sandy beach

For the third year running, we went to Sandy Beach on Lake Quassapaug with Jennie and the kids cousins - Matthew & Ryan. They had a great time swimming and finding freshwater clams...

 

 

 

 making stick mustaches...

 enjoying the gorgeous day on the lake

 and giving Jennie some big hugs

blueberries

We spent one very hot morning picking blueberries with Great Gram Rooney.  The kids did a great job picking, and Gage lasted quite a bit longer than he did last year before petering out.

 

Watch Hill, RI

We went to Watch Hill, RI for the day with Aunt Karen and had a fun filled day.  We explored the beach - and for the record, the water is MUCH colder than it is on the Alabama coast!

 

 

 This was the view from our beach blanket - Watch Hill light house.

 We also took a break to ride the Flying Horse Carousel, which is just off the beach.  It is the oldest carousel in the country -- dating to 1893.  It's really beautiful, and the horses have "hair" for their manes, with some of which was actually braided.

 

One thing that made it extra fun for Savannah was that the kids on the outside horses can lean toward the outside (which looked a little scary because the carousel goes really fast!) and grab silver rings as they go around. Each time a kid would grab a ring people would cheer, and the kids stacked the rings up on the horses ears, which Savannah was doing in the picture below.  It had such an old world charm.

Gage stuck to the inside horse this time, but loved it.

 This is the sign to the beach -- love that it's called the Watch Hill Bathing Beach. Again, I love that they keep the history alive :-)

After flying on the horses, we walked up to the light house, and these are some of the sights along the way.

Ocean House (below) is a big hotel that sits on a bluff over the beach. I loved that there were guys dressed all in white playing croquet on the grounds.  Ahhh New England...I love your quirky ways.

 This is just one of the beautiful "cottages" along the walk to the lighthouse - probably costing millions of dollars. For the record, if I ever win the lottery, that is the kind of house I want :-)

 Beautiful garden with a twig fence

 Gage had to peek in and check it out

 Looking back toward the beach from lighthouse road, the road was lined with roses that seem to grow everywhere near the beach in New England. I learned, however, that the rose hips are called "beach plums" and you can make jam from them!

 

 

 

 This is Aunt Karen and Savannah walking up the path, with Taylor Swift's house in the background.

imagine nation

What a beautiful day it was today. We went on a little walk around the property this morning

 Savannah checked to see if Gage likes butter

 They checked out lots of thing with a pair of binoculars

 climbed a cow fence and picked black raspberries.

 And then..it was off to Imagine Nation = the kids museum. They fought over sand funnels and countless other things -- drum sticks, computers, magnetic blocks, microscopes, etc. Yes, the played, but they mostly fought over things.

 They also pretended to be meteorologists on the ESPN set -- this is them on tv.

 I think Gage liked this rain stick only because it was a big stick and he felt strong holding it

 And...they also fought over who would make a giant bubble.

 

sigh...

new haven

We took a trip to New Haven, CT to visit the Peabody Museum of Natural History. 

 

The first thing we saw was an Egyptian exhibit, which I thought Savannah would love. At home, she checks out countless books on mummies, making mummies, mummified animals, tombs, etc. BUT, she (shocker!) took one look at a real mummy, covered her eyes and told me she was scared. So, we exited the the Egypt exhibit and went to see the dinos. 

 Our Alabama girl was cold in the a/c, so she was shivering and unhappy.  You can see how happy Gage looked, too. Sometimes, I wonder if I'm going to the museums for the kids...or myself!!

 Both of them were excited to see the stegosaurus, but Savannah was cranky because she was cold so she wouldn't stand for a picture. Gage, as you can see, was more interested in the triceratops' skulls off to the side, which he was frantically pointing at here

 Savannah did want to measure the t-rex skull with her arms, but Gage kept getting in her way so they were fighting and pushing each other around. Oh...the joys of siblings.

All Gage wanted to do at this point was find the elevator so he could push the button. He kept saying "EWEVATOW, EWEVATOW" Seriously, dude?  You can look at dino bones but you want to push an elevator button?!?!  Kids....I don't get them.

After we finished the Peabody, we went to Pepe's Pizza. YUM! Pepe's has very thin crust pizza with the most delicious sauce and perfect crust. I haven't had it in years. New Haven pizza is famous for a reason. To make it even better, they have birch beer , no wait -- DIET birch beer. It doesn't get any better.

You can see how excited they were about getting pizza. Savannah's sandal broke as we got there, and as I tried to fix it with a band-aid (because I am McGyver), Adam called and the phone from my ear onto her head and she started crying. Ugh. I somehow managed to convince her that her shoe would be like flipflop now. She finally bought it and ripped the strap off the other sandal.

 Although neither of them wanted to be there, they decided that Pepe's pizza gets two thumbs up!

 

 Finally, we stopped by Yale's bookstore to buy t-shirts for everyone. You know, Yale is where I always secretly wanted to go to college, but during high school I didn't think I could get in, so I never applied. To this day, I wonder if I could have, and it has turned into a life lesson for me to never count myself out without trying. So, even if I never went to Yale, I can wear a bulldog t-shirt, right?! Gage loved this cool fedora.  And by the way, WHO is this grown up cool little dude who chose a straw fedora and made a peace sign for the picture?!?! He's growing up too fast.

I told Daddy that we needed to up our game for our college fund for these two ;-)  As we left the bookstore, I suggested we walk around campus a little but was met with groans, moans, and other unpleasant sounds from these two. I decided not to push my luck or I'd end up carrying both of them back to the car after they got tired!

So, when anyone asks if we had fun in New Haven, we say yes. But as you can see...fun is in the eye of the beholder ;-)

woodbury

I debated staying in Pittsburgh for an extra day and going to the dino museum, incline, zoo, Pirates game, etc.  In the end, I decided that we had been on the road long enough and thought the kids would appreciate just getting to Grammy's.  So, we did the whole 8 hour drive in one day.  Let me just say, the kids are amazing travelers. We had some I'm bored type complaining, but made it just fine.

As we pulled into the driveway, the cows were right next to the gate, so they kids jumped out to meet the new calf, Oreo. What a great start to the trip. Later, we did our nightly walk out to the cows to feed them. Luckily, Oreo likes to eat out of the kids' hands!

 

 

  

 

For some reason, when we are at home and the kids "need a bath", they never look like this.  But here....they give a whole new meaning to getting dirty!

 After I dumped them both into the bath/shower, Great Gram and Aunt Nan came by. We were so excited that we overlapped on visits with Aunt Nan, who lives in AZ now.  Hugs galore :-)