Maine

Today was an awesome day of vacation activities. We woke up early (early according to Mountain Time, that is.) and headed north to New Hampshire and Maine. We went to York, Maine as our first stop and intended to make our way back to Portsmouth, NH to take a brewery tour. That did not happen because York was so amazing that we spent as much time there as we could! I saw an ad for their lighthouse online and thought it looked cool and it was. York was a sleepy beach town with plenty of lobster available to be enjoyed. We ate SO much seafood on this trip that I feel like I should be able to swim much better than I can. :) It was just so nice to be able to eat fresh seafood whenever we felt the need. Yum! I have, however, missed Mexican food and intend to have some when I get back to Denver. HA! :) You know it is bad when I miss Denver's Mexican food- since it sucks. Anyway, I cannot recommend York, Maine to you enough. It was just a great place to spend time. We all loved it! It was by far my favorite part of the trip and it was not even planned ahead of time. 

I was able to mark five states off of my list on this trip: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine. AWESOME! That's my kind of trip. We've decided that I'll be able to mark Vermont when we go to Niagara Falls sometime or we'll swing by there next summer when we come back to Boston to go to a Red Sox baseball game and head back to York, Maine. We just ran out time on this trip and that's ok. We stayed plenty busy! Susie says that she was not annoyed with all of our adventures to different states so that is good.

The roads in New England are something else. They have rotaries (roundabouts) that are just HUGE. They put Carmel to shame. ;) I am simply amazed that we were able to navigate so many towns and all of that East Coast traffic without a single incident. Yay! I think there is some kind of mistake with automakers, too, because those poor folks on the East Coast have cars without turn signals! It is the darnest thing. They also only know how to brake RIGHT NOW and never just slightly tap the brakes. Whew. Those people wore me out. I was so happy to get out of Boston's traffic (which was not even bad at the hours that we drove through town) this afternoon. I was a nervous nelly. 

We certainly had a wonderful trip. I'm now on my flight back to Denver then I'm hopping a quick flight to Colorado Springs. Again- do not get me started on how silly this route is because I could go one for days about it. I'm not looking forward to having an hour to drive once I'm off my flights. I'm exhausted and I just want to crawl into my big bed at home! I have a ton of laundry to do when I get home, too. That's the worst part of traveling: laundry! Thankfully I can get my laundry handled before Jackson comes home with all of his dirty stuff tomorrow evening. I have to be at work tomorrow at 8 so that means I have to catch the 7:15 train. UGH. That's such an early wake-up call. I am hoping that since I've been hanging out on the East Coast for the last couple of days I will not feel too bad getting up at 6 in my real time zone. (Getting up at 6 is not a big deal, I know, but it is when I won't get to sleep until at least 1 I predict.) I get to leave work at 5 to go get Jackson and MacKenzie from the airport. They're coming home. YAY!

The trip was worth being a little tired. Jackson is meeting with the realtor tomorrow to put the Westfield house on the market. Please, please pray that it sells quickly for close to the asking price. We really do not want to have to pay the mortgage on it for much longer. He will also be getting MacKenzie from my Mom and bringing her back to Denver. She has a new, fancy carrying case that she'll be sleeping in tomorrow for the 2.5 hour flight. I think she has had a ball staying with her grandparents for the last couple of weeks. She met all kinds of new friends-both dogs and people- in Susie's neighborhood. While at my parent's place she has even gotten Madison to play with her. That's a real feat!  I think that she (along with Jackson and myself) will sleep very well on Tuesday night. Then it is moving weekend and I have a feeling that I'll be working on Labor Day since the September 15th deadline is quickly approaching. Then next Wednesday school starts again. AHHH!!! I need a vacation. ;) That's our life: never boring and always busy. I don't think I'd have it any other way. 

Block Island, Rhode Island

This morning we headed out to Block Island via this ferry. A tropical storm has just passed through New England and the ocean was still pretty rough. It was an interesting trip to say the least. 
We were having a good time on the boat. 
Jackson and I smiling before I got sick. That's right, folks, I tossed my cookies on the boat. The waves and motion were just too much for this little wimp. It was not fun at all. 
There were a lot of cute shops on the island. I pretended to be sleeping under the "lazy fish" sign. Ha. :)
I love a good funky tree.
A lighthouse on Block Island. It was moved in 1993 or else it would have fallen into the ocean. Pretty cool, huh? 
The inside of the lighthouse- you could take the tour but it was $5 and I wasn't going to spend that to climb a bunch of twisting stairs. 
We rented bikes and road around the island. It was a good time. It had been quite a while since I'd ridden a bike!
We went down the road from the lighthouse to some stairs that lead down to the beach. It was so gorgeous. 
Jackson on the stairs. What a cute face. 
I told Jackson and Susie do an explorer pose and they did it-LOL!
These were the stairs down to the beach.
This girl was on the beach covered in mud because she was doing a "cheap spa treatment." Whatever works, sister. 

