Sadly we left Rhode Island this morning, and the paradise home of our family. Thankfully they were able to join us in Massachusetts today at Plimoth Plantation. This was especially up my alley. I love talking to people. Talking to the costumed interpreters who have spent time and effort to research and learn about the time period is awesome. We started at the Wampanoag encampment. There was a Native American (from the narganset tribe) burning out a canoe. The kids…
Today Nicole and I braved the cold and spring break crowds to take NINE kids to the roger Williams zoo in Providence, RI. It was pretty crazy to be counting them all day, but nobody got lost, nobody got hurt, and we all kept our cool. We had acquired an extra, and Dimitri took a special liking to her, holding her hand all day long. It was so sweet. It was a small zoo, but the animals were out and…
Just down the road in Warwick, RI… Deon’s cousin, Chris, and his wife, Nicole, own a gym. But not any kind of gym, they own a NINJA gym. No boring workouts here! With 10 kids, 2 hours of free time, and some pizza, my kids were in heaven! And when the kids aren’t practicing their monkey skills in the gym, they are playing in the backyard, or playing with the toys (enough to rival any toy store), or indoctrinating their…
Today was a full day, at least for us girls! We left the boys at home and started our day at Newport mansions Elm St home. We did the servants life tour, which was an awesome backstage tour of the house. We even got to be on the roof! The only bummer was that we missed out on the fancy things in the house. Oh, well, such is the life of a servant! From there we drove a short way…
We are absolutely loving being with family. Nicole is very laid back, which makes for an easy visit. We opted to miss church today to spend the day with family. We started our day with a fun egg hunt. Their backyard was perfect, and each kid had a different color to look for. We came up 4 eggs short. Don’t ask me how that happens. Then I made a brunch of eggs Benedict. Love it! After we packed up and…
We arrived late last night at the home of Deon’s cousin, Chris, and his wife, Nicole’s, house. They have 2 young children, 5 and 6 years old. We didn’t know them very well, and weren’t sure what to expect. From the first moment it was great. The adults felt like old friends and the kids played all day just like cousins should. My girls doted on their daughter day and night, and my boys played cars, trains, bow and arrows,…
This will be the one state we don’t spend the night in. It feels a little like cheating to me, but I do value the experiences we have over where we sleep, and we did have a good day. I was a little more prepared today for the drive out of New Jersey. Google maps *really* wanted us to drive through manhattan, which I politely, repeatedly declined. I also priced some bridges (George Washington bridge would have cost us $85!)…
Fantastic day! I needed a day when some things worked out. Because of yesterday’s move, we were able to walk right over to the Liberty and Ellis island ferry. I was afraid without advance reservations we wouldn’t be able to get a same day ticket, but we walked right on. First stop: Ellis island. Picnic lunch, walk through the museum. Next stop: liberty island. We walked around lady liberty and listened to an audio history of her. Finally, Deon headed…
We finally threw in the towel this morning and decided we couldn’t hang with the hours-long commute into the city. So we moved over to Liberty Harbor RV in New Jersey. It is expensive, at $95/night, but the 15 minute commute to the WTC was totally worth it. I just took the girls in. We bought our tickets and walked around the WTC memorial site, St. Peter’s church, and the survivor tree. We spent 2 1/2 hours in the 9/11…
So, we are staying at Floyd Bennett field, and found out yesterday that there is an amusement center on site. Sidda had been begging for *months* to go ice skating, so this seemed like a good time. We headed up around lunch time, with a packed lunch, planning to skate for a session (back home that would be 1 to 1 1/2 hours). Turns out when you pay to skate here, it is for all day. So my plan to…