Day Two

I woke up this morning and headed down the stairs of our B&B for breakfast. This is me in my seat...

Eating my breakfast...



And this is who I sat with...




Ha! Brian's not a breakfast eater and he likes to sleep late, so I left him in the room. :) Hey- it's his vacation too and I want him to have a good time. After breakfast we loaded up in the car and headed out to tour the Newport mansions. The Newport mansions are a collection of houses that certain families (the Vanderbilts for one) built as their summer 'cottages'. These places are amazing. The Breakers (probably the most popular one) is 136,000 square feet. Yep, you read that right. It' ginormous. We spent about an 1 1/2 hours there and not all the house is opened to the public. You also can't take pictures in any of the houses, so all I got was the outsides. For the Breakers, the Elms and Rosecliff, there was a guided audio tour. For Kingscote and Chateau Sur Mer, we had a person take up around and tell about each room and the things in it.
First we saw The Breakers...



Me in front of the house- helps to get the sheer magnitude of the place!



The Elms



This place was smaller than the Breakers, but no less amazing. On the audio guide, it told us that the house was 1.4 million dollars to build way back then! The guy who built it (can't remember who for the life of me) was an engineer. Electricity was still very new at the time and a lot of people dismissed it as a fad, but he wanted to have the most updated house as possible. There were all kinds of touches that he put in that were either time savers or just really new for the era. Such as - an electric light bulb tester in the basement to make sure the bulbs worked before they climbed up a huge ladder to change them. He made a pulley over the ice box to help move the huge blocks of ice around. He made his money through coal, so he had a tunnel dug under the driveway to bring the coal carts. There were tracks all over the basement and a little turntable so they could easily move them. They had huge water filtration tanks in the basement too. It was just really neat to see all these things that were so ahead of their time. Also at the Elms, we took a special tour called the Servants Tour. It was a look inside how the servants lived and what their life was like. The servants occupied the 3rd floor. We got to see what their bedrooms were like (which were actually a pretty good size). We heard about how much they would be paid, what jobs they were supposed to do, etc. it was a great tour except I keep forgetting that we're at in Obama land up here. To sum up the random comments, the servants were the 99% and things haven't changed at all since 1902. Moving on...
After the servants tour, we took a break to go eat lunch and tried out the Ocean Breeze Cafe.



It was okay- I had a turkey sandwich and Brian had a Rueben. Can't really mess that up. :). Then it was back to the mansions.
Chateau Sur Mer


Chateau Sur Mer was our favorite. It was still a little over the top, but it had a lot of pretty wood paneling on the walls, coffered ceilings, inlaid wood floors, just beautiful wood work all around. We also had a great tour guide that was telling us the story of the house and the people that lived there. Very interesting.
Then we went to Kingscote.



It was very gothic in design, but still pretty- lots of dark wood we like. This guide was okay- I find that if you get a good guide that's knowledgable about the house but doesn't ramble on, it makes the experience awesome.
The last one we saw was Rosecliff. It was pretty, but very similar to the Elms and breakers. Over the top decor, gold leaf, marble everywhere, etc.




We came back to the room for a bit to rest and then headed out to dinner. The place we were trying to find was a hassle. There was quite a bit of traffic and it was dark. After three u-turns (and you all know how Brian LOVES to drive in a lot of traffic) we finally decided to try the Barking Crab.




It was pretty yummy- I had Lobster Macaroni and Cheese. Oh yeah.
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Anniversary Trip Day One

As many of you know, Brian is not much of a traveler. The only vacation that two of us have been on alone is our honeymoon in 2002. So I told him around our 5th anniversary that he was going to take me on a trip for our 10th, so he better get ready. So a few months back, I started planning our trip. The best time for us to go this year was October and I have ALWAYS wanted to see the leaves in the fall in New England... So here we are! We left the house at 9:00 this morning and headed to the airport. We boarded our flight and promptly sat for an hour while they 'tied a seal with safety wire" on the wing flap of the plane. And what makes it even better is that it was right out Brian's window so he could see everything that was going on. It took 5 guys and hour to get it ready. When they finally got it done, they all started shaking hands with each other like "Good job buddy, good job.". It was ridiculous. Three hours later, we finally landed in Hartford and headed to the rental car place. Brian wanted something fun to drive (I couldn't care less), so initially he picked out a Mercedes. Well, right outside the office, this was sitting in the parking lot...

So he chose to go with it. :). It's pretty awesome I have to say. We made a short 25 minute drive to Manchester where we ate at Corey's Catsup & Mustard.


It was featured on Diner's, Drive-Ins and Dives - we LOvE that show- so much so that one of our goals on this trip is to not each at any chain restaurants. Corey's was awesome. I had a California turkey burger and it was DELICIOUS! It had spinach, blue cheese crumbles, balsamic, bacon and avocado. Yum!!!



Now as I type, we're headed to Newport, R.I. To do some sight seeing tomorrow. Looking forward to a comfy bed - it's been a long day! It's going to take a couple of hours to get there and I am loving being with my best buddy!!! And another big plus- he's really hot too. :)
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Color Me Rad 5K

A few months ago, I signed Reed and myself up for the Color Me Rad 5K.  I thought it would be a good way for him to be introduced into running in 5K's.  (He has only ran once with me - we did 2 miles randomly one evening and he did a pretty good job.)  We had to leave about 7:00 this morning to make sure to get there in time to park and have a bathroom stop.  Here he is with his cute glasses and pillow pet. :)

Here we are - our last clean picture before we started the run.

