Martha's Vineyard / Boston

Shawn and I took our first baby-free trip since Emily was born.  We went to Martha's Vineyard to attend my friend Jenny's wedding and then stayed a night in Boston.  We left really early Friday morning (we had a 6:30am flight), so we dropped Emily off at my parent's house Thursday night.  It was sooo hard leaving her!  Since she's been born, I have only been away from her for 1 night at a time.   Now we were about to leave her for 4 nights!  The drop off was about what I expected.  I tried to not get sad around her, but as soon as Shawn and I were back in the car, I broke down.  I felt so guilty for leaving her and so sad that I wouldn't see her for so long. 

First off, let me just tell you, Martha's Vineyard is NOT any easy place to get to.  Like I mentioned earlier, we left at 6:30am and took a 3.5 hour flight into Boston.  Then we had an 1.5 car drive to get to the ferry.  We had to take a 20 min. bus ride from the ferry parking lots just to get to the ferry, then hopped on a ferry for a 45 minute boat ride to Martha's Vineyard.  Once we got to Martha's Vineyard, the town we were staying in, Edgartown, was still another 20-30 minutes away, so we hopped in a cab to finally get to our hotel.  We left our house that morning at 4:45 am and finally arrived to our hotel at 4:00pm.  It was a long travel day and I think we hit just about every mode of transportation possible (except train). 

On the ferry over to Martha's Vineyard.



It was pretty foggy during the ferry ride over, so we didn't get to see much of a view.  It stayed pretty foggy most of the day Friday, but luckily by Saturday it had cleared up and it was beautiful outside.  Our hotel, the Harbor View,  was really nice!  It was right on the ocean and within walking distance to all the shops and restaurants. We got upgraded to an ocean view room and we had a little balcony too.

Our hotel

The view from our room

By the time we arrived at our hotel on Friday we didn't have much time before we had to go to the rehearsal dinner, so we just walked around the hotel a little bit and then showered and headed out to the restaurant.  The rehearsal dinner was at a nice place right on the water.  We had a good time visiting with everyone, but by 10:00 the day finally caught up to us and we were ready to head back to the hotel.

At the rehearsal dinner

Saturday morning we slept in a little bit, enjoyed a nice breakfast and then headed out to check out all the shops.  Edgartown surprisingly had quite a large downtown shopping area with lots of cute stores.  We've been to Chatham on the Cape, so that's kind of what we were expecting Martha's Vineyard to be like, but I think Edgartown had even more to do than Chatham.  After walking around a bit, we stopped in and had lunch at a seafood place, Seafood Shanty, right on the water.  Shawn had to get his fill of seafood on the trip.  And now that I've started liking seafood, I too enjoyed my share of fish and lobster.  After lunch we headed back to the area by our hotel and walked around on the beach and checked out the lighthouse across the street.  Jenny's wedding was at 4:00, so we got dressed and walked over to the church.  The reception was close to our hotel.  It was outside in a tent with lots of lights which made it look really pretty at night. There was a nice dock you could walk on and Jenny did a great job with all the details.  The only downside was that it was a bit chilly outside and I got eaten alive by mosquitoes.  But overall, the wedding and reception were really nice.

The lighthouse across from our hotel

Sunday morning we got up early and took a cab back to the ferry stop.  Knowing how long it would take to get back into Boston, we wanted an early start.   We got on the 9:30 ferry and traveled the 45 minutes back to the Cape.  This time it was sunny outside and much warmer, so we sat outside on the top deck and enjoyed the view.  On our drive back to Boston, we decided to make a pit stop in Plymouth, MA to get some lunch.  Shawn and I went to Boston/ Cape Cod about 4 years ago and we had stopped in Plymouth then to see the Mayflower, but we never ate.  We remembered seeing some seafood restaurants so we thought we should go back.  After a quick bite, we continued on our trek into Boston. 

We stayed in the Back Bay area this time.  This was the one area we never really saw much of last time we went to Boston.  We could see Fenway from our hotel room.  After checking in, we walked around the Back Bay area for a little bit.  We walked up Newbury street (where all the high end shopping is) and also walked around some of the neighborhoods.  It was neat getting to see the kinds of houses people lived in.  Shawn cracked me up saying he was on celebrity watch, thinking we might run into Ben Affleck.  We never did.  We walked up to the Boston Commons, which is a big park in the middle of downtown and sat and people watched for a little bit.  Since we've been before and had seen most of the sites, we just went low-key this time.  We went to an Irish Pub and hung out and watched the Patriots play  (they were my football pick this week in my work pick one game).  When the game was over it had started to drizzle a bit and had gotten pretty chilly.  We headed back to our hotel to bundle up a bit more and catch a cab to Faneuil Hall.  This is the more touristy area and an area where we knew we could find a more casual restaurant.  We started to eat dinner at Cheers (even though we ate there last trip), but after sitting and not getting any service for about 15 minutes, we got up and left.  We went to a brick-oven pizza place instead.  After dinner we knew we wanted to go to the Hotel we stayed in last trip, the Omni Parker House, and get a piece of Boston Creme pie.  This is the place it was invented.  It was soo good.  But I must say, as we looked around while sitting at the bar in this hotel, we were clearly the youngest people here. . .by 30 years!  But the dessert was so worth it!  Most bars were packed (probably for the Red Sox vs. Yankees game), so we decided to call it an early night and just went back to our hotel.

Boston Commons

Faneuil Hall

"Cheers" (although this Cheers doesn't look like the one on TV, that's a different restaurant in Boston)



This morning we had a noon flight, so we pretty much just got up and after breakfast headed to the airport.  I was so excited this morning, knowing that I would get to see Emily.  Shawn and I couldn't stop talking about how Emily would react when we picked her up from school.  And we guessed right.  She seemed confused when we both showed up to pick her up, but she had a huge smile on her face.  I missed her so much and was so happy to see her!

Overall, we had a great trip. It was so nice to get away, just the two of us.  But by the end of it, we were both ready to get back home to our baby.