Summer fun!

Some pictures from our summer, so far!

(Besides our New England trip, which is in this post.)

Eleanor's last day of school was spent at a park

Arthur REALLY liked playing with bubbles and stayed there long after the big kids moved on to other things.

The little brothers and sisters got popsicles, too.

Oh yeah, and this was about 2 hours after he got tubes in his ears!

Water balloons!

Putting away produce from our weekly box.

"Mama, how did the box people know that there was a little girl here who loves plums so much?!"

(I actually go online and customize our box before it arrives, so I guess I told the box people that she loves plums!)

Visit to Buela's house!  This is Swan Lake in Sumter, SC.  They have this great playground with a restored old firetruck.

Looking at the turtles

Watching the swans

Butterfly garden at Swan Lake

Checking out all of Buela's tiny things

Small town South Carolina

Peggy Parish, the author of Amelia Bedelia, is from Manning, SC, so they have a statue of Amelia Bedelia in front of the local library.

Arthur just liked the cat!

Reading with Buela

Edventure in Columbia

Arthur LOVED the fire truck!

Back home...a boy and his turtle

Helping Daddy in the yard

Our new swing set that Hunter built!

Serious painter

Playing in the sand at Sebastian Inlet State Park

She lined those rocks up by herself

New England!

We went to New England right after school got out, but I'm finally posting pictures.  Warning, this is a TON of pictures!  

10 days for 4 people...not bad.  

(The weird black bag on the right is Arthur's pack and play.)

Freedom Trail in Boston!  This part of the trip was definitely for the adults, but the kids enjoyed all of the sights and sounds in the city and following the red line.  Eleanor insisted that we walk directly on it.  Also, I don't have pictures of this but we took the subway in and out of the city that day.  Arthur especially enjoyed that.

Real ducks in the Boston Common

Amazing cemetery - Paul Revere, Ben Franklin, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock are all buried here

In front of the Old Statehouse where the Declaration of Independence was read to Bostonians for the first time in July 1776.  Also, the Boston Massacre occurred right in front of it where you can see a group of people standing.

Children's Museum of Boston with Arthur on top.  A boat named "Eleanor" was in the water right next to us.  Eleanor got a big kick out of that.  "There are two Arthurs and two Eleanors!"

Children's museum

Right after I took this, a guy from MIT came up to us and asked us (Eleanor and I) to participate in a study.  They observed her playing with a weird toy they had made and my interactions with her for about 5 minutes. I've read so many studies like that - it was very cool to get to be test subjects for one!

Worn out.

This *NEVER* happens at home.

And we woke them up for...

Make Way for Ducklings!

Eleanor was not thrilled.

The next day we took a little road trip to see Plymouth Rock!

Pilmoth Plantation - very interesting and we spent a lot of time here.  After that we went a little out of our way to go through Rhode Island and Connecticut before returning to Boston.  (We did the same thing a few days later when we were in NH so we could add Vermont to our list too.)

Last day in Boston - Duck tour and Museum of Science
Eleanor got to drive the duck!  (in the water)

A real Triceratops skeleton!

Eleanor LOVED the rocks.  You see all of those drawers?  That's maybe 1/4th of what was there and we looked in every. single. one.

On to our little cottage in New Hampshire.  Traveling must make this boy hungry, because he ate dinner for a full hour.

Getting her first glimpse of snow!!

(And yes, Hunter is wearing shorts.  Of course.)

Snow!  This is what it was like before bed...

And this is what we woke up to!  This was NOT in the weather forecast when we packed for our trip!

Yes, she has plastic bags on her feet.  Hey, it worked.

After less than 30 seconds he was pointing back at the door!  Hah!

Visiting Aunt Kate and Uncle Bruce

Arthur enjoyed rearranging the dirt in their garden

Eleanor got to help pick and cut rhubarb for dessert

Checking out a waterfall with Aunt Kate

Playing "Pooh sticks" on the bridge

What a great day with family!

On our way back, I spotted a bear in a restaurant parking lot!  We pulled off the road and watched the bear stealing trash out of the dumpster.  

He stopped to check us out, but decided that we weren't a threat.

Feet fights!  I wish you could hear the giggling.

We stopped at Grafton Notch State Park, Maine on our drive from NH to the coast.  It was a great place to stretch our legs and have a picnic.

Bar Harbor, Maine
Our first day was very rainy, so we went to the Oceanarium and learned all about lobsters!

We got lucky in Maine - the staff had a miscommunication and didn't have our simple little cottage clean, so they gave us a free upgrade to this fancy one with a nice fireplace.  :)   (And granite countertops, appliances nicer than what we have at home, dishes from Crate & Barrel, etc.)  We definitely didn't mind, especially on our first cold and rainy day!

Thankfully the weather improved for the rest of our trip.  We LOVED Acadia National Park!

Diving tour - this man went underwater and showed us everything he saw on the tv screen

Eleanor was very interested.

Our view of the diver on a big tv in the front of the boat while he was underneath us in the water.

Then he brought it back on the boat and we got to see everything as a National Park ranger answered questions.

Eleanor got her first junior ranger badge!

Checking out lichens on the rock

Amazing view from Cadillac Mountain.  This is the first spot in the US that sees the sun rise (well, depending on who you ask), but we did not venture up there at 4:30 in the morning to witness it!

Stop at the LL Bean Flagship store on our back to the Boston airport