Boston Part I

Seeming there is so much to do in Boston, we're breaking it up into a couple of trips. This trip we decided to take the USS Constitution Cruise, visit the USS Constitution Museum, and go to Bunker Hill. It rained like crazy right before and a little after lunch, we got ourselves a little lost while trying to find something to eat, but had a really good time!

Our Ship

The Red Brick Building in the picture is the oldest building still standing in Boston. It was once owned by John Hancock.

A Jellyfish we saw just before our Cruise, at first we had a hard time finding them, but after it had rained we saw what seemed to be thousands of them.

Boston Sky Line

U.S. Coast Guard

A Bridge in Boston

Row Houses in Boston.

Condos on the Boston Harbor, with three floors, a garden, and two parking spots. All for just a "cool" $3.5 million!

The Government Building, where the English controlled Boston under Marshall Law right after the Boston Tea Party.

The North Side Church, the oldest church in Boston (1723), also houses the oldest church bells in North America. In 1775 two lanterns were hung on the steeple to notify Paul Revere that the British were coming by sea.

Bunker Hill, when we told Keira we were coming here, she said "Want to go Bonka Hill."

Colonel William Prescott, led the colonial forces in Battle of Bunker Hill.

Dr. Joseph Warren dispatched Paul Revere for his famous midnight ride on April 18, 1775, and was killed during the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Telling Keira to smile on top of the Bunker Hill Monument.

Looking down after climbing the 295 steps of Bunker Hill Monument.

Looking up at Bunker Hill Monument.

Looking Down from Bunker Hill Monument.

The USS Constitution Ship. On August 19, 1812 The USS Constitution took on the British Frigate HMS Guerriere. A half hour of intense battle maimed the British Ship. According to legend, as the cannon balls of the HMS Guerriere bounced harmlessly off oak-planked sides of the USS Constitution, a sailor exclaimed "Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!" Ever since the USS Constitution has enjoyed the affectionate nickname "Old Ironsides."

The Marines would climb up to the platform on top of the masts to sharp shoot in a battle.

Looking down the wrong end of the barrel.

Ringing the Bell on the USS Constitution.

We told Keira to "Smile" this is what she did. LOL! :)

Stairs going to the lower decks.

The Steering Wheel

Sleeping quarters. Some parts of the Ship were under renovation.

The Cannons and the barrel that they used to desalinate the meat.

A Destroyer used in WWII and the Koren War. It helped to protect troops as they were invading Okinawa and was hit by three different Kamikaze Japanese planes.

Passed out after a long and fun filled day.

The Slater Mill

Samuel Slater immigrated, from England when he was in his teens. At the time it was Illegal for anybody in his profession to come over to the United States. So he told his family that he was going to visit London, dressed up as a Farmer, boarded a ship and set off to Philadelphia. While on the ship the Captain told him about Rhode Island and the opportunities that Rhode Island had so he decided to settle there instead. In 1793 he built the first successful water powered Cotton Spinning Mill in North America, on the Banks of Blackstone River in Pawtucket Village. This was a major start to the Industrial Revolution.

Starting at the age of six, children would begin to work at the mill, boys would get around fifty cents per day and girls would get about thirty-five cents per day. Working at the Mill was very dangerous. It was not uncommon to break bones and even lose a finger or two. Being sick was not an excuse to not work, so a lot of disease was spread. It seemed that children were expendable, if one died you had more at home to take their place. Taking this tour made us grateful for the technology we have today, the era we are living in, and that we live in a place where these types of conditions are not allowed. I cannot imagine sending Keira off to work to at a plant/mill knowing that she might not be comming home.

The Cotton Mill is the Yellow building on on the right and the Machinery Mill is where they did wood and metal working on the left.

Dam that was built in the 1700's to have a constant flow of water for the mills.

Samuel Slater slept in the house while he was building his residence. It once housed twenty-three people, the chimney supported seven fireplaces, and was fully occupied until 1960 without a bathroom!!

1700's floorboard, this is why we couldn't see the upstairs.

A bucket like this was numbered and had a family's name on it. These buckets were used in case of a fire. When a neighbors house caught on fire, the neighbors would fill there buckets with water and send them on down, this was known as the bucket brigade. The numbers and the name would let the neighbors know who didn't send there bucket.

The Garden, which they try to keep like it would have been kept during that time.

An old Spinning Wheel.

Churning butter. . . or at least pretending to.

The Wheel

Opening the gate, to let in the water to run the wheel. They don't open the gate until the first customers arrive. Which was US!! For most of the tour it was just us as well!!

The Drive Shaft is made to turn by the wheel, which powers the whole plant.

Whale Oil Lamp.

One of the first standardized tap and dye machines. Before this they had to make screws by hand. They also used this to bore out holes for cannons and guns.

This bell was rung at five o'clock in the morning, signaling the workers that it was time to get up and come to work. At six-thirty it rang five more times. Then the doors were locked and you could not get in or out. The windows were nailed shut, the machines were kept running, the workers were not allowed to turn them off for anything. With the machines running all the time, the windows being nailed shut, and humidity made it pretty hot in the workshops. This is how the phrase Sweat Shop got started.

