Vermont Weekend

We took a little weekend getaway to visit our friends Ben, Laurie and Grace in Barnard, VT.  I wish I took more pictures!  Their home is so quaint and nestled back on some pretty green land complete with a running creek.  It's so lovely.  They were nice enough to host our family as well as our good friends, the Heinzerling-Mintys.  Saturday we went to the lake and the boys and Daddy camped outside on Sat. night in their spacious yard after smores, of course.  Sunday was spent in Woodstock, VT.  What an adorable town!  But the best part of the weekend was simply our time hanging out at their house, watching the kids play, laughing, talking, listening to old records, & making and eating yummy food.

Home From North Carolina { the snapshots from my Iphone }

Amelia was deliriously goofy during the ride.

Going over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge/Tunnel which goes on and on and on...

Benjamin

Daniel

The view of the sound from our deck.

Butterflies everywhere.

A little shopping trip with the boys and their cousin Genevieve.

Crepe Myrtle

My beautiful twin boys

My sweet Amelia

On the road again.  What should've been a 7 hour drive ended up being almost 12 hours. 


We headed out last Friday for a family vacation to OBX.  We met Grandmom & Grandpop, Christine, Kevin and Genevieve at the house our family has been renting for quite a while now.  Everyone had a great time, and each day was filled to the brim with activities.  Not much relaxing is to be had with small children in tow but seeing them experience & explore new places is so worth the exhaustion. 

We are so glad to be home and it's relatively cool in NJ so we opened the windows and are enjoying our familiar toys and our cozy beds and the freshly picked flowers on our counter left by good friends as a welcome home gift. 

More pictures and stories from our trip to come!

Vermont

 Bomoseen State Park

 Daddy and the boys in Lake Bomoseen

 Daddy

 Consider Bardwell Farm where we had lunch - yummy cheese paninis with delicious homemade local cheese

 Kristen and Maia (& her buttcrack!)

 Paddleboating & swimming in Lake St. Catherine

 Laurie & Reed

 Spacious grounds at the house we rented in Fair Haven, VT

 The kids loved the swingset perfectly placed under the willow trees

 The old farmhouse we rented

 Back home to New Jersey

We went on a pretty spontaneous & much-needed little getaway to visit our friends Laurie and Ben in VT over Memorial Day weekend.  We rented a house with our friends Kristen & Tom and their children, Maia & Reed.

It wasn't too long of a car ride for the boys and for a growing Mommy belly!

We rented an 1850's farmhouse on several acres with a beautiful yard, pretty views and a big deck for just hanging out and eating lots of good grilled food, local cheeses & caramels and Laurie's homemade dilly beans.

It was a hot and humid weekend so we enjoyed going to two State Parks with lakes where the kids splashed and cooled off.  We visited an adorable little farm after seeing Laurie and Ben's precious house and the back roads on the way were scenic and relaxing.

It was such an enjoyable weekend all around.  Ben and Dan had fun and by the end of the weekend, they were really loving the country setting in VT.  Although in the beginning, they kept saying they liked NYC better (our last little weekend getaway) and I started to wonder if they are more like little city mice than country mice.  I guess they are somewhere in the middle, like their momma.

Once Monday morning came, we were all packed and ready to head back to NJ...while all of our beach town's visitors were on their way out, we were rolling back in.

We can't wait to do that little trip again - next time with a baby girl in tow!

We Love the Big Apple

We spent a long weekend in NYC at the end of March. Benjamin & Daniel have been asking to go to back to New York since we visited last Christmas. We stayed at the New York Palace Hotel and loved it there. Look at the view of St. Patrick's Cathedral from our room! The hotel also had a cute little courtyard complete with tables and chairs and tiny trees lit up at night.

Our first stop was FAO Schwartz where the boys picked out all NYC vehicles...small police vehicles, taxis, and a Statten Island Ferry.





We sat in the little square and people-watched. Ben and Dan were excited to see this woman carrying a Pac Man bag and insisted on taking a picture of it:


Then, we walked to Central Park and spent hours meandering through and stopping at a playground to play.








The flowers were beautiful!








Later that night, we went to Top of the Rock.







Rockefeller Center


On Saturday morning, we took a Circle Line Cruise around the Statue of Liberty then back.













After the boat ride, we headed to the top of the Empire State Building then for lunch, we met my friend Katie at the famous Serendipity Restaurant.

Their menu was huge!


Their frozen hot chocolate is to die for!





The boys enjoyed their special treat from Katie while we were at Make Meaning, a creative place just for kids on the Upper East Side.


Ben and Dan chose to make soaps. Here they are using letter cookie cutters to cut pieces of colored soap to fill their soap molds. They even got to choose their own scent for the soap and chose birthday cake!


On Sunday morning, we headed over to the Museum of Natural History. We thought the boys would love the planetarium, as they are obsessed with outer space currently...but it proved to be a bit scary and loud for them.


They enjoyed looking at the fake planets and info. outside the planetarium, though and were psyched to get a spaceship toy from the gift shop.


Since this was the end of our little trip, the other exhibits weren't quite as exciting as they might normally be...we were all pretty tired!

We headed over to Carmine's for a delicious Italian lunch then headed home to Jersey. The boys kept saying New York is so much better than New Jersey. They were sad to say good bye! Looks like some small day trips via the train are in our current future.