The last day of school was June 18, as was Emma's dress rehearsal from 4-9pm, and Will's 3rd year Sparky award party at Cloud 9 (indoor trampoline park) in Chesapeake. Abby flew in on Saturday, the 20th, and went with us to Emma's dance recital, which was Sunday the 21st. We also celebrated Father's Day on Sunday. We went to Jered's favorite, Mission BBQ for lunch. He had some killer ribs!
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| Will's first and last day of 2nd grade. He really grew a lot! |
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| Father's Day! |
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| With her congratulation bouquet after the recital |
During the last week of June, we took a family vacation to Connecticut. We drove up on Monday, June 22, and spent 4 days with Baba and Meemaw, and drove back to Virginia Beach on Saturday. It took about 10 hours to drive up, due to traffic around New Jersey and New York. It was around 500 miles from our house to Wallingford, CT, where we spent the first night. The coastline pretty much all looked like our local area here, until we got north of Philadelphia and into some beautiful hills.
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| Ready for our road trip! |
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| Delware Memorial Bridge |
Tuesday, June 23, we visited the Nehemiah Royce House in Wallingford before driving to Stonington, near Mystic, where we spent the next 3 nights. The Nehemiah Royce House is a historical landmark. It was built in 1672, and is the oldest house in Wallingford. General George Washington stayed here in 1775. We wanted to see it because our ancestors lived there!
After vising the house, we drove east to Stonington, which is a smaller town on the Rhode Island state line, near Mystic Seaport. Our hotel was very near Westerly, which is a town on the border. You can move from one state to another by crossing the street! Some neighborhoods are split, part on CT, part on RI. They had a cute historic downtown, but all the shops closed before 6! Before getting to Stonington, we stopped in New London, at the Harkness Memorial State Park. They had gorgeous parks and beach. There was also a historic mansion and gardens on the premises. The kids enjoyed exploring the 'secret gardens' and running through the fields by the ocean.
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| Harkness Memorial State Park |
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| Relaxing at the hotel - La Quinta Stonington |
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| Westerly, RI |
The next day we went to Essex to ride on the steam train and river boat!! It was so fun, and beautiful to boot. Before we went on the train, we ate breakfast at a local diner called Mystic Diner and Restaurant.
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| Tickle attack! |
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| Getting ready for the river boat! |
After the train ride, we went to one of Jered's favorite vacation stops - the Groton Submarine Force Museum, which houses the Nautilus - the first nuclear submarine. We were able to tour the Nautilus, which is not for the faint of heart (meaning claustrophobic!), and the indoor exhibits also. It was amazing to see how small everything is on the submarine. The crew beds looked like toddler beds! Jered walking through the hatches looked like an elf trying to go through a hobbit door. Those are hardy men that serve for years on a sub!
On Thursday, June 25, we went to Mystic Seaport. We visited the tourist center area, took some pictures, bought souvenirs, then drove downtown and ate lunch at Mystic Pizza. The pizza really was great! We walked around a little after lunch and patronized a local bookstore. It was a such a cute store, and had a wonderful children's section. While we were there, I talked to a lady who turned out to be a local children's author and lobster fisherman. She wrote a book about her experiences lobstering, so we bought a signed copy for the kids.
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| Jered tried the daily special - scallop and bacon pizza! |
When we got back to the hotel, I took the kids swimming. They just love swimming pools!
For dinner on Thursday night, we went to one of the highlights of vacation in Connecticut - the Dog Watch Café. The atmosphere was New England summer at its best - cool weather, Adirondack chairs around a firepit, and great food and drinks. It's a dock restaurant, so the view was ideal. There was even an icecream shop that shared the outdoor space, so everyone really enjoyed the evening!
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| Just chillin' - he knows how to vacation! |
Friday morning we drove back toward the airport north of Hartford. Baba and Meemaw were flying back early Saturday morning, so we stayed at the Hampton Inn near the airport. After we checked in Friday, we went to the nearby New England Air Museum. We had no idea it was an extensive museum, and were afraid that we would never see Jered again once he stepped inside! But haha, really it was a wonderful museum, one of the best I've seen besides the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. It had 3 wings, plus an outdoor display, and a private hangar where they keep the aircraft they are readying for display. Jered got to talking to one of the curators, and he let us go inside. And guess what they had? That's right, a F-14 Tomcat!! (which I correctly identified as a F-14B - I must have been married to a jet nerd for a long time!) This was a perfect ending for vacation, especially for Jered. The museum had an awesome kids area with a dress up corner, coloring table, and about 10 pc consoles to play educational games. There was a little area to ride a kid-sized pedal plane. So we thoroughly enjoyed it too! It was a great Connecticut vacation, and we made lots of wonderful memories.
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| Friday morning, leaving Stonington in our tourist tees. |
