) 

I also landed to a flurry of text messages from the Harvard Emergency System alerting me of all the madness going on at MIT - shootings, confirmed deaths, campus on lockdown, avoid the area.  This was around midnight.  I got to the hotel and immediately turned on the TV.  The news just got crazier and crazier. Shootings on MIT campus, armed carjacking, gun fight through the streets passing through our neighborhood, and swirling speculation about whether or not it was the Marathon Bomber.  I stayed up watching the news until 3am.

We were on our way home from Canada when the Boston Marathon Bombings happened - we had many friends there watching the marathon who saw, heard and felt the bombings but fortunately no one we knew was hurt.  It was awful and too close to home.  It was a sobering day. 

I woke up the next morning to the news.  Boston was on lockdown.  The entire city?  Yup.  There was a full on manhunt going on in Watertown - I recognized the places in the news.  We drive through Waterdown every day to go to Target, preschool, or anywhere else for that matter.  I knew the gas stations and intersections in the background of the news reports.  As crazy as it was, I just wanted to be home, even if I wasn't able to leave!

We live right on the main road that the nut jobs took from Cambridge to Watertown and a thoroughfare for just about all emergency vehicles - Spencer said there were sirens throughout the night and into the next day.  That alone is scary enough. 

The kids had an ipad day and even that got old.  Spencer dug into the closet of surprises and brought out a tent which was a hit.  But cabin fever is just too strong. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to watch the news all day like I wished - I had to pick up a rental car, meet with a real estate agent, tour Madeleine and Henry's future preschool, drive around neighborhoods, and walk through potential future homes.  It was an entirely overwhelming day - being 35 weeks pregnant.  I listened to the radio for news inbetween house visits, constantly checked my phone and was completely distracted. 

Finally that evening, they lifted the lock down.  Spencer said he felt weird going outside even though they gave the all clear.  Eerie.  I was on the phone with Spencer about 2 minutes after the lock down was lifted, when he said "things are happening outside, gotta go"  Not comforting.

Apparently the fire alarm went off in the building next to us.  People were running from the building thinking the manhunt had shifted to our building - emergency responders reacted the same way with swat teams running in - all visible from our balcony.  Friends came over and knocked to hang out until their building was cleared.  Turned out it was a kitchen fire - that's what happens when people can't leave their apartments - but so scary nonetheless. 

At the same time was when the lock down was called back into full force and they cornered the crazy guy.  Hours later it all came to an end.  Even though they got him and life should have resumed as normal.  But how could it?  An entire city had been shut down, 9,000 emergency personnel going door to door about a mile down the road for hours and hours and we were supposed to go back to normal?  Entirely unsettling. 

It was a CRAZY day and I wished I was there, even in lock down, because it was possibly more stressful being away.  That being said, Saturday was a much better day than Friday and eventually as time went on I was more settled. 


The kids answered the many calls from family and friends that came in, telling all of them that "we were safe from the bad guys."  Eventually they too have forgotten about that awful day filled with sirens, tenseness and uncertainty.  And thank goodness.  What else can you do?  March on, forward, grateful for the safety and security that gospel of Jesus Christ brings.  The peace from prayer, the spiritual safety of righteousness, and the absoluteness of eternal truths make us strong. 

Boston Strong.