Family Adventures in New Hampshire
On Wednesday we visited Dave and Ursula, who were staying at a campground in Gorham.
We headed to a river nearby (Wild River) and hung out there a while. Afterwards we hung out at their campground, played in the arcade, had a fire truck ride, went swimming in the pool, made dinner, had smores, etc. etc.
The kids had so much fun that we did it all again the next day!
Overall, it was great to catch up with friends and the kids had a blast!
We are all starting to adjust to life on vacation together at the Lodge, just me and the 3 boys!
On Sunday, we packed up the car in the morning and headed up north. We had lunch at Enzo’s in Lincoln. Lincoln is very touristy, but it’s becoming a popular pit stop on our way to and from the lodge.
After dinner, Dave, Ursula, and Lily came up to visit. We just spent the evening catching up and then they headed out Monday AM.
On Monday I had a couple contractors coming in the afternoon, so we couldn’t have any big outings. We did Echo Lake beach in the morning. Tommy is a total fish once we gets acclimated to the water. Eli isn’t the biggest fan, and Aaron is somewhere in the middle.
I had 2 contractors come, one for installing a security system. It turns out our insurance is mandating us to get a system since it’s a vacation home. This is turning into a big expense that I wasn’t planning on.
Later on we had a roofing contractor come and take a look at our leaking roof. He had installed the roof recently, found the leaking spot, and said he’d fix it for no charge. Awesome!
In the afternoon we were looking to kill a couple hours, so we headed to the Sugar Hill playground. The kids were super cranky. We then went to the Iron Furnace in Franconia and found an awesome spot on the Gale River to throw rocks. Turns out there’s no better way to cure cranky kids than throwing rocks in the water.
On Tuesday we headed out early for a full day at Santa’s Village. I was a little worried about this trip, having all 3 boys to myself in an amusement park. Especially after our recent Story Land visit, it was clear the 3 kids all wanted to go on different rides.
It turned out to be a great day together. The boys were very well behaved, and we stayed there the entire day. We got to go on almost all the rides and even the water park. The ride lines were pretty short all day, which was a big plus. Overall I’m a big fan of Santa’s Village over Story Land. It’s much more low key.
I’ll add pics to these posts once I get back from vaca!
We spent Saturday at home in Westford. It was Tommy’s birthday. Eli had a sleepover at his friend Allyson’s house, so I just had 2 boys for most of the day.
We kicked off the morning by finishing the rest of Rogue One. It was my first time seeing it, overall I thought it rocked.
After making the boys breakfast, I took them to the toy store (Learning Express in Acton). Tommy got to pick out anything he wanted for his birthday present.
To my total surprise, he picked out some plastic fruit and cooking utensils. Aaron got a loom with his own money.
After the store we did a car wash, then went back home, had lunch, and took a nap.
After nap time, my sister, her husband, and his mother came over. They helped with the laundry, and watched the boys while I ran out and did some errands.
Eli came home and we went out to Chili’s for dinner, and had Kimballs for desert.
Overall, a low key day, but we’re now ready to head up to the Lodge tomorrow morning!
We’re now on vacation! This might be the first week long vacation I’ve been on in a year? Unfortunately Michele has to travel for work, so it’s just me and the boys until next Friday.
Here’s the current laundry list of possibilities:
Near Westford
Near Lodge
I’ll post updates throughout the week!
This week was Eli’s birthday. At his request, we celebrated at his favorite mexican restaurant, Casa Blanca in Billerica.
For his birthday Eli got a 3D printer, which he was very excited about. Unfortunately we didn’t really get to play with it, because it was a Lodge weekend!
We kicked the weekend off by heading back to Uhaul to pick up another truck. We had a garage full of furniture to ship up to the Lodge, our final big load!
We picked the truck up, loaded it, and headed up North on Friday night.
On Saturday, Michele and I spent the morning unloading the furniture. It turned out one of the sofas we purchased was broken. What a pain in the butt! We’re going to try to get them to swap it out, or repair it ourselves. Also, 2 other couches we purchased were the wrong color. Lesson learned, never receive furniture wrapped up in the packing material. We thought it would make the move easier, but we didn’t get to inspect everything and are now stuck with it!
After unloading, we returned the truck and then nap time. After nap we made an attempt at the Lisbon pool, but it was closed again. We really need to figure out the hours at this place.
We then drove around exploring the Gale River in Franconia, looking for a good place to get wet, but failed. We ended up at the playground in Franconia to let the kids release some energy.
I’ve been chainsawing every chance I get to increase the view, progress is coming, though slowly. Here’s a view from one of the bedrooms:
On Sunday we made an attempt at hiking to the Lonesome Lake Hut. This was Tommy’s biggest hike so far. The last hike failed, mainly due to him wearing old sneakers and there being wet rocks. This time he had new boots, so we were hoping for the best.
Unfortunately, the Lonesome Lake trail was closed part way up, and had a detour that was pretty steep. This turned out to be too much for Tommy to handle, so we headed back around 3/4 of the way up.
At the base we had a snack and the kids climbed trees.
After nap, we packed up and had dinner at our favorite pizza place in Lincoln, followed by ice cream of course!
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!
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.
This past weekend we began our journey as owners of our dream vacation home up in the white mountains!
We took Friday off of work and drove up to do the final walkthrough. They really did a great job of cleaning the place out, it was spotless. Then we went to Mascoma Bank is littleton for the closing. The whole process is different than MA. We didn’t even have a lawyer.
After the closing we drove back to MA and picked up a 26′ UHAUL truck.
On Saturday morning we had my brother-in-law, Murat, help load the truck up. It took us about 4 hours to load the truck. Once we were done we headed up to the Lodge.
We hired movers to help us unload everything, since it was just myself, Michele, and the boys, and we had enough work cut out for ourselves in setting things up.
The movers had problems finding the house, but eventually made it. It only took them about an hour to unload everything.
The rest of the weekend was spent unloading boxes, setting up beds, and arranging furniture. We had Polly’s for breakfast on Sunday, which was a huge hit.
We definitely need to figure out the AC situation, the house gets pretty warm in the day, but then quickly cools off at night. On the drive back we were all pretty cranky. The boys went to bed late and woke up early, and we were all just tired from the long weekend.
Next weekend, Eli and I are planning on heading up to continue setting things up. Then the following weekend we’re planning on an extended stay as Michele and Eli tackle Mt. Washington.
We are in the process of closing on our vacation home up in the white mountains. We are super excited and thought it’d be fun to create a blog tracking our progress as we move in, set up the place, and enjoy it.
We’re also thinking this site can be used to get directions, view a shared calendar for free weekends, etc.