Finally...Our Trip to New England

Last night my friend Wendy informed me that I needed to blog.

Life has been crazy since we got back from Rhode Island, but I am finally sitting down on the computer and filling you all in on our trip.

Instead of spending our whole trip in Rhode Island, Steve's family decided it would be fun to go to New Hampshire together. His sister, Suzy, opens a condo there and Steve's parents rented another on that was next door.
So we all:

• Suzy and her son Eli
• Sandy and her kids Alex & Will
• Steve and I and our brood Zack, Belle, Katie & Becky
• Scott, his wife Jen and their children Abby & Tyler
• And last, but certainly not least Mom and Dad Weber

Met up in New Hampshire on Monday. The kids ran around outside and got reacquainted with each other. The women folk went food shopping and then came home and had hamburgers and hot dogs for dinner. Then the kids got to roast marshmallows and have smores. Steve diverted Suzy's attention and the rest of the gang ran into one of the condos and hid so we could surprise Suzy with a 40th Birthday Celebration. She seemed to be surprised we had done this for her. Jen made a cute cake and Eli, who is 7, had even managed to buy his mom and birthday gift and smuggled it to New Hampshire in his car.

We spent a great majority of our time swimming. All the children enjoyed going to the pool. I think the dads even had some fun playing with the children. We took a trip to Loon Mountain and rode the gondola to the top and had the kids play in some rock caves and climb a little tower. There was also a trip to some water falls and streams that everyone played in. We also went to a little pond that had a floating dock and paddle boats that could be borrowed. Steve and some of the boys went frog hunting and found a HUGE, BRIGHT GREEN FROG.

As you might expect there was some game playing. Sequence was a big hit with everyone. The little boys spent time playing their Gamboys together. One of the most fun activities was when we pulled the Guesstures game out. We formed 2 teams and had a blast watching each person act out their clues. It was H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S!!!

A good time was had by all. When Thursday finally rolled around we cleanup the two condos, packed up our belongs and headed back to Rhode Island. We spent the remainder of our trip in Rhode Island. We even managed to squeeze a trip to the beach.

One More Camping Trip

June 30th was the last day of school!!

To help celebrate we have made a tradition of going camping the same day that the children are let out of school. Last year we invited our friends the Duves to join us and this year the Duves came along, but we also invited another family the Nighs along. Each family consists of 6 people, so we totaled 18 and has 3 sites at Smith Morehouse Campground.

What we did on our vacation:

• Fishing
• Eating
• Playing games
• Eating
• Taking walks
• Eating
• Wading in the reservoir
• Eating
• Canoeing
• Eating
• Chatting
• & don't forget Eating

The scariest part of the trip. Steve when tout in the canoe with some of the kids. As he paddled across the lake Daisy decided she would follow. Those of us standing on the shore tried calling her back, but she was focused on being with Steve. Once Steve realized that Daisy was tailing behind he made his way to the far side of the lake and the other shore. Daisy slowed down a bit. We were all afraid she would not make it. Finally we saw her pull herself up onto the shore. She was so exhausted after he little adventure she hardly moved for 2 days after the swim.

Another cute memory for me was my friend's son Heston. He is about about 3 years old and is just so stinkin' cute. When we went to the reservoir he's dad had a little fishing rod for him to use and Heston was one of the only people that day to catch a fish and he was so excited. Unfortunately the fish had ripped a gill and did not survive. Heston's dad tried to save the little fishy. Then Heston's big sister came over and took the little fish and threw into out into the lake. Not long after that a seagull came by, swooped down and gobbled up that fish.

"Poor fishy."

One of the best parts of this camping trip for Steve and I was when the kids were safe in their tents and the adults congregated at the picnic table, played games and ate the grown up treats. It is so nice to have good friends. Lots of laughing and sharing how each one of the couple met. We had some fun conversations. I still think Dayna does something sneaky when we play Kaboom, but I can't prove it yet. BTW...Congrats on your win Dayna!!!

Yellowstone: Part 2

As we came around the corner for the Fishing Bridge there was more traffic. We began asking people standing on the sides of the road what they could see. Their reply,

"A GRIZZLY BEAR".

Sure enough in the middle of this field was a small grizzly bear laying there.
We pulled our truck off to the side of the road and joined the rest of the vacationers. It laid there for a while and then got up and ate its way through the dandelions, closer and closer to us. There were a couple of Park Rangers there that were controlling the situation. We took 2 rolls of film and about 20 digital images of the bear. A couple of people commented that the bear was pretty small, but as we stood there and watched him eat and lay down I got a good look at his crawls and came to the conclusion that he was big enough for me. When the Park Ranger informed us that if the bear got any closer to us, he was going to clear out the area we decided it would be best to leave.

We took a long and uneventful drive around Yellowstone Lake. After having encountered so many neat animals in such a short time, this part of the drive was a bit boring. Just before we got to our camp ground we saw to women taking pictures of something. I thought, "It is probably another bison".
But, it wasn't. It was a coyote standing around the picnic tables. We got out of the truck and watched the coyote. He walked around behind the picnic table and then stopped for a moment. It was watching something very closely. Then he pounced on a mouse and ate it. We took a few more photos and moved on.

We decided after a few hours of seeing animals and wilderness we would head into West Yellowstone and have an ice cream and do some window shopping. As we were leaving the park we hit, traffic again. There was a bison standing on the side of the road and on the other side of the road was a small group of full grown and baby bison. It appears that the one bison was acting as a crossing guard so that the small herd could cross and join him and the others on the side of the road. We got a couple of neat, fairly close pictures of those beautiful animals.

On the way back from West Yellowstone we saw a beautiful bald eagle perched on a log. Not far from where he was perched was her nest with 2 babies in it. We did not get a good view of the babies, but Steve got a couple of good shots of the eagle. It was incredible. I have never seen one of those in person. Once we finally got back to came, we began to make our supper. Steve went up to the restrooms and when he returned he told me there was 4 bison right there in came. I went and looked at them. It was kind of a surreal moment.

We saw so much in those short 2 days. I feel like this short blog entry doesn't even do justice to what we saw.