Parent's Do New England, Vermont style

If you are a puzzle lover, like myself, you must wonder where those colorful-mountainous farm pictures come from. While driving through Vermont I found out and I will forever have this place pictured in my mind, instead of dreaming about it from a puzzling point of view.

Come on.. wouldn't that picture make a beautiful puzzle?

Visiting Vermont was Lon and Jennifer's idea. They wanted visit the Joseph Smith Birthplace memorial, so why not spend a long weekend in Vermont at a gorgeous Bed and Breakfast. Well we did just that and it was a much needed vacation for us all .

Our Bed and Breakfast was located just a few minutes north of Stowe in Morrisville. If you want to check out the place click here.

The house was huge. It had an indoor pool and jacuzzi, a home theatre, and a beautiful eating area. Our bedrooms were large and comfortable. We had a kitchen and a balcony.

On Saturday we headed out early for adventures. Our first stop was for some Vermont maple syrup.

We also grabbed some maple taffy and a piece of bacon maple taffy. It was surprisingly good.
The trees behind the outlet were so beautiful we had to take a few pictures.

After the outlet we decided to explore Smuggler's Notch. On our way up we discovered this covered bridge. Let's play a quick game of spot the Nick.

Now let's play another game called help Nick out off of the tree before he falls in. If you have read all of my blogs you will know that Nick likes to climb rocks/trees/whatever is near water. This usually results in wet shoes and pants. However, this time was different. I heard Nick screaming, "Help" so I walked quickly through mud to see this...

Nick was hanging upside down, sorry this picture is so bad.. I was laughing so hard and Nick was yelling at me to put down the camera and help him. However, there was a huge hill between him and I and there was no way I was getting down there.

 So I picked the camera back up and took more pictures of him struggling to get up.

 Mom tried to help with a stick..

He made it up!!!! Maybe Nick's luck is changing... Maybe

After this we still had to explore the covered bridge.

 Can you see Nick, Lon and Jennifer in the window's?

Lon and Jennifer at the bridge!
After we explored the bridge we drove up the mountain. We parked near the top to check out the view.

It was worth the climb!

We got back in the warm car and drove through the Notch. The Notch was the peak of the mountain where the road went from 2 lanes to 1. It was very interesting how the road went between two rocks. I was concentrating on the road, even though I wasn't driving.

On our way down the mountain we stopped at the Von Trapp Family Lodge and did some hiking! As we walked the trail I couldn't help but take pictures of Mom and Dad because the were so cute!

We had such a great time stopping to explore. As we got into the car I saw the horses and really wanted a picture of them. Nick grabbed the camera and ran to snap this shot. I love him so much!

We were beat after a fun day so we ate at an amazing restaurant in Stowe and headed back to our Bed and Breakfast for a soak in the jacuzzi. Sunday morning we woke up and got ready for church. We drove to where google maps said the church was but it wasn't there. We finally got out and went inside the church that google said was ours and asked where the LDS church was. Lucky for us it was only a couple more miles down the road. We finally reached it and as we are pulling in we notice the empty parking lot, who knew that it would be stake conference the day of our visit... apparently not us! We settled for some spiritual reflection and  meditation at a nearby waterfall.

Then we drove to the Joseph Smith Birthplace memorial. This place was gorgeous and I wish we had all day to spend there. I would have hiked the trails and taken more pictures. The sun was at the perfect angle to make the monument look like a candle.

I found a quiet place to sit in the grass. My thoughts were overwhelmed with gratitude and love for Joseph Smith and all of the hardships he bore. I'm so thankful that I was able to visit this memorial and learn more about his life. 

Monday we checked out of our Bed and Breakfast and went back to mountain for the Stowe Zip Tour at Stowe Mountain Resort. 

 Getting in the gear.

 Ready to go.

 Up the gondola.

 Nervous funny face.

This was the hardest part.. just dangling there. The view was amazing and scary at the same time. Nick and I zipped at the same time and Mom was a champ and went by herself on the first span.

 Dad took a lot of pictures of mom so Google made a gif.

In total there were 3 spans and we took turns riding with each other. It was a lot of fun and we definitely built some memories. 

After our zip tour we headed back to Boston for a relaxing evening at home. Our trip to Vermont was amazing. We caught the trees as they were changing colors right in front of our eyes. It was so nice to relax and have some fun with family!

Manchester, NH

For conference weekend Nick and I had access to a car so we decided to travel a little of New England.

When we first moved to Boston a high school friend contacted Nick letting him know that she and her husband didn't live very far away. We were invited to visit when we had time, so we took this weekend as the opportunity to visit Amber and Dave in Manchester, NH. Nick told me that they loved to kayak, hike and explore so I knew whatever they planned for us would be awesome. We were excited to learn that we were going to the oldest family friendly fair in the US.

Deerfield Fair was a blast.

When we arrived we had to take these pictures.

If you can't tell Dave and Amber have a fun personality!

The first thing we wanted to do was watch the tractor pulling contest. We got there at the beginning and only watched the first round of the pulls. Those little-old tractors were powerful. I'm a country girl but I have never been to a fair like this before.

