Allenby Road Trip - Part One

**Written on the road on Wednesday 8/13, but posted 8/18**

As I type this we are driving through farm land somewhere in western New York.  For a rare moment the car is quiet.  After spending the first 2.5 hour leg of this trip sitting on the tiny middle seat next to Sadie in the back, entertaining her and the boys, reading books out loud, handing out snack and comforting a crying 16 month old I am now back up front next to my man.  Sadie is passed out – sleeping under her same cozy blue blanket that she falls asleep under in her crib at home.  The boys are watching Curious George on a computer in the way back, listening to the sound on their matching tiger headphones that I thankfully thought to purchase on Amazon just a couple of days before our departure.  The sun is shining, we’re safe and it’s quiet.  Life is good. 

Our trip so far has gone surprisingly smoothly…(well, except for a few bumps and poor navigating decisions...i.e. – deciding to drive “25” minutes out of our way to go see the US side of Niagra Falls after already being on the road for 8.5 hours.  We thought we would be those fun, adventurous parents who go out of their way to give their children incredible cultural experiences that they’ll never forget.  Well, I’m pretty sure we could have done without this detour because Sadie was screaming the entire way in the car, we were stuck in traffic which turned the “25” minutes into more than 60, we drove around this crazy mini-Las Vegas looking for parking and then wandered aimlessly around the poorly-marked area looking for a way to just get a glimpse of the falls.  Kids were tired, parents were tired, we were surrounded by lots of tourists and let’s be honest….if you’re going to visit Niagra Falls – you gotta do the Canada side.  The US side just wasn’t all that exciting.  But we snapped some cute photos to remember our adventure and the kids already have fond memories of it.  

Unfortunately, everyone was starving and we were still a couple of hours away from the hotel we had booked.  Instead of pushing everyone too far, we decided to pull off just south of Buffalo and checked into a hotel there.  We brought the kids for a quick swim in the pool and put them to bed.  Everything worked out just fine, but that was definitely the most stressful part of the trip so far.   

To make matters worse on that first day, Camden was sick.  He had a fever the night before we left (none of us slept that last night in our own beds) and his fever kept spiking through that long travel day.  He was exhausted and uncomfortable and laid low for the first couple of days of our trip.  Thankfully, by Day #3, his BIRTHDAY, he was much better and we were able to enjoy a fun day with the Swansons!). 
Here are a few pictures from a random stop we had along the road earlier in the day.  Camden was so sick...poor baby...

One of the primary reasons for taking this road trip was to visit my sister, brother-in-law and niece at their new home in Pittsburgh, PA.  After living on a little farm at the end of a dirt road in our same town, they moved down to North Carolina three years ago for Dave to attend a program at Duke Divinity School.  It was sad to not share our New Hampshire home with them any more, but so exciting to see them pursuing this dream and making a new home in NC.  Sadly, we never made it down to Durham to visit them during their time there.  We didn’t go down their very first year, and then with my Dad’s sickness and passing, and the birth of Sadie and the chaos of three little kids it just never happened.  Thankfully, Caren came up to NH for many visits (not always under the best circumstances) during these few years, so we’ve remained close, but we always felt bad for not seeing their home down South.  We had a road trip planned for last March during our Spring Break to go visit them in NC, but it turned out that during that same time, they were flying up to Pittsburgh to check out an amazing opportunity for them and we had to cancel our trip.  Needless to say, it was really important for us to go see them.  To see their new life in this new city.  To spend some time on their turf.  We realized, sitting around one night, that we’ve never stayed at each other’s houses before and just enjoyed that post-kids-in-bed downtime together.  We’ve either lived in the same town, or they’ve stayed at my parents’ house on their visits to NH.  It was fun to just hang out and catch up.  We loved watching our kids play together.  We went to the Children’s Museum on Camden’s birthday as a special outing (FREE for our family with our amazing reciprocal pass from our NH museum!  Yahoo!), played on a fun playground and swam in a city pool!  We planned our trip specifically so that we would be there on a Sunday so that we could see Dave in action as pastor of his new church.  It is an amazing community of really neat people – lots of young families and people wanting to put time and energy into bettering their community.  A perfect fit for Caren and Dave!  Thanks guys, for hosting us and showing us your new stomping grounds!  We had a blast!  

