Some thick ice

Anil had this great idea on Saturday that we go to the Museum of Fine Arts because I wanted to do some walking, and it's been a bit cold and frozen up here for the usual sidewalk strolls. He had the weekend off from work, and we were itching to do something that we might not get to do again for the foreseeable future. Granted, we won't get to lay around all night watching movies, but we'd done that all week and needed to get out of the house. But since we didn't get out of bed until 11 a.m. (another indulgence that isn't long for this lifestyle of ours), and realized that the museum closes at 4:45 p.m. on the weekends, we had to scratch that idea for the time being. Instead though, we went downtown to walk in the Public Gardens and Beacon Hill since it was above freezing outside (that's balmy for mid-winter Bostonians), the culmination of which was having a beer/Diet Coke in this little Beacon Hill bar called The Sevens. It's a routine we do with visitors and with friends in nicer weather, and it was a fun way for us to reconnect and reaffirm that we're still the same people we always are even when we're about to have a baby (and when I don't fit as gracefully onto a barstool... if I was ever graceful in that position, that is).

Here's my favorite part: the swan boat pond in the Gardens is completely frozen over, so much so that people are walking all over it, even up onto the little island from Make Way for Ducklings. I've never seen it like that; probably it happens every year but I don't usually stroll through the Common or Gardens in the tundra winter months. It's frozen enough to hold 8 1/2 months of pregnant Sara!