July 4th Trip...

The kid seemed to be healthy and happy and fully recovered by friday morning, so we hit the road in our attempt to celebrate July 4th in the New England states. We had a rough plan of staying a night in NH, a night in VT, and another night in upstate NY. Initially the trip was moving along wonderfully, so much so, that we agreed to stop for lunch in NYC at one of my favorite joints of all time - Candle Cafe! YUM;-) a vegan cafe that even husband likes. I was in heaven. so were the boys! we love that food:)

Unfortunately, after our pit stop, every person in upstate NY and CT had decided to get on the road too. fun stuff. a trip that would usually take 5 1/2 hours, took about 10. crazy i tell ya. crazy. who handled this madness the best? the kid. he watched videos. napped. ate organic raisins. ate more snacks. sang songs. meanwhile, husband was flipping out, banging on the steering wheel wishing he'd never planned the darn trip.

We finally arrived at our first destination - Keene, NH. Since the road up was so long, we opted to stay two nights in Keene to get the most of this adorable town!!





The pictures don't even do it justice! It was such a cute place, very low key, and the best thing of all - our hotel was one block from main street. we walked to most everything! the shops, restaurants, the farmers market, you name it. I adored the town as did husband. It was such a clean unique little place. The kid ran around all over and yes, he was barefoot. He's gotten into a bad ole habit of throwing off his sandals, constantly.... this afternoon, i just let it be. the streets were so darn clean! who cared!



We ventured out one day to a local lake area with a beach. The kid loved the sand and water!



He loved watching the boats too. the real boats that is. but also the inflatable rafts all the other kids had, he was loving those too. He kept calling them boats. Wheres my boat Mama?? I was confused at first but finally realized what he meant. I thought I was being smart to bring along his bucket and shovel, thinking, what else does a kid need?!? apparently - a kid really needs his very own boat! He wouldn't let it go either! We felt like bad parents by the end of the day haha. but he managed to still have fun, even without a boat. He built sand castles and played on the playground too. And believe me, as soon as we left that lake, we drove straight to walmart and bought that boy his very own boat!! HE LOVED IT. and was obsessed with it the rest of the trip! He constantly needed to know where his boat was. He even woke during the night a few times talking about his boat, asking for it LOL. So funny! I hate i don't have a picture of that darn boat to post!



We ate some wonderful food too... the town had anything you could think of - even food i liked haha... heres a group shot taken by some super nice people that sat next to us:) Everywhere had outdoor seating which we love!



Here's dad and abram waiting on the fireworks show! the fireworks show we never saw.



Yep. thats right. we waited over an hour for fireworks that never could be seen. the parking lot was packed with folks waiting. packed! the people parked next to us said they were there last year and it was a great show. They were over from VT for the weekend and were wonderfully nice. They're kids played with our kid, they shared their bug spray (thank you!), and even let abram play with some of their toys. The fireworks started, and we heard them well. but - apparently the location moved for this year and no one (in the parking lot!) knew it! BUMMER:( No worries though. We caught a fireworks show the next night in upstate NY.

After our lovely two days in NH, we spent a day in VT, even hitting up a local flea market! That night, we ended up in Woodstock NY for our last night. It was a fun trip and we would love to go back to Keene! but NOT on the fourth of july, ever again! traffic was just too much. But we still had a ball!