Camden was too sick to enjoy the playground.  :(

 Big girl with her own juice popsicle! 

 Cousins...

 Sadie was pretty shy, as usual, but warmed up when Auntie read her favorite book to her!

 We had a blast at the Children's Museum!

The real puppets from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood!

The whole top floor of the museum is a water area/splash park!  Super fun!

 Clara wrote an amazing birthday poem for Camden that he is STILL re-reading and laughing about.  So sweet...

Birthday ice cream!

Dave, who generally mocks church signs, has one of his own!  *Working on Awesome*

to be continued...

Boston Adventure

We had such a great overnight trip to Boston over the weekend!  We got a great last-minute hotel deal and paid about 1/4 of the price for a room in the fancy Westin Waterfront hotel.  Scott and I are not city people at all.  We both grow up in rural areas and even though we went to college within a half an hour of downtown Boston, we rarely ventured into the city.  At one point in college we tried to have a hot date and go downtown.  We got all dressed up, and had a plan to find a restaurant in the North End like so many of our friends loved to do.  We got into the city, walked around aimlessly for a couple hours.  We found some restaurants, but they were either too expensive or busy and we ended up heading back to the North Shore and going out to eat at Sylvan Street Grill which is just a normal chain(ish) type of restaurant that we frequented.  Oh well.  Our best laid plans didn't quite turn out how we had hoped, but that was so typical of us.  We just weren't/aren't city people.  Needless to say, we don't make it to Boston very often, even though we're only about 90 minutes away, but we were feeling brave and spontaneous and wanting to do something fun with the boys before we turn into a family of five!  And so we got some advice from friends, made some tentative plans and took off.  Unfortunately, we had to delay our departure due to some serious snow, but we eventually made it.
The boys were very excited about our adventure!

 We pulled over for a little pit stop at Jordan's Furniture in Reading, MA for lunch at Fuddruckers, Richardson's ice cream, and letting the kids run around a bit.  They had a blast watching the acrobats, the light/fountain show and seeing all of the awesome things made out of jelly beans!  Definitely a great place to stop with kids (especially because you don't have to spend any money if you don't want to)!

  After getting settled into our hotel, and taking our first dip in the pool, we headed down the road to the Boston Children's Museum.  After doing a bit of research, I discovered that the museum admits people for $1 from 5:00-9:00pm on Friday nights.  This is a HUGE deal as it would have regularly cost us $56 to all go!  What a deal!  It was an awesome museum and the boys had an absolute blast!
In front of the museum... 

 Micah and Daddy making a movie!

 Shooting hoops...

 Micah LOVED this water table!

It's always interesting trying to get the boys to sleep in a hotel.  Micah cried, and kicked, and screamed for about an hour saying he wanted to go home and sleep in his own bed, but he finally settled down and since we didn't want to wake the boys up Scott and I ended up going to bed very early too.  We went for a swim bright and early in the morning...
Camden found some water wings and loved swimming on his own!  He hasn't quite mastered swimming yet, so this was really great practice for him.  

After packing up our room, we headed to the Museum of Science.  We have a reciprocal pass through the Children's Museum of New Hampshire that allows us to visit hundreds of other museums for free with our pass!  We realized just days before that our pass covers the Museum of Science so we got to go for free!  What an awesome place!  We all had a blast and were completely exhausted by the end of our adventure!

 The boys LOVED the dinosaur exhibit!

 We watched a little chick poking it's way out of it's shell.  Apparently it takes anywhere from 1-24 hours for a chick to fully hatch, so we didn't see the whole thing, but it was pretty amazing!

 Overall we had a wonderful time together as a family and were pretty proud of how much we squeezed in on a small budget! 

 I was TIRED from carrying this guy around the city along with Baby Goose!  We were all wiped out!

 Camden was too tired to smile...

We were all exhausted by noon and headed for home.  We had considered walking around Boston Common, but I'm not sure my legs could have done much more walking.  We'll come back in the summer to cover the things we missed on this trip!

Back at home we splashed around our little quiet dead end road and were once again reminded that this is where we belong.  The city is fun to visit, but this is home.