I have a collection of photos from the past few months that I still haven’t shown you (you know, like that one time I went to Italy and Poland for three weeks?). I think it’s about time I introduced you to The Ranch. The Ranch is owned by my father’s parents, and I consider it to be one of the most magical places in the world. They’ve owned several different properties, all with different names and memories attached, but for me it wasn’t ever the location or the acreage that was important. I loved visiting grandpa and grandpa at The Ranch because it meant cowboys, horses, outhouses, and wiener roasts. No matter what part of the Northwest they own land in, I’ve been able to find those things and I want The Ranch to be around forever so my kids can grow up visiting it too.

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This is all the adventure he needs right now, throwing rocks in the pond in the park located adjacent to our apartment building.

You may have noticed we haven’t done a whole lot in Chicago, in terms of experiencing the nightlife or seeing the sights or eating the terrific food (we’ll get to that last one eventually, we’ve got to save save save before we can get there though). I wanted to change this, and so I set some goals when making my 101 in 1001 list that would get us out of the house and into the city. This included an architectural boat tour, a visit to Millennium park, and some museums.

In terms of opportune time to do these family trips, this past month was it. That Husband isn’t working or going to school right now, so we could do everything mid-week in the middle of the day when the crowds would be smaller. The weather is nice, T1 is older and just starting to appreciate things, and we’d create some fun family memories while taking lots of pictures and blogging about all of it.

As I sat down to research all of this, the architectural boat tour was immediately out. $25 per person? No way are we paying that much to ride around on a boat and listen to a tour guide! Especially since some of the tours I looked up don’t even have discounts for kids. That’s just not something we are interested in doing. I was bummed to realize that I wasn’t going to be able to cross that item off my 101 in 1001 list, but otherwise we weren’t too sad about it.

After that I decided we were going to do 5 outings over 2 weeks, which would be Millenium park, the zoo, two museums, and a trip to one highly rated/discussed pizza place. I was plotting maps and looking up times and costs and I realized…

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I wanted to write up a little summary of my culinary adventures in Boston, because I did one for New York and it’s been a great resource to forward on if people ask me what I liked about The Big Apple.

I flew in to Boston on Thursday afternoon and dropped my stuff off at The John Jeffries House. When I checked in, they asked me if I was coming for medical reasons, which is when I learned it’s a bed and breakfast right next to the hospital that families usually stay at when they are visiting a loved one. The studio room I stayed in was small (for American standards) but nicely furnished, with a twin bed, kitchenette, and fairly large bathroom. I had more than enough space for me and all of my camera equipment. It advertised a contintental breakfast, which was really just pastries and fruit, but it’s the location that’s the real selling point. You couldn’t possibly stay any closer to the subway stop than you are at this place.

I dropped off my stuff, packed up my camera body and lenses (I never leave that behind when I travel) and headed to Cafe Crema to meet up with two readers. I didn’t ask if it was alright to use their first names, so I’ll use an initial for one and an internet ‘nym for the other. That’s S on the left, and Gogo in the middle. The place we ate at were Gogo’s idea, as she is a bit of a foodie like me. S gets props for driving all the way from Rhode Island to meet us!

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Every year my teeny tiny little town has a summer festival that we call Community Days. As a kid, I thought this thing was huge! I wanted to stay all day and had huge melt-downs whenever my parents said it was time to leave (a combination of heat stroke creeping up on me and sugar overload). This year I took my baby and husband with me, and I did something I’ve never done before - I ran the 5K!

Technically this wasn’t my first ever 5k, since I ran cross country in high school (this makes me sound much more hard core than I actually was), but it’s my first 5k as an adult, and since I picked up running, so I was feeling really nervous.

Those who have been urging me to try out breakfast will be proud to know I started my day off with a bowl of granola. I grabbed a peanut butter sandwich to eat in the car but I didn’t end up eating it. I’m glad, it would have felt too heavy.

All the racers lined up and ready to go. Yep, that’s all of us! In front you can see a guy in a spandex suit. He is a cross country all state runner and he smoked all of us. I think he could have finished the race twice before I huffed and puffed my way over the finish line.

