The days of our lives during the trip. During the trip we took last week. During the trip in which we traveled to and/or through Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. During the...oh you get the picture. And pictures you shall get. Hit it boys...
DAY ONE:
And we are off. This is what 5:47AM in the shuttle bus looks like...
We connected through Newark, NJ this time around. This was our first time doing so and as we passed over New York City Lena spied the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty out the plane window. I haven't seen her that excited in a long time. In this picture below if you look past the plane tail on the right you too can spot the Empire State Building. Thrilling, huh?
When we arrived cousins Tyler and Autumn (Jason's brother Justin's kiddos) were anxiously peering from the front window...
DAY TWO:
We awoke to Jason teaching Autumn and Tyler the secret to his famous pancakes. I believe the secret is to channel Michael Jordan every time you stir pancakes...
We also woke to rain. Since our outdoor activity was a wash (haha) Jason took the kids to the movies and Kathy and I went to get lobsters and steamer clams. Lena's first encounter with a live lobster. Annika preferred to "hold" the lobsters from at least 6 feet away.
Annika enjoyed eating the clams a lot more than "holding" the lobster...
Didn't their mother ever teach them to not play with their food?
Oh sure, now she is all big and brave...
DAY THREE:
The song was right...the sun did come out tomorrow. We headed to the apple orchards to get our pickin' on. Sometimes you have to scale the tree to find the sweetest apple...
Other times they are waiting nice and low for you...
Either way you get one nice big, juicy, sweet apple...
First prize for yummiest apple...
You know what they say...the family that picks together sticks together...
I guess Aunt Jamie and Grammy KK are stuck with us...
Children of the corn(maze)...
Adults of the corn(maze)...
And speaking of little piggies...after we finished picking we headed to Portland (Maine, not Oregon) and ate at our favorite, favorite, favorite pizza place...Flatbread Pizza. It is wood fired and yummy and kinda hippy dippy and yummy and makes my mouth water just thinking about it. We love it so much we stuff ourselves silly because we know we won't get it for another year. The girls think the anchor outside the restaurant is quite fun too...
You know how there is a coffee shop on every street corner in Seattle? Well there is. However, in Maine it seems there is an ice cream shop down every road. So of course we had to head to Aunt Jamie's favorite after stuffing ourselves silly with pizza. This particular shop had an original 1950's juke box with "old fashioned" music. The girls were quite intrigued by this new fangled way of listening to their tunes. At one point Lena told Jason to "skip this song" because she didn't like it...
And of course where there is 1950's music there needs to be a little 1950's dancing. And no, people weren't dancing...only us...
DAY FOUR:
We piled Grammy and the girls in the car and pointed ourselves south to Massachusetts to visit Great Gram (Kathy's mother) & Co. Kathy and Aunt Joan (Kathy's sis) like to sit and knit. Which is cover for sitting out on the porch and watching for the gardeners...
On the way to the liqueur store (because Massachusetts is wacky..and by wacky I mean you can't buy beer/wine in a grocery store) Jason finally found a church that called to him...
That evening some of Jason's family came together and had a great dinner at John and Charlie's house. Later the girls went into the backyard in the dark of night to play Ghosts in the Graveyard with their three boy cousins Evan, Alec, and Adam. Initially they were wary of playing such a scary game until Alec suggested they call it Unicorns and Fairies. They were sold.
Jason with two of his cousins (kids of Aunt Joan) John and Julie...
DAY FIVE:
Great Gram had plenty of helpers getting all the old summer plants out of the beds to make room for brand new spring bulbs...
John (of the afore mentioned John and Charlie) works on an air reserve base as a machanist on the big old honkin' C-5 airplanes. He offered to give us a personal tour of one of the planes. We weren't allowed to take pictures (except for this one that I took from the car window through the chain link fence...I hope "big brother" doesn't read my blog), but believe you me, we had an awesome experience. We were able to explore the cargo bay (where they transport buses, tanks, supplies), the passenger area, and the cockpit. We had to climb very high skinny ladders (the girls wearing dresses all the while) and then were able to go out onto the wing and walk around a bit and go underneath and kick the tires. These planes are massively massive and it was fun to have such a rare opportunity.
After our plane adventure we headed over to Mark and Diane's house. Mark is Jason's uncle, but I find it strange to call him and Diane uncle and aunt considering they aren't all that much older than us. Lena and Annika love playing with their twin daughters Maddie and Ashley.
DAY SIX:
It was time to give our hugs goodbye to Great Gram and head to New Hampshire. But first we had to have a breakfast of champions....doughnuts!!!!
Four generations...
On the way up to New Hampshire (where we were renting a condo in the White Mountains) we stopped off in Brattleboro, Vermont for lunch. When Lena was 4 months old we took a trip through Brattleboro and bought one of our favorite children's books there. This time we found a different bookstore and Grammy gifted the girls two books each. As Annika sounded out her book to me Lena insisted on using her ear plugs (that she got from the plane tour) to block out Annika's voice...
Following the Kancamagus Highway up through New Hampshire. The colors where just right for leaf peeping...
Now there's a couple of fine lookin' leaf peepers...
DAY SEVEN:
Jason and I figured we would make the most of the fall colors and went for a run/walk (he ran, I walked). Along the way we found one of New Hampshire's famous covered bridges...
Jason running from the invisible train. Good thing a girl who likes to pose married a guy who is willing to pose...
Jason's best friend Chris along with his wife Meg and their kiddos Melissa and Kyra traveled up from Massachusetts to visit us for the day. The girls get along with Melissa and Kyra just like they see them everyday...not once a year. Here they are portraying the Four Muskateers. See they have paper weapons and everything. Who says kids need a bunch of toys to keep them entertained? Which was a good thing because we didn't have any toys at the condo.
Hiking the Flume...a really cool wateryfally gorgy thingy...
That is home to some really big leaves...
After we got back to the condo my cousin Mandy (from my mom's side) came over from Vermont. I was excited to see Mandy...the girls were excited she brought Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream...
Oh no...the Muskateers have turned on one another. Side note...that glowing picture you see in the background was an actual illuminated picture with a light switch and everything. When turned on the water would ripple and glow. Grammy thought it had an annoying hum to it, but the rest of us were hypnotised by it because at one point we all just sat around and stared at it's wonder.
Mandy was (happily) sweet talked into reading the girls their bedtime story. They were especially interested to learn about the different animals she saw when she lived in Africa.
DAY EIGHT:
We had planned to go an amusement park in New Hampshire, but it was much too rainy so instead we took our time heading back to Maine and peeped some more leaves (and a covered bridge) along the way. But first we had to get in some more Mandy-time...
Three silly girls...
DAY NINE:
Time to go home. We had a great trip and were able to visit a good number of family and friends. Of course Jason has many more relatives and friends on the east coast, but we would need two weeks (or even three) to hit them all. Maybe next time. Thanks Grammy & Co. for a fun time. We love you all!!!
This is what 4:37AM looks like...
And now all I need to do is get unpacked and in no time flat Nana and Papa will be here...they plan to arrive on Friday. The girls won't know what hit them with all this grandparentness smushed into 2 short weeks.
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