Summer vacation 2011

This year we went on our summer vacation with Dustin and Elizabeth and Meredith Maciver.  We started off our trip bright and early Thursday morning. We met at eh Maciver's house for 7:30 and started our Drive to Clark's Trading post.  Brady and Cameron watched a movie, but sadly Liam is not a big car sleeper and although he was tired refused to fall asleep and pretty much cried the whole last hour of the car trip.  Luckily the older boys were so engrossed in their movie that it really didn't bother them, I on the other hand was ready to pull my hair out!  We go to Clark's when they opened at 9:30.  We slathered the kids with sunscreen and set off for our morning.  We went on the train ride and saw the wolf man, the boys and Brian and Dustin went on the bumper boats and soaked each other, and Of course we saw the bear show and the acrobat show.  after all that we had our picnic lunch and hit the road to head to our hotel.

playing in the bumper boats

playing with his brother on the train

the bear show

the acrobat show

and he finally decided to sleep

We got to our hotel and decided to let the kids go in the pool for a while, then headed out to North Conway for dinner.  By this time it was 5:30 we were all hungry and there was a wait at just about every restaurant we went to, so we ended up finally getting a table at Friendly's which was fine with the kids because they got ice cream with their meal.  After dinner we headed back and got the kids ready for bed.  When the kids went to bed the adults actually had time to sit and talk and we played a cut throat game of scattegories.  We haven't had a night of just adult time since we have all had kids.  The next morning the kids were up bright and early, so excited to be going to story land.  We were staying in a condo and had brough stuff to make breakfast so we had pancakes and turkey sausage to start our day.  We packed our lunch headed to Dunkin donuts to energize with some coffee and headed to storyland.  We were nevouse abou the weather, the day before when we had looked it was saying it was going to be in the 80's and sunny.  In the morning when we looked the forecast had changed drastically and was saying cloudy, rain and cold.  we decided to chance it and we could always get a rain check and come back the next day, but it worked out perfectly, with it being overcast there weren't alot of people at the parks so we really never waited more than a few minutes to get on rides, it wasn't too hot and it didn't rain until we had left adn were driving back to the hotel.  The boys had a great time.  Brady went on the polar coaster and the bamboo shoots a couple of times because there were no lines, Cameron still likes the slower rides but did go on the faster rides one time each.  Liam was great and slept in the ergo when he needed to enjoyed the rides he could go on.  We stayed until 4:30 and then headed back to the hotel, the boys went to the pool while Elizabeth and I stayed in the condo with the babies.  We ordered pizza from the hotel and when the boys got back they had dinner and it was time for bed.    In the morning we had breakfast and got cleaned up and checked out.  we went into North Conway to do some outlet shopping and of course make our annual trip to the life is good store, did some shopping, had a picnic lunch and headed home.  luckily this time Liam slept a little bit and only started to cry about the last 5 miles.  Much more managable.  We had a wonderful time and were happy to share our vacation with our firends the Macivers!  It's hard to believe that a year ago we were on the same vacation with  an 8 week old and this year he is almost walking.  It just shows us how fast time goes and how we need to cherish these moments we have together.

We are looking forward to many more summer vacations to come!