Hey! We're Back!

Aaaaand we're back from our New England vacation!  It feels soooooo good to sleep in my own bed again!  But I can't complain too much about the hotel beds this time.  They were all really comfortable.  A definite bonus to any vacation.

We actually arrived back home on Sunday, but I haven't really had a good chance to sit down and provide an update.  Are you ready?

We started our trip by waking up at 4am, and getting out the door by 5:30am.  Our first stop on this trip was Boston.  We had decent traveling weather and traffic and arrived in town mid-afternoon.  We decided to spend the afternoon/evening relaxing and letting Jacob stretch himself out. 

Sunday was our day to see downtown and do whatever we could of the Freedom Trail walk.  We stopped in the Boston Public Gardens to see the Make Way for Ducklings statues, wandered past the inspiration for Cheers, and checked out the historic parts of downton Boston.  It was a really neat day and so much fun.

On Monday we decided that we'd do a tour of Fenway Park.  Jacob didn't want to sit down for any parts of the tour, and by the end, he was getting a little cranky.  I thought the ballpark itself was beautiful, and it's such an historic place.  It was cool to see it.

Later that afternoon, we went to Salem so that I could get my witch hunt/The Crucible fix.  Maybe I had my hopes set too high, but I found myself fairly disappointed in what I'll call the over-commercialization of the witch hunts.  The National Park Service had great free exhibits to Salem's maritime history (which is totally overshadowed by the witch hunts, in my opinion), but everything related to witches cost money.  And I wasn't sure what would be worth the money and what wouldn't.  I didn't want us to end up paying $20+ for something that was ridiculously cheesy.  And the girl at the visitor center was less than helpful in giving advice.  But I got some good pictures of the memorial to the accused -- which included the names of some of my favorite characters from The Crucible.

Tuesday was a travel day for us as we made our way up to Maine and Acadia National Park.  We drove through some beautiful countryside.  New England is incredibly pretty, and very "quaint" in many places.  I had my first taste of lobster for dinner.  It was pretty delicious (but I think I like crab better -- lucky for Erik!), as were the scallops that Erik ordered.

Wednesday and Thursday were park days.  Wednesday started off chilly and a little rainy, but it ended up clearing up and turning into a beautiful afternoon.  We drive through the park and made a few stops, then we drove into Bar Harbor to wander around the town and souvenir shop.  I love Bar Harbor.  Perfect little vacation town.  As the sun started to peak out, we thought we'd drive up to Cadillac Mountain to check out the views.  Jacob was sound asleep when we got up there, and didn't wake up for a minute as we walked around the top of the mountain.  Lots of fresh air + baby who loves being outside = very tired baby.  Thursday started off as a foggy day, and the fog didn't really lift until later in the day.  It made for some pretty shots as it drifted away from the coast.  We stopped to see Bass Harbor lighthouse, and went back into the park again to get more pictures.

Friday was another travel day as we left Maine and drove back down through Boston to our stop around Cape Cod.  Traffic in Boston was horrible.  Friday was, by far, the worst travel day we had.  We felt so bad that Jacob had to be strapped in for so long.  He was very cranky -- and I can't blame him.

Even though we knew that a summer weekend + Cape Cod beaches would probably = lots of traffic and silliness (we know what happens down here with the Bay Bridge on summer weekends), we wanted to visit the Cape on Saturday.  Traffic wasn't awesome, but it wasn't horrible either (getting an early start helped).  We decided to drive to the town of Chatham, because Erik had heard from a co-worker that the chances of seeing seals down there was pretty good.  And we weren't disappointed.  It was a hot and humid day, so we didn't spend a whole lot of time in the area, but it was just enough -- and we had a delicious fish sandwich down at the public fishing pier!

And Sunday was our travel day home.  The traffic wasn't too bad (which is one thing we were worried about), and we were able to make it home by about 2pm.  Jacob was such a great traveler -- we really lucked out.  He was in good moods and he made friends everywhere we went.  I consider our first vacation as a family of three to have been a success!

Now it's back to reality.  School starts in about a week and a half and I need to start getting things together for that.  I also need to start preparing myself for leaving my baby again so that I can go back to work.  I have absolutely loved every minute of my summer vacation with him -- lack of naps, crankiness, tears and screaming included -- and I hate that I have to leave him.  So I'm savoring every last minute that I have with him.  And he, in turn, has been one of the happiest, silliest, and most loveable little boys I've ever known.