Summer Adventures, Part One

As I said in my last post, now that the girls are off to school and things are quieter around the house during the day, I have a chance to go back through our photos and think about all the fun things we did over the summer. We had an exceptionally good time and I know the girls made a lot of great memories.

Besides our trip to Indianapolis and Niagara Falls, which I've already written about here, we went to York's Wild Kingdom, saw all the cousins, drove up to Vermont to see the girls' first real concert at the Shelburne Museum, did our annual daytrip to Star Island, checked out the brand new LEGOLAND, rode up Cannon Mountain in a cable car, visited the Squam Lake Science Center, took the ferry out to the Boston Harbor Islands, and did a Duck Tour! [Deep breaths]

It will be rather appropriate for me to jump now from our summer-ending trip to ride roller coasters in New Hampshire to our summer-beginning trip to ride roller coasters in Maine.

Can you spot Maggie? Do you think she's having fun?

The school year here lasts until the very end of June, which normally isn't a big deal because it's still Spring weather then, and I actually prefer for them not to have too long of a stretch without school -- eight weeks is plenty, really! By the end of last May, though, I was just dying to get out and run around New England with the girls to see some sights. Mike's mom is a teacher [for those (maybe one) of you who might be reading and don't know me aren't my cousin], and she's usually out for the summer the week before us, so we kicked off the break ASAP on an adventure with Gram.

York's Wild Kingdom is in York, ME, just over the border from New Hampshire and a day trip for us. It's a pretty amazing place: a nice little zoo and amusement park that exits right out into town just a few blocks from a gorgeous beach. We did animals in the morning, roller coasters in the afternoon, and made it to the far side of the park just in time to get coffee and saltwater taffy in town and run on the beach for a bit. It's a superb day trip for kids. I can't recommend it enough.

One of the coolest things about the zoo was the enclosure where you could feed white-tailed deer who just wandered around freely and fearlessly. They have a good mix of exotic and domestic animals.

Hey, buddy.

Tiger Lilies (and some orange flowers)



This ride, somewhat strangely, was their favorite of all. It's a caterpillar. I'm gonna guess it was built in the '60s and is covered in tetanus.

York Beach

Gram and Maggie are expert treasure hunters.

After this daytrip, we were gone for a week on our half-way-across-country road trip to visit my family in Indiana. As soon as we got home, we quickly did our laundry and trekked back up to Gram and Grandpa's house where the girls' cousins were all together for a long weekend. There was so much chaos with five girls (plus the neighbors' bunch of kids) that I really didn't get very many pictures at all, but here are a few:

Minecraft-apalooza!

Just to prove that it wasn't all staring at screens... Kate did a puppet show for Caroline...

...and Maggie and Ana were bonkers for the neighbor's horses.

...there was also some kickball, bikes and scooters, crafts, costumes, and s'mores. Good times.

Stay tuned for my next installment, in which Maggie and Kate go to their very first real concert in the Green Mountains of Vermont overlooking Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. Don't tell me these kids don't lead a charmed life!

Northern Exposure

As a final hurrah and so-long-it's-been-good-to-know-ya for the summer, we spent this past weekend in northern New Hampshire at Story Land. We've been meaning to take the girls up there for years, but just never got around to it. It's about a four hour drive from our house, so it requires a bit of planning and an overnight stay, but the park is geared towards smaller kids, so we needed to get on the ball before Maggie begins to age out of it.

There are lots of family resorts and hotels in North Conway that cater to skiers or people who are taking their kids to Story Land or Santa's Village. I combed through so many travel websites looking for just the right thing because we were only planning a very quick, one-night stay after driving up Friday night after school and before hitting the park early Saturday morning. We didn't need a on-site water park or a huge playground and pool, just a comfy place to sleep. It came down to a brand new chain hotel in North Conway or the Eagle Mountain House historic hotel in Jackson, NH, up in the woods a few miles north of the park. We went for the historic hotel, and it was perfect. Even the girls loved it and were excited to stay in such a special place.

photo from Wikipedia

Check out the two-story porch!

The White Mountains

We had a small sitting room with a fold-out couch.

Oh how I wish we'd had time (and warmer weather) to sit and drink our coffee on the porch!

Instead, Mags got a pumpkin muffin and hot apple cider at Dunkies. She loves the cooler weather and wanted to stay in the mountains forever!

After our quick stop for breakfast, we stood in the long line of people waiting to get into Story Land -- keep in mind that this was 9:30 in the morning on a September Saturday after the start of the school year AND we were expecting a rainy, overcast day with a high of 60F. I can't imagine what the place is like in the middle of August!

However, despite the crowds and the clouds and the drizzle, the girls had a fabulous time. Maggie is completely fearless and will ride anything with her hands in the air. And Kate could barely stand to walk normally -- she skipped and galloped all over the park.

Yes, this ride was flying wooden shoes.

This was a big room with a second-floor catwalk where you could shoot foam balls out of pneumatic guns and cannons. It was wild!

Face paint! Pink and purple cat faces, of course. Mike said it was like spending the day with KISS.

Pretending to fall off the wall (or maybe push Humpty Dumpty off?)

This was the coolest carousel ever! It's an antique from Germany, and the horses are on rockers instead of poles. It's the weirdest feeling - when you rock back, it feels like the carousel is slowing down, and then it's seems to shoot forward when you rock back up. Mike was making fun of me, but I'm glad I went on it!

After the rain started coming down around 4:30, we finally had to run back to the car and leave, but we squeezed in a full (chilly) day. We stopped at Mike's parents' on the way home to spend the night and see the cousins, which wrapped up the weekend perfectly.

Cozy Cousins

I have a ton of photos of all the adventures we went on this summer which I never got around to writing about here -- because I was on adventures! I'm putting together a series of posts about all the things we've been up to, so stay tuned for more photos of my kids in strange places around New England.

(Don't roll your eyes. You know you're excited!)

Ice Castles

Saturday afternoon we trekked up to Loon Mountain in New Hampshire to see the Ice Castles before Spring comes and melts them away. It was, in fact, the last day they were open to the public, and they were a little drippy and the icicles were concerning. We had driven out of sunny, 50°F weather down south in Massachusetts into storm clouds and frigid air in the White Mountains, but the girls enjoyed it so much, it was worth it in the end. I have no idea how they made this, but it was really impressive!

This was a slide that came down from another "room" in the castle. There were several little tunnels and grottos and thrones cut in the ice. Classical music played over loudspeakers which Kate said was for The Ball. At night they put on colored lights, but we didn't stay that long. The girls thought it was so fun!

One last photo, yeah right.

Really the last photo!

When we got home, Grandpa made a fire and we had s'mores!