The beaches are not like Florida's beaches as they have cliffs and gorgeous scenery around them. 
Jackson climbed to the bottom of the cliff to go to the water. 

Jackson was pretty proud of himself for getting down the cliff. 

Below: the view from the ferry leaving Block Island. I did not get sick on the way home. Yay! 

We went to dinner at a seafood place with live entertainment. They sucked.
These old people, however, got down with their bad selves to the music. Too funny. :)

YALE

We knew it was going to rain nearly all day today so we decided to take a little road trip to New Haven, Connecticut to see Yale University's campus. We were NOT disappointed. It was a gorgeous campus. It is neck-and-neck with Princeton as my favorite campus that I have ever visited (and I've been to a LOT of campuses). We tried taking the scenic route to Yale, but since it was raining and foggy we couldn't see the ocean. Bummer. 

Imagine my surprise when we walk into a pizza joint right near Yale's campus for lunch and see Katie Couric. I recognized her right away. Her voice gave her away. She just looked like an average mother dropping her daughter off at college for the year. I overheard her saying that she turned down covering Ted Kennedy's funeral because she had committed to her daughter to help move her into Yale. I was so glad to hear that she made time for her daughter instead of covering a big story. I do not really like Katie's newscast very much, but I did somewhat take a shine to her as a person upon hearing this story. Anyway, I snuck a photo of her but, of course, did not bug her for an autograph or phony conversation. (Jackson made fun of my mercilessly for being interested in what was happening at Katie's table. Whatever. It was interesting conversation over there!) 
We got a real kick out of their ornate and old buildings that had crazy things carved into them like men's faces with big ears. Doesn't this guy look like George W. Bush?!
The archways were just gorgeous. We snuck into this building and took some video that I cannot currently upload as the hotel's internet deemed it inappropriate material. LOL! Yeah, inside of Yale's graduate studies building is dead sexy. ;)

The ivy for an Ivy League school!

We also stopped in at Brown University today brining our grand total of Ivy League schools visited on this trip to 3. I've been to Princeton in the past so I am half-way to my goal of seeing all 8 Ivy League schools. I'm a school nerd- leave it alone. :)

Ok, the internet here at the hotel is really picky so I'm going to just post this without much more commentary. Tomorrow we're off to Block Island, RI for some much needed R&R after all of this activity!

Quick pics

Jackson eating lobster last night- they force you to wear the bib. Classic. 
AH! The lobster was still alive and got his nose! ;)
My Mom is watching MacKenzie and took her for a haircut. For some reason MacKenzie seems to be feeling a little camera shy after her cut and won't look at the camera-? 
She even got her toes painted much to Jackson's dismay. Ah, that's what a few weeks with the grandmas will do to a little girl- make her spoiled! :)

Another day in Boston

We did some more sight-seeing in Boston today. I, of course, miss MacKenzie like crazy so when we saw this dog frolicking in the fountains downtown we just HAD to stop and watch. 
He was so funny- running around and barking at the fountains!
We stopped at the water front to look at all of the fancy hotel. This one had a really cool dome.


This yacht was docked in Boston's harbor. It was GORGEOUS!!
Susie pretended it was her boat... ;)

We walked all the way across town to see where the Boston tea party took place just to discover that it was currently removed for renovation! ARG! I was so bummed out. 
Isn't this hotel just magnificent?! I just LOVED it.
Jackson is our navigator. He is always planning things out for us. 
This building is part of the Children's Museum here in Boston. It looked like a cool place.
Jackson made me pose for this photo. The people around us shot me VERY dirty looks. Oops. 
We walked by Paul Revere's house. We did not get to tour it because I didn't want to spend the money! :)
These are the gates at Haaaaaarvard. 
Enter here to gain smarts ;)
I pretended in my head that I was going to school there...haha :)
UPLAND road in Cambridge- near Harvard's campus
We drove out to Concord and Lexington, Massachusetts to do some additional sight-seeing. We went to Walden Pond and hiked. It was a gorgeous place- home to Henry David Thoreau. 
The water was clear and warm-we wished that we would have packed swimsuits!
If you were ever forced to read, "My Life in the Woods" you remember this scene. Sigh. I HATED that book. It was cool to see the place, though.

We drove some today and it was not too bad. I expected it to be a lot worse out here, traffic wise. They do, however, allow people to drive in the breakdown lanes during rush hour. That was totally unnerving. I was so weirded out to have cars coming up my right side when I was in the far right lane. Eek. The drivers out here just do not care. They are wild! We hit some traffic and a little rain but all in all it was a good day.

We're in Warwick, Rhode Island for the next three nights. We had all kinds of seafood tonight at a restaurant right on the ocean. It was a pretty cool place. I  love lobster now. Yum! 

We're not sure what's on deck for tomorrow since we may be getting a ton of rain. We might go to Yale (it is only 1.5 hours from here in Connecticut ) before we go up to Providence, RI (home to Brown University. We're getting to see all kinds of Ivy League schools!). I'm just hoping for some more yummy seafood in my future. :)