Cleaning the cotton, this machine separated the seeds and the outer shell from the cotton. Before this machine was invented this was done by hand and took a full hour to de-seed on pound of cotton. This machine decreased the amount of time taken to de-seed the cotton, thus making cotton more accessible to the general public. While cleaning the cotton by machine or by hand sent a lot of cotton fibers into the air, not wanting to lose any cotton the windows were kept nailed shut.

Cotton Bale, weighing in at five-hundred pounds.

I can't remember what this was called, but they used to straighten the cotton fibers before putting the cotton on the wheel.

Crank operated Spinning Wheel.

This machine took several spools of weak thread and spun them together to make stronger thread. The children's job for this machine was to make sure there were not any empty spools. The children had to take the spools off the machine while it was still running, as the machines were not allowed to be turned off. The bobbins moved very fast and the children would often get their fingers pinched, bruised, or even broken.

This machine was able to make patterns by using a track system. Some people say that this was the first computer. We were able to see the machine in use, and watched it make strips of fabric that said Slater Mill. It was pretty cool!

From West Coast to East Coast.

As you most of you know, Jon and I have decided to travel with his work for a couple of years. This has been something that we have talked about for a while and it felt right to start now. It was a hard decision for us to make, we loved it in Centralia and loved his work and the people he worked with. So far we have been to Green River Wyoming, and now we are in North Providence Rhode Island. We hope you visit our blog often and join us on our New Adventure!

Green River:
We were in Green River for six months. We choose Green River as our first stop so that we could be close to family before we moved across the country. We enjoyed being so close to everyone very much!!

All Bundled Up.

All though this is not her first time seeing snow it is her first time playing in it! The snow was really powdery so we couldn't make any snowballs :( but we had fun anyways! :)


This is a blanket that came with on of her dolls. I thought that she looked like a Pilgrim so I grabbed the camera. Lately she has been putting blankets over her head and saying "I getting married" She has even gotten upset with us when putting away blankets because she "needs to get married" LOL!

Trip to Rhode Island:


Leaving Salt Lake at around five in the morning.

View from our first Hotel's window.

Visiting Jason, Kim, Peter, and Tommy in Kirksville Missouri. This is actually a lounge in Jason's school. We really enjoyed staying with them and appreciate them having us!


Somewhere along the road. Keira really likes to put her sunglasses on "all by self " and usually gets them on up-side-down.

Palmyra New York:
We spent our last night in Rochester New York. Palmyra is only about a thirty minute drive so we decided to take a little detour. We were only going to take a quick look at the Joseph Smith House and a quick picture or two. . . but in order to see the house you have to take the tour. So we did, and are very glad that we did!! The Church really put a lot of work and research into making it as authentic as they could. Most of the tour was, what it might have been and what it might have looked like. LOL! But our tour guide said the house (the one Alvin built) is 80% original, which is pretty good if you ask me! The Church did a lot of excavating with Satellite Imagery as well.

The Church knew that Lucy Smith had an Apple Orchard. They excavated this area and found old roots of Apple Trees so they know that this is where is was.

The Palmyra Temple. President Hinckley wanted a clearing so that the Temple could be visible from the Joseph Smith Home. . . but the towns people didn't want the tree's to be cut down. So. . . to get around this, they had there groundskeeper cut one tree down at a time, to make it look like it was happening naturally. LOL!

Keira and I in front of the Joseph Smith Home.

The Alvin Tree.

This is actually the Young Barn. . . yes Brigham Young's family's barn. The Young family donated the Barn to the Church. They know that this is where the Smith barn was because of Satellite Imagery.

The Sacred Garden. I had heard of how peaceful this garden was, and we were amazed that it was! Keira even talked in whispers without us telling her to!

Buttonwoods/Warwick City Park:

Just a Swan we saw on our way to the water.



Swimming in Buttonwoods Cove. This was her fist time being in water that wasn't the bathtub or a swimming pool. She did amazingly well!! Almost got in all by her self! When it was time go, even though she was shivering, she didn't want to get out. The water oddly enough was warmer then our out door swimming pool. Which we took her to after her nap, again even though she was shivering she did not want to leave, we would ask her if she wanted to go home and get warm? She would answer, "No! maybe swim?"

Looking out on Buttonwoods Cove.

Just some house on the cove.

Getting all nice and warm with Daddy!

Bundled up and ready to go home!

Blogging Delay

I have a bunch of pictures from Easter that I need to upload, but our computer needs to be fixed, the Mother Board is going bad. ;( Although we can still get onto our computer and into files and even on-line, I am afraid to turn it off. I am more afraid to put our Sims card into the computer. I am not computer savey or anything of the like, but I am terrified that if I do it will get stuck and I will loose my pictures! :( Not sure that can actually happen but I don't want to risk it. So once we get to Rhode Island, we are going to take it to the Best Buy there and have it fixed. Once we get it back I will update! Hopefully we will have some pretty cool pictures from our trip.