Next up we walked through a petting zoo that had a KANGAROO! This was the first time I have ever seen a kangaroo in real life.. I think.. I have a horrible memory, but I will definitely remember this guy.

And this cute llama.. I wonder where his mama is?? haha.. if you don't own this book you wouldn't get my reference :)

Okay so I admit that I love animals. I think all of them are super cute and I secretly wished I owned a farm. which is why I was thrilled when Nick found a tractor to stand beside and asked me to take his picture. Maybe it's a sign of the future? I guess we'll find out as we track along.

Nick of course would drive the tractor on the farm and would probably dress up like this guy. This poor clown was playing the same song all day long. I don't know how he got it out of his head when he went home.. poor guy.

Okay enough clowning around... My favorite part of the whole fair was the FRIED DOUGH!!! I made sure mine had plenty of powder sugar :) oh and a few dashes of the cinnamon too.

We walked around all day checking out all of the different buildings. It seemed like they had judges for every category possible: animals, fruits, vegetables, paintings, jelly, cookies, pie, cakes, photography, school projects and so much more. Nick sat and watched as some cows were being judged. He found it fascinating as the judges explained why they picked the winning cow.

The fair had a section just for carnival rides, which we didn't even have time to visit.. nor did we really want to waste the money.

We spent time watching the Acrobatic show though and that was fun and impressive.

If you have good eyesight then you might be able to see the people in the air with red shirts on. They were tight roping and it was very cool!

We also watched this little guy get sheared. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her because it was cold outside and they took her warmth away.

I will leave you with the tiniest fire truck ever.. "No Fire Too Small"

Cape Cod

Well, I waited over a week to post about our trip to Cape Cod for a good reason. If my boss found out that I called in sick just to plan a day trip and surprise the husband, I don't think she would be happy. We needed a day just to chill and it was perfect timing. All of my students were on vacation and we had a car for a few days, so why not go visit a nice beach and enjoy ourselves.

Nick came home from some morning errands and I was packed and ready to go. He was surprised that I was being spontaneous, but he quickly jumped on board. We both needed a break day.

We headed to Chatham first. We ate lunch on the beach, walked in the water, got sunburnt, saw a seal, and took pictures of the light house.

We jumped back into the car and headed to Provincetown, taking a slight detour to snag a picture of a lighthouse in Nantucket.

Once we got to Provincetown we found a place to park and Nick took a short power nap. I don't think I mentioned that Nick hardly slept the night before and he drove the whole way. He was pretty exhausted so the nap was needed.

We walked around Provincetown for a few hours and the only thing really on my agenda was to eat LOBSTER.

 Prepping for my friend to join the table so I could dip him in some butter and chow down.

Nick was impressed that the claw still looked like a claw outside the shell, and of course I made funny voices as I played with it! HAHA! Our waiter even caught on and called my lobster by it's name that escapes me.

We walked around and munched on ice cream and sea salt taffy. The beach views were beautiful and well worth the late night ride home.

Carson Beach, Boston

As a church activity our ward decided to do a beach day. Unfortunately nobody showed up when we were there, except for the missionaries, so we did some silly things before we left.

As you can tell it was a cloudy day and low tide, so we just took fun pictures. The missionaries had fun pretending Nick was the incredible Hulk!

I finally had a great excuse to wear my sunhat from Korea again and it felt great.

 I gotta say that I love this man so much... until he picks me up and throws me around.. silly boy

Overall we stayed at the beach for a little over an hour just having fun and taking goofy pictures. Great times that we will never forget!

Moving 2 miles

During the month of July Nick and I moved. The new apartment needed a lot of love and so for most of the month we worked hard fixing up the place.

Both the new place and the old one had its pros and cons. The first Con of the new place is the shape it was in..... HORRIBLE

We signed the lease because it was an as is apartment, however the landlord said we could paint and do whatever. The location is GREAT and the apartment wasn't too bad so we took it.

We stripped most of the paint off  the walls and trim because we didn't really have a choice.

You will find before and after photos here. Sorry some are blurry.

 Nick Stripping paint

 We were so lucky that the Missionaries came by to help us out often. We owe them big time!

Under the stove looked disgusting

After a short time looking at the color choices at Lowe's we discovered this color family. We took all of the colors home and narrowed down our choices to these 6. We have heard horror stories about couples trying to pick colors, so I'm grateful that Nick and I agreed and made quick and good decisions. However the colors may be too bright/bold for most.. but that's our personalities.

We had a lot of fun experiences while living in two places. After working all day I went to the new place to help Nick with whatever needed to be finished for the day. We would get so caught up in our work that we often missed the last bus back to our (old) apartment... many nights were spent walking the 2 miles back. We looked at it as time that we got to talk about everything. It worked out.

Because we were between apartments we often would bring food but not a way to hold it or cook it, so we had to get creative. Hotdogs over the burner... YUM!

 cold canned soup in a cup... not bad!

The results of our hard work was worth it though. The place looks much better and we honestly feel at home here. It's funny how just painting the walls and cleaning can do that.

More pictures will be posted of the apartment in time. If you need our new address just message me and I'll send it over.