Can you spot me in there? I’m wearing black on bottom, pink on top, just to the left of a guy in a blue shirt, waving to the camera.

That Husband was in charge of taking picture, and he did a great job. He saw some pink coming over the hill, so he took some pictures of my sister’s friend to try to get his settings right. Turns out he was jumping the gun though, as I wouldn’t cross the finish line for almost 5 more minutes.

There I am!

The cross country coach for Royal is holding the megaphone, and he said at the beginning that the course we ran is actually pretty difficult (I’d estimate at least a mile of it was one huge, never-felt-like-it-would-end hill). I’m proud to say that I didn’t walk a single step. I think it wore me out more than some others, and they were able to pass me later on, but I didn’t care about time, I just wanted to finish without walking. And I did!

The three best moments of the race were:

When my dad parked his trunk and waved hello in the middle of the race (he was out checking crops and came by to try to catch me while I was racing).

When a lady (in the midst of a sprint to pass me) said she really admired the way I didn’t walk at all on the hill.

Crossing the finish line and having TH say he was really proud of me.

I did it! And now I want to do another.

We went home so I could shower, and then loaded baby in the car to drive back to the same location for the annual parade. I loved the parade as a kid because they threw candy. I know some towns have outlawed candy throwing because kids run out into the road to get it, but the Royal parade is so small that they still throw treats for everyone to collect.

The parade isn’t long, probably 30 minutes from beginning to end, but I think it has a nice variety. And some things you probably wouldn’t see in other towns.

The flag, and the rodeo queen from the next town over.

Each year a Grand Marshall couple is chosen. On the right we have the marching band.

I was in Junior Miss, so I always love when the floats and cars with the pretty girls go by.

Some of the things that went past were really unique. A boy on a motorcycle? A guy on a skateboard?

I really loved these two groups. The Royal City culture has strong Mexican roots because of the large number of migrant workers.

The football team rode by on a flat bed pulled by a tractor and were doused with water from their sprayers since we were sitting right next to the football coach. Royal loves its football team (they win state in the A division approximately every other year).

Through it all, T1′s face looked a little something like this. I was kind of insulted. Does my big city baby think he is too good for this little parade?

The funniest thing to me is all of the tractors. Some of them were old, some of them really really big, and some.. I’m not sure why they were there. Because someone wanted to ride in the parade I guess!

When I started eating localganic a lot of you asked if that was the way I grew up eating in my hometown. I think the sign on the back of this sprayer answers that question very nicely. This is not really an organic friendly town.

After the parade we wandered over to the park. I was really impressed with the amount of stuff they had going on! Dancing horses, hula hoop contests, booths with games and cheapy toys, snow cones, authentic Mexican food, burgers and garlic fries, karaoke…

Oh yeah! I totally kicked off the karaoke contest. I was super nervous singing in front of so many people in my hometown (it felt like it was so loud and everyone could hear me) but when I got down I realized it wasn’t really that loud after all and most people probably didn’t know it was happening. I made That Husband record it on video. I haven’t listened to it yet, and if it isn’t horrible maybe I’ll post it here.

Simple booth that I loved. They brought this little basketball court from their house, pay 75 cents and get 2 minutes to throw a ball at a hoop, all proceeds go to a local church.

We had a good time.

The highlight of the day? When the guy who rode the bull in the parade let me take a picture with T1 sitting on his lap. T1 has officially been on a bull.

I went from loving Community Days as a kid, to thinking it was a joke* as a teenager, but now that I have been back as an adult with a baby of my own.. I think it’s pretty darn cool.

*My first instinct was to write the word “lame” there, but then I remembered someone on Formspring reminded me that I’m trying to eliminate that usage of the word from my vocabulary. I’m glad I’m making some progress!

I’m really glad I have a husband who doesn’t mind when I dress-up his son in headbands and scarves and paint his toenails.

Quick poll: Do you think T1 could be mistaken for a girl in the photo on the right?

This is not the picture I wanted (stupid bottle!) but it will have to do. He looks pretty cute anyhow.