Friday, June 11, 2010

Family Vacation

Our family flew out east over Memorial Day to spend a week with my good friend Jessica and her family. Jessy lives in New Hampshire, about an hour out of Boston.

While Nora had flown before, she was so young that she couldn't remember it. It was Dana's first flight. We were thrilled to learn that both girls are awesome travelers!

We arrived at Jessica's house on Wednesday evening. It was about 94 degrees, and the four kids started an impromptu water fight with Justin, Jessica's husband. It was probably Nora's favorite memory of our trip.



We got up early Thursday morning and took the Downeaster to Boston. A normal person would have taken plenty of photos of our day in the city, but I was too busy having fun. We visited the New England Aquarium, Feneuil Hall, Boston Common, etc. We even rode the subway, which was not as exciting as the children had envisioned. At the end of the day, we were all happy to hop back on the train for a lazy ride back to NH.

The next day, Nora told us her stomach hurt. We figured that, between the excitement, the early hours, the late nights, and the weird food, she was just out of sorts. Travel tummy, you know? And so we headed out for the ocean.


We went to York Beach in Maine so the girls could dip their toes in the Atlantic and play in the sand.




Oh, man! This one brings a tear to my eye.







And really, would it be a trip to Maine without a photo of a lighthouse? We found a geocache here, which was pretty sweet.

Nora was feeling pretty crummy by this point, so we went back to Jessica's house, where she promptly threw up. Then we took it really easy for a couple of days. We took a long drive along the coast, through New Hampshire and Mass. We ate a lot of noodle soup and popsicles. We wandered around Portsmouth.

On our last full day, we took the long way to Boston, stopping in Concord and Salem.




Here are Nora and Dana at the Salem Witch Trial Memorial, very near another geocache. Which is a funny story. Kevin thought he found the cache, as he pulled a blue plastic bag with some stuff in it out of a little nook in a rock wall. I was voicing skepticism over it being the cache, despite the trinkets inside, as there was no official geocaching info, when Dana walked over with a container and said, "Daddy, is THIS a geocache?" Which, of course, it was. Leave it to the five year-old to find the real one. She was so proud!





And here's the requisite airplane photo.

We ended our trip with a 4-hour visit to urgent care, where we learned that poor Nora had strep throat. According to the ER doc, vomiting is a common symptom of strep. Since nobody in our household had ever had it before, we had no idea. Luckily, after taking only two doses of the Penicillin, she was feeling significantly better.

Despite the illness, it was a pretty great trip. Nora was such a trooper! And I learned that I need to make a bigger effort with the camera. And maybe take more than 30 photos. Jeez.


Poster

Nora's second grade teacher assigned several projects over the course of the year. One of them was a poster for health class. Nora was assigned "Cover Your Cough and Sneeze".

Using glitter glue, tissue, and strategically posed photographs, this is what she came up with:



Her teacher liked it so much that she saved it for six months so she could put it in the school district-wide showcase of student work at the mall.

Nora and Dana both thought it was pretty cool to see the poster up at the mall. Particularly since their photos were on it demonstrating the right and wrong way to cough or sneeze.

Gotta love the creative mind of a second grader!