McFarland Visit

Jeff’s sister and his family came to visit for a few days on their way to Vienna where they’re running a study abroad for the summer. We looked forward to the McFarland’s visit for months and months….and now that sweet visit is just a memory…..oh, how we love that family. All of us….we all love all of them. I could really never get enough, I just wish they lived with us. Seriously (and that’s saying a lot given how small our house is and how we crammed them all in here for three days and nights). They are the kind of people you’d just die to be friends with….smart, kind, interesting, thoughtful, aware…..and we get them as family. I did marry Jeff for all that he is, but the family package that came along with him is not bad at all…..not bad AT ALL.

I love having visitors around because it get’s me out of the house, doing cool things with people I like. Rob and Mary Ann and kids are particularly fun to be out with, they are super easy going, happy, well behaved, fun to talk to, up for anything.

We spent a full day in Boston, eating Indian food on Newbury street, walking through the public gardens, swan boating, flaneur-ing around beacon hill. It was great and the kids were tired out which made it easier to get them to sleep three to a tiny room.

Charlie and Hazel spent most of the day with their plumber cracks hanging out. Hazel is a different person with one on one attention from someone older and “cooler” than herself. She could not get enough of her big cousin Maddie. Jeff and I would be pleased as punch if she turned out to be just like Maddie when she’s older. Maddie is lovely…kind, smart, fun, beautiful. We couldn’t ask for a better role model for Hazel. I stayed off the Swan boat to let Emmeline continue her nap in the stroller….and of course, to take some pictures. These pictures are for you, Nedra! One more thing you should know about Rob and Mary Ann: they are super parents. I was wishing that I had a notebook to record and remember all the great ways they interact with their kids, the things they say, the consequences they enforce, the ways they explain. They gave us a little glimpse into the parenting issues we have ahead of us….oh if we can only handle them with the same amount of deliberateness and grace. We spent our second day hiking (this is a hike right by our house….through the cemetery and the “enchanted forest.” We love it and were happy to share it. It is SOOOO green up there right now. Rob has totally won the hearts of my kids. I think he might be the only adult I know who has more energy than the kids (my dad might be up there though).

That same day they were up for a trip to the beach. And a quite eventful one at that….. I sent Rob and Charlie and Will in our little Honda and the muffler fell off on the hour long drive. Rob had no cell phone, no way of letting Mary Ann and I know that his ears were being blow out….he just had to keep following us. Somehow he convinced those boys that it was the coolest car ride of their lives and Charlie couldn’t stop talking about it for days (he was talking pretty loud about it….I think his ear drums were temporarily damaged by the nose).

And to end it all off we had some trader joes cakes to celebrate cute little Joss’s 1st birthday.

McFarlands: PLEASE COME AND LIVE IN BOSTON. I’m sure Harvard could use a German professor?