East Coast Vacation Part 4

My posting to the blog was slowed by getting a new computer and a trip to New York for 36 hours. I've lost count of how many times I've traveled east this year. The computer turned out to be defective, which is good news because now I feel super-fast on my new MacBook.

So, back to the vacation. We rounded out our trip with 5 days in Maine. 5 days felt luxurious after we'd been on the road so much. The kids loved Momma Su's farm, although even picking vegetables for dinner was not enough to get the kids to eat vegetables. I'll just have to keep dreaming. The highlight of every day was a trip to the chicken house to collect eggs. There was much discussion about which chicken was Sadie and Jack's favorite.

On Saturday we had a fantastic lobster bake! My good friend Nora brought her son Wheeler and another friend from high school, Sarah, came as well. The kids had lots of fun pulling each other around in wagons and Sadie had a love fest with Momma Su's friend Robin.

We spent an amazing amount of time swimming. We went to three different beaches and a gorgeous pond. It was swell being able to drive 5 minutes to some of the best swimming spots in Maine. The kids could have lived on the beach.

We also had a wonderful visit with all my Verrier cousins. Jack and Sadie had the red carpet rolled out for them with a kiddie pool, toys, and endless arms to hold them.

The hardest part of the trip was saying good bye. We're happy to be home, but so many people we love are just too damn far away. I'm ready to start playing the lotto to raise funds to live bi-coastal. It's time that I raised my sights beyond just the kids eating vegetables!

East Coast Vacation: Part 3

After lovely Bethany Beach our clan hit the road for the three days. On our first day we drove from Bethany to Brooklyn, with a pit stop for lunch at Mum and Pup's in Pennsville. Our first day of driving was probably our roughest, but we fortunately made good time and arrived in Brooklyn in the afternoon. Our wonderful friend Lisa welcomed our weary clan with open arms and quickly escorted us all to a nearby playground. Jack and Sadie loved the playground with its great sprinkler play area. We spent the night at Lisa's and got a little time to get to know her new son, Lee.

The next day we met up with a big group of friends from J.'s days in Boston and explored more of Brooklyn's playgrounds. We took to the road around noon and headed for Brockton. Our second day of driving was a lot of fun and arrived at uncle Alex and Aunt Gladys' house around dinner time. Gladys knows a thing or two about young kids and was amply prepared for Sadie and Jack. There were toys galore, and things really got rolling when a whole band of cousins arrived. Sadie was absolutely smitten with her cousin Amalia, and Jack got lots of love from the whole crew.

The next day Gladys took us to wonderful lake in Sharon, MA. We had a very pleasant morning of swimming and then hit the road for the last leg of trip to Maine. We got to Maine in the late afternoon just in time to pick peas for dinner. The kids were super excited to finally make it Momma Su's farm and had a ball exploring every last nook and cranny of the farm. More on the farm to come in our last installment...

East Coast Vacation Part 2

After Wilmington and Pennsville we headed to Bethany Beach with Pud. The top two photos pretty much sum up this trip to Bethany - extreme highs and lows. You know it's bad when even an ice cream cone can't cheer up your kid. The kids love the water, so we expected to have nothing but fun in Bethany, but things turned out a hair different. While there were lots of great times on the beach, at the pool and on the boardwalk, we also struggled with some serious crankiness, sleep deprivation and many a tantrum. Thankfully we had lots of support from Pud and a Sesame Street video we watched a gazillion times. The kids loved the rides at Rehoboth Beach, which are so fantastically old school that you have to remind yourself that it's actually the twenty first century. We ended the Bethany leg of the trip with a wonderful birthday dinner for Pud at a restaurant overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. That evening was one of the highlights of the trip.