Thanksgiving in Maine

Whew! It’s been almost two months since my last post. I finally sat down today and figured out why my iCloud wouldn’t sync my photos to my pc from my iPhone. I’m just too lazy to plug in the phone and move them myself! 😉

We have been pretty busy lately with life, in general. For the week of Thanksgiving, we flew up to Maine and visited Bart’s family. We had a wonderful time, as we did last year. Bart’s grandfather celebrated his 90th birthday while we were there. We saw lots of family and friends.  One of the days Bart, Blake and I drove out to the lake that Bart grew up swimming in during summertime. On the way we stopped at Raymonds, the town store, and bought Moxie (Yuck!), red snapper hot dogs and oatmeal pies for the drive there (which was not long at all). Blake tried his first sip of Moxie (and his first taste of soda) and didn’t like it. I think this should be all kids first taste of soda so that they will never want soda again! We also tried Red Snappers. They are hot dogs with a red casing and they “snap” when you bite into them. I wasn’t interested, so I got chicken fingers, but Blake and Bart had the hot dog. Blake ate the bun and I think Bart was a little disappointed that Blake didn’t like the red snapper or the Moxie. Hey, he is still from the South! 🙂 The guys had fun throwing rocks into the partially frozen shoreline. I watched and then they went to walk around where there was still snow on the ground nearby.

Thanksgiving day we had a lot of family over and had a wonderful time eating, watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, and playing games. Blake also got a new desk that we shipped home. This desk first belonged to Bart’s grandfather when he was 3. That makes the desk 87 years old. It has been used by all of the kids, grandchildren and now the great grandchildren! We were so excited to have it come live with us until it’s time to pass it along.

Our trip to TN

One of the things I love about being a stay at home mama is that we are very flexible with our schedule and can do things on a whim. I was having a little cabin fever, and when we Skype with my in-laws, I realize how much fun they could have with Blake if he were on the farm with them. So, I decided to drive with my 2 yr old to Tennessee and stay a week.

I planned and packed many bags of snacks (Cheerios, Goldfish, etc.) and mounted our portable DVD player to the back of the head rest. I also packed a lunch so we could stop at a rest area and let Blake run around instead of a restaurant. That also made our trip go faster. My mistake, though, was taking the mountain roads instead of going the way we usually do. My poor little man got sick about 30 minutes away from our destination. I was able to clean him up, but then he got sick again 5 miles away and that was a mess. Lucky for me, I called ahead and my wonderful in-laws had a bath waiting for us. After washing and cleaning everything we got settled in and had a great night.

Blake slept so well while we were there. He took long naps and everything! We had such a great time. He got to ride on the tractor with Grandpa, the buggy with Grandma, chase around chickens, play with the new puppy, play with the rocks and his dump truck in the driveway, go to the Knoxville Zoo, and the county fair was even in town the week we were there. (I even got in a little house hunting .) Below are some pictures from our fun in TN.

Riding the tractor with Grandpa

Petting the chicken with Grandma

Chasing chickens

Greeneville County Fair

Greeneville County Fair

Knoxville Zoo

Knoxville Zoo

Knoxville Zoo

Paint Creek in the Cherokee National Forest

Watch out Grandpa

When your son asks you to hug his bear and you’re driving, this is how you do it.

 

Tennessee Fun & Relaxation

Recently we took a family trip to Tennessee to visit Bart’s parents. Blake and I flew up and Bart drove. (Originally, Bart wasn’t going to be home to go and tickets were too expensive last-minute.) It worked out well since I like to pack a lot and was able to send more with Bart. And I didn’t have to take our car seat on the plane. It makes me nervous that they might damage it and is such a pain to carry inside.

We had a fun time around the farm. Bart and I were able to get a date night up in Johnson City and went off a few times to look at areas we might like to live in the future. We even took a trip over to Lake Watuga and had lunch at Captain’s Table on the lake. The restaurant is part of a lake resort that has cabin and boat rentals. This was our view for lunch. The food was delicious and the staff was very friendly.

In my attempt to be healthy while traveling I also got in a race while I was in TN. Memorial Day morning I ran The Hope 4, a 4 mile race. I did my best run ever, which might have something to do with the cool temps. The hills weren’t too bad and downhill was the best! I even won an award for furthest traveled. 🙂

Blake had a great time with all of the dogs. Here he is with Gramp, Shelby, Allie, and Jack.

We went to eat one night at Fatz. Blake sat between his grandparents in a booster seat. He looks so grown up here! I think he ate something from everyone’s plate that night too.

And here Gramp and Blake have their morning coffee. Blake’s, of course, is water. 🙂

And here’s Blake riding the tractor with daddy. He had fun steering and moving the bucket up and down.

Our plane ride home was much longer than anticipated. We flew into Orlando-Sanford and the weather there was pretty bad. The plane circled for about 20 minutes and when they learned we wouldn’t be permitted to land soon we were diverted to Clearwater-St. Petersburg to refuel. We were blessed with an empty middle seat, so we had the much-needed room and Blake was able to move from my lap to his own seat. Also, the nicest lady was next to him and she was a great-grandmother with a great- grandchild near Blake’s age. I don’t think we could have had better person to sit next to us. Blake was well-behaved, but she understood his need to wiggle around a lot and wasn’t put off by his moving around. She even played with him a bit.