Parents visit for the first time!

This weekend Dave’s parents visited the Lodge for the first time.

Michele was traveling for work over the weekend, so on Friday night Dave drove up with the boys.

On Saturday morning Dave took the boys to the playground in Sugar Hill center, to kill some time before the parents arrived.

Turns out the playground was a big hit, there were a ton of trucks for Tommy to play with, and enough to keep the older kids occupied for a little while.

After the parents arrived we then had to hang around the house for the internet guys to arrive and install service.  We definitely wanted to get internet, primarily for remote home monitoring services (nest, security, etc.), and satellite was the only option.  Turns out the satellite internet is fast enough for netflix and everyone’s devices to be running in parallel.

After nap time we went into Littleton and did Chutters, the music store, and the toy store.  The kids know how to capitalize on the grandparents visit!

After shopping we went to Dutch Treat in Franconia for dinner.  It’s very much a local place, but good atmosphere for the kids and decent grub!

On Sunday we went to the transfer station to get rid of all our garbage that has accumulated from the move, and then got a ladder at Lowe’s, things made easier by borrowing my parents pickup!

After chores, we went to Clark’s Trading Post.  The boys had a blast on the snake slide, train ride w/ the wolf man, the bear show, and of course, shopping in the gift shop.

Once we finished up at Clark’s we headed back to the Lodge, my parents left, then I fed + bathed the kids, and we went back home.

All in all a successful, fun weekend at the Lodge!

A great 4th of July weekend!

This year the 4th of July fell on a Tuesday, so we decided to take some extra days off and make it a long weekend.

Michele and Eli went up on Wednesday night.  They had a night stay at the Lake of the Clouds hut on Mt Washington planned for Thursday night.  Dave, Aaron, and Tommy came up on Thursday night.  We all stayed until late Tuesday.

On Thursday, Michele and Eli made it to the hut, in the rain, and then summited Mt. Monroe.  On Friday they summited Mt. Washington, but conditions were so bad (70 mph gusts) they took the Cog down.  Overall, Eli was super excited about his successful first summit of Mt. Washington.  I’m sure there are many more to come in the future!

For Dave, on Friday morning he took the kids to the Franconia  playground.  Afterwards they went hiking in the Basin.

Afterwards, we all met up back at the Lodge.  We had some deliveries, new mattresses and a refrigerator (ours was broken by the time we moved in, doh!)  The big hit of the weekend was our internet guy, who got so frustrated by not being able to find the house he just gave up and headed home.  The whole family found this very odd, yet amusing.

On Saturday morning, we headed out to Echo Lake, which is at the base of Cannon Mountain.

The clouds were rolling in so we headed back to the Lodge for lunch and nap.  It turned into a giant storm with torrential downpours.  We got a lot of rain that leaked into the house and a good portion of our road was even washed away!

On Sunday, we decided to hike Artists Bluff.  The weather was great, but the conditions were very wet.  Tommy had a hard time hiking in his worn out sneakers on the wet rocks and roots, but we all survived.

In the afternoon, we went to Clark’s Trading Post, in Lincoln.  It turned out the park was about to close, but it was good to explore the area.

On Monday Dave had to stay home in the morning to meet the house inspector for our insurance.  It turns out that in New Hampshire all new insurance policies get an inspection, makes sense to me!

Michele took the boys to the Flume Gorge.

On Monday night we went out to dinner at Schilling Beer Company in Littleton, NH.  The food and beer here is awesome!  Also, the setting is right on the Ammonoosuc River.  Before dinner we grabbed some Chutters for dessert during the Fireworks.

The fireworks were a total townie event!  It was on a field and they had some games for the kids and a snack bar.  The kids just love being able to release some energy and staying up late.

On Tuesday, we decided to go to Story Land for the day!  We got to the park right at 9:30am for the opening and stayed until  4pm.  After the park we had some ice cream in North Conway.

The biggest hits were the Roar-a-saurus for Eli, the Flume for Aaron, and the train ride for tommy.