Summer Vacation to DE/MA
Grandpa Thorn had his 80th birthday this June and we made the trip to DE to go to his party! We also got to see Pop-pop and Lilly and Grandma, so it was nice to see the extended family! (Below is a 4 generation picture of the Kenneth men, and then a picture at the party. This picture was taken right after Kayla told G.G. Jim that he was "as old as a dinosaur (thank you, Uncle Brian!!!!)).
After the quick weekend trip, the kids and I headed up to MA to start our vacation. David headed back to NC with the rest of his family and worked for 1 more week before joining us. I would not say that traveling by myself for 8+ hours with the 2 kids is ideal, but it honestly went as well as I expected. Kayla was a great helper and enjoyed singing Psalty with me and chatting, and was a good helper in trying to keep Isaac happy. Isaac was as happy as could be expected, which means he was mostly happy (but of course when he was unhappy there was much screaming and very little I could do about it).
While there I enjoyed some time to myself. I did a lot of internet research on houses and school systems and figuring out where we'd like to live. The kids enjoyed playing with grandma and grandpa! One day we went strawberry picking and Isaac ate strawberries for the first time!
David flew in town the next weekend. It was good to have him with us again! We missed him :) David and I took advantage of this time and spent a night away from the kids (my first night away from Isaac!!). We went up to the cottage for a day/night and had such a great time. We had a picnic dinner with take-out seafood from Pops and enjoyed walking and talking and eating without having to worry about the kiddo's. It is such a rare treat for us to do something like that, and it really is a treat! The next day we enjoyed sleeping in and then went and climbed Mt Major. This is something I did all the time growing up and something David and I have done together each time we've been up to the cottage. We wanted to try to have the kids climb with us, but wanted to make sure it was something they could do before we tried it with them! After climbing we went out to lunch on the Lake and then headed back to the cottage for an afternoon nap! We soaked up all of our time to ourselves and hope that we are able to do short get-aways like this more in the future.
That afternoon my parents drove the kids up to the cottage and we all stayed there for a day. We enjoyed doing sparklers, taking a canoe ride, and playing on the beach.
Then, my parents headed back to MA while we stayed at the cottage with just the 4 of us for a few days. It is so relaxing up there, and even though it is less relaxing when you have 2 littles, it was still a really enjoyable time for us. After David and I did the climb, we decided Kayla could handle it (and of course Isaac would be carried), so the next day we decided to do it. We were not even 10 minutes into the climb before Kayla needed to stop for a rest and to take a drink and have a snack! We knew it would be tough, but I was expecting more than 10 minutes from her! There were a few times on the way up that I really honestly thought we should never have done this! But, once we started up we really wanted to teach her a lesson about perseverance and about not-quitting and how there is a reward at the top! We enjoyed singing the Psalty songs about climbing a mountain "one Step at a time" and the part of the song that says, "I can climb a mountain when I'm 4, even 3!!" But, the last 10 minutes of the climb was accompanied by Kayla's tears and cries and "I want to go home! I'm tired! I want to take a nap! I don't want to do this anymore!" and David kind of dragging her up the last part! Thankfully, the top was so beautiful that Kayla was happy to be there (I’m not sure we was happy that we made her keep climbing, but at least she did enjoy the top!). The best part, though, was the climb down. Kayla held David's hand and they basically ran down the mountain! She was laughing and squealing with joy! She loved it. They would stop and let me catch up and she would hide from me and then pop out and say "Boo!" and laugh some more. It was a really fun trip down!
Our last night in NH we went to dinner at David’s cousin Adam’s house. We had a great visit with their family (their kids Ava and Aaron are similar to in age to Kayla and Isaac). Of course I didn’t take any pictures of this, but we all had a great time!
We headed back to my parents house for a few days before making the trip back down to NC. We made a trip to Kimball's for ice cream and some other fun! We rode the bumper boats, Kayla got to ride a pony and of course the best part - the ice cream!
Then we started our long drive down to NC. We had planned to do the drive in 2 days and so we left around 10am. However, once we got in the car and saw how much shorter the trip was than we expected (more than 100 miles less than we thought it would be), we decided to do it in 1 day so we could have an extra day to just relax. We made it back to NC right around midnight. It was a long day, but a good day. Here are some pictures of the kids and a hilarious video that shows how we roll! It was a great vacation - we are glad we went!
