On a cooler note, we had a great visit with Grandma Rachael. Grandma Rachael was able to make the long trip from Idaho and come play with us. Raivis had a great time showing her all of his favorite things, like the beach, the farmer's market, the pool, the children's museum, and of course all of his toys. We had a great visit and look forward to her next visit.After Grandma left, Nik, Raivis, and I took a road trip to New England. People who are from here asked "Why?" my answer was because we can. :)
We left after work on Wednesday and drove up to Philadelphia. We didn't explore the city at all but my first impression was that it was sort of icky... I'll have to hold off my final judgement until we see more of it though. Raivis like the McDonald's there well enough though, with a trolley, train, and trucks to see what isn't to like?
We drove through New Jersey and New York next, very beautiful! Everything was so green. My little boy did pretty good on the trip, only periodically yelling, "OUT!..... OUT!" We had a supply of matchbox cars, play-doh, books, and dinosaurs to keep him entertained. We made a couple of stops in New York to stretch our legs and get some fresh air.
At the first stop in New York I bought some Sour Patch Kids to munch. I gave Raivis one, he licked it and laughed, then a few minutes later he asked for another one. Pretty soon he was asking for certain colors. I dutifully handed them over, one by one. Everybody was happy. When we stopped later in New York, Nik opened the back door and says "oh no!!" Raivis had sucked all of the sour sugar off of the candy, then discarded the chewy part. He was covered in them and we kept finding them in various bags and places in the back seat. If you ever need a very sticky adhesive, slightly chewed Sour Patch Kids will do the trick.
Our next stop was Burlington, Vermont. We are in love with this town. It feels like a mix of McCall, Idaho and Boulder, Colorado. It sits on the banks of Lake Champlain and is absolutely BEAUTIFUL. An added bonus is that you can buy maple sugar candy and other yummy maple treats year round (possibly one of my favorite things). Mmmmmm.
The city has put in bike trails along the river/lake and instead of benches, they have swings. I could have sat there for months.
Raivis would have liked to look for fish about that long, plus there were boats to watch... little boy heaven.
On our way out of town we stopped at the Ben and Jerry's factory for a tour and some ice cream. Mmmmmm. Another reason to be in love with Vermont.
Raivis dug New Hampshire, so much in fact, that he slept through the entire state... both times we drove through it. It is definitely on our list to explore. But it was a good thing he slept because our next stop was....
MAINE!!!
We love Maine too. We hit the beach right away and I am sure you can imagine how hard it was to convince Raivis to go after all of that driving. The beach was beautiful, the forest comes right to the edge and the water was crystal clear. 
Downtown Portland was neat too. Unfortunately the camera battery died after our trip to the beach, so all of those pictures are on my phone. On our way out of town we made a stop at a berry farm to pick a healthy car snack or as Raivis says "strawbebbies". 
Raivis was an expert picker, only picking a couple of green ones. He ate them almost as fast as he could pick them. After that we went to a chocolate shop that had a life size chocolate moose and got some very yummy unhealthy car snacks. Later we paid for eating to many strawberries and to much candy with upset tummies but it was sooo worth it. 
Then we drove down to Boston, when we got there Raivis was still asleep so we decided to drive to Rhode Island and go to the beach again. However, right as we had passed the exit for our hotel we hit traffic and Raivis woke up. We went to Rhode Island anyway, just with more complaining. Once we got to the beach the complaining stopped and Raivis didn't stop running for a second. There were a lot of kids there and Raivis played very nice with another little girl. It is nice to see my only child who doesn't play with other kids very much, play nice with other kids. He had a blast, once we got him good and tired, we bribed him away from the beach with the promise of a doughnut. Worked like a charm and before we new it we were back in Boston. 
We walked the entire Freedom Trail in Boston. I was thinking that it was going to be a loop, about 3/4 of the way through I realised that we were getting farther and farther away from where we started. It was all good though, it was really cool to see all of the historic places on the walk. Boston is a very interesting city, I loved the mix of old and new. Plus, who doesn't love being surrounded by people with Boston accents... a speech-language pathologist's dream :). 
We were getting a little hot in the middle of our walk and Raivis was getting cranky. So we took took off the boy's clothes and set him loose in a fountain with some other kids. He had a blast, it was just what he needed. It was a whirl wind trip for sure. I would love to go back to all of those places and explore some more. All in all we had a great trip. We drove a lot, took a lot of breaks, ate a lot of good food, and saw a lot of our beautiful country. In fact, we added eleven states to our list of states that we have been too. Then we came back to Virginia and were welcomed by oppressive humidity and record setting temperatures... Is fall here yet?
No comments:
Post a Comment