If you aren't familiar with Color Me Rad, it's a 5K that benefits the Ronald McDonald House.  What happens is that you start the run clean as can be and as you run the course, there are "color stations" where people throw or spray you with colored cornstarch.  It started slow with a little blue, then quite a bit of yellow, a little bit of pink, a ton of green and finished with a rainbow of powdered craziness!  Here we are in our first after picture.

Reed's hair. :)

The green station got me right in the face. And ear canal.

Before and After

We ended up walking a lot of it, but we had the BEST time. I'm really glad I was able to share this experience with my sweet boy - he is growing up so fast and I cherish these times so much! 

It begins again...

Reed was a little bummed to start school again this year. In the past, he had pretty much been ready to go back, but I can see that each year he is a little more disappointed that summer has ended. For our last day of summer, Brian had told Reed that he would teach him how to weld. They headed to the shop and I stayed in to make his lunch for school today. I used some cookie cutters and made him some special sandwiches.

I think he'll be pleasantly surprised when he opens his lunch box. :) As I was doing my thang, I started getting the cutest pictures from Brian. My 8 year old is welding. :)


He made an "H" for Hudson. :)


We went and ate a 'last supper' of summer at Braums and then came home to hit the sack. I was evidently a little on edge for the first day- I woke up at 3:30 and could NOT go back to sleep. I left the house at 6:00 for a run, back at 7:00, showered and dressed and at back at the school by 7:40. Not pleased with our first day pictures, but it was a whirlwind morning... For sure. We all look exhausted.





Reed has been blessed with another awesome teacher and I'm looking forward to a great year for my boy!

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Our last day

Yesterday morning we set out from Roswell for the LONG drive home. There was a lot of DS playing...

Leapster playing...


And movies. We made it to the state line...


Yay! Only 7 hours left! :). We wanted to try one more fun place to eat, do we stopped in Snyder and ate at the Big Apple Deli.


It had a super cute casual Texas vibe and the sandwiches were great. We were all tired at this point...


We got home last night about 8:00. After unloading the car and starting a load of laundry, I headed to the grocery store so we could have some food - we had nothing here to eat. Back home by 9:15 and in bed by 10:30. I cannot say enough good things about my very own bed. :). (Yes, I realize I'm sounding more and more like my husband)
We all slept in this morning, but Reed wins the prize for the latest- 10:20! Aftere breakfast, Hudson asked if he could have his tea in his special alien cup. :)


We had an awesome week. Brian and I agree that we wouldn't have changed a thing about it. I am so grateful that God kept us safe and that we were able to do all that we planned and have such a great time. We are so blessed to be able to show our children some of God's greatest creations on this earth and we're looking forward to doing another family trip next summer!

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Day Six

Today has been a LOOOOONNNGG day. We drove from Gallup to Roswell- about 6 hours travel time. The driving is beginning to wear thin at this point... Maybe because we've driven 2000 miles in 6 days. (Yikes!) The boys have done great- it's Brian and I that are SO over it. :). Anyway, we got to Roswell about 4:00 and we were greeted with bits and pieces of alien memorabilia such as this alien head on the fence in front of Wal-Mart...

The light poles downtown are made to look like alien faces...




Even McDonald's looks like a UFO. :)




We only had an hour before things started to close, so we did a quick run through the UFO museum. It's a neat place if you have hours to read. If not, it's just okay. It was $12 for the four of us to get in, so I'm not complaining. We got some photo ops out of it...










And of course our smashed pennies....



After the museum, we had to pick up some cute alien souvenirs and then it was on to dinner at the #2 pick on Trip Advisor-




It was fantastic. If you're ever in Roswell, look it up.
Then we headed to the movies to see the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid installment. Very cute.




Now Brian is down at the pool with the boys. They were so happy when they heard the pool was open until 11:00. I don't know if I could say the same for Brian, but he took them anyway. :)

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Day Five

Today we got up and after a breakfast at the place of choice (IHOP), we headed towards the Grand Canyon. The drive was about an hour and a half and we passed some pretty scenery on the way.

I forgot to get a picture of the kids by the sign at the entrance of the park, so this will have to do. The Grand Canyon visitors center is nice. They had this huge map on the wall and a few other interactive things. They also had a little round room with benches around the perimeter and they projected an informational film onto a sphere for us to watch - pretty cool.




Here we are at the actual canyon. It didn't get that big of a reaction, but Brian's mom tells the story of how when they went to see the Grand Canyon for the first time, he walked up to it, said " Yep, it's a big hole in the ground." and turned an walked away. The boys said it was really cool... I'll take it.








Brian and I liked this quote a lot.




After the Grand Canyon, we headed back East on our trek home. Our second stop today was at the meteor crash site right outside of Winslow, AZ. Brian and the boys love the show Meteorite Men, so I knew Reed especially would like to stop here. I was right... Here's one excited kid... :)




Checking out the stuff at the bottom of the crater with the telescope...




There was a 6 ft tall cut-out of an astronaut at the bottom and it was so far away, you could barely see it with the naked eye. It's amazing how big it was. Here we are at the top observation deck.




The boys in the museum with a piece of the actual meteor they collected from the site.




I tried to get the boys to pose with a scared face beside this great photo op at the museum. They didn't want to, do I just had to do it myself. :)




Here they are getting their souvenir smashed penny. We got these EVERY it,e we saw a machine. My mom got Reed started on it and he even has a book that he keeps them in, so we bought Hudson a book too. It's evidently going to be our new tradition.




After the meteor crash site, we decided to drive back to Gallup to stay the night. It was dark when we got to the hotel, so here is the "travel gift" they got- light up glow pistols (or light sabers, depending on who you talk to).




We had an hour before the pool closed, so we got in some well deserved swim time...




Then up to the room for a pizza party in bed. Good times. :)



On to Roswell tomorrow! I think Brian is more excited than we are. :)

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