Springy Weekends!!

This past weekend was one of our first truly nice ones, and the timing was great since my mother-in-law was in town!  We hadn't seen her since around Christmas time, so it was nice to catch up with her.

Because it was so nice, we were able to spend some quality time outside with her and the dog.  We had recently heard about a great reservation nearby that was great for dogs and even had a fenced-in area for them to be off leash, so we packed up a couple of sandwiches and headed out.  My parents also met us there, so we all walked the trail, stopping often to admire the gorgeous lakes and wildlife.  The doggie area, "Bark Place," was more deserted than I thought it would be for such a gorgeous day, but we did encounter a few larger dogs.  Gizmo is very used to big dogs from our neighbors and her weekly daycamp, so she ran away a bit at first but quickly came around and roughhoused with them a little bit.  She really is a pretty good sport about almost everything, which is very useful for things like that.

After that long hike, we kicked back a bit at home then took my MIL out for her Mother's Day dinner.  She was in the mood for Thai food and the best place for that around here is a tiny little boxcar which makes great food, but is admittedly very reasonably priced and not terribly fancy.  But we all enjoyed our meals which is what matters, and it was refreshing fare after the long day.

Post-church on Sunday, we decided again to take Gizmo out for a big day in the sunshine.  We've always wanted to take her to the Boston Commons / Public Gardens and relax and watch her run around.  Anthony has also always wanted to try some of the many food trucks Boston is finally getting around to having, so we killed two birds.  Unfortunately we failed to consider that the food trucks he wanted to hit up were right near where the marathon bombings took place.  When we first rolled up we originally thought there was a big line of food trucks when in fact it was still a line of news trucks posted next to the memorial site.  We eventually found our trucks then wandered back to Copley to eat while admiring the tulips and memorial.  It was very uplifting to see how far away some of the messages of hope and prayer were from, and amazing to see how much stuff people bought and left.

Sunday night found us relaxing and grilling after all that walking.  We had all wanted to see Life of Pi, so we tuned into that and I highly recommend it.  The story is engaging and interesting, but more than that the visuals were just awesome - it was just a fascinating film to watch for that alone.  If you haven't seen it, definitely add it to your queue.

All in all, it was a great weekend with lots of sun and exercise and good food.  Gizmo absolutely adores my MIL, so I'm sure she spent most of today moping around missing her new best friend but happily she'll be back up again in August.