Postcards from the CoHo: Vermont

An epic "look at our vacation photos!" post...

Arrival

Traveling cross country with three small kids is not easy. Doing it the day after a first family camping trip doesn't help. But we made it. The kids were pretty good on the plane, and we even got a whole row (six seats) to ourselves on the long flight, so we were able to shift around as needed. It was a really long day of traveling, though, involving two plane rides for six hours of flight time and another two hours of driving to our destination. And did I mention that we began at 4am California time?

This is right after we arrived in Burlington. We basically landed in California winter--it was pouring rain and about 60 degrees. The kids don't look happy here, but they were actually playing and in good spirits--until we got them all buckled into the rental car and Gus threw up. The sun went down as we drove, and then Lu threw up. Luckily they were just isolated incidents, but it was pretty worrying at the time.

Billings Point

We rented a cabin on the Lake near Adam's Nana's house. It was a cute little place with a wraparound screened porch, a cool stone fireplace, and a little boat dock.

Adam rented a boat for our stay, and he and the kids spent many hours fishing.

Their first big catch!

Greger wuz there 2.

Visiting Family

We were mostly there to visit Adam's dad's family. Adam grew up spending summers in Vermont with his many, many cousins. Each summer the family has a reunion, so we were able to attend that. Did we get pictures at the reunion? Not many. But we did get several shots while visiting various aforementioned cousins.

Nana's house and Uncle Ron.

Nana and Greger

She wouldn't actually let them turn this on.

Lu was in love with this huge cat and carried the poor beast out from where he was hiding to give him cuddles.

Grandpa Hal got Greger off to sleep and then took a little snooze himself.

A sugar shack is for the making of maple syrup in case you're from California and have never heard of such a thing. Adam asks "what else would a sugar shack be?" No comment.

Nap time.

S'mores at cousin Mandy's.

Gus got to ride the cousin's four wheeler around their property.

He had a blast.

Luci found an inchworm. At another cousin's house she was given a frog. I'm afraid poor froggie didn't make it...

Cruise

We took a little lunchtime sightseeing cruise around Lake Memphremagog.

As we boarded, Lu decided she didn't want to get on the boat. So that was fun.

They let Gus sit in the Captain's chair, but he refused to steer.

It took them a little while to warm up to the boat.

But eventually they did.

Here I am normalizing breastfeeding. The beautiful celebrities and I do what we can.

Cousin Amber

Greger Milestones

While we were in Vermont, Greger cut his first tooth and then his second. We also started him on solids. He'd been grabbing food out of our mouths and trying to stuff it in his mouth for a couple of weeks. I thought once he got a good taste, he might not be as enthusiastic, but he LOVES food. Never seen a baby so excited about solids so quickly. After his first taste (potato) his eyes widened and he grabbed Adam's hand to get some more.

Fishing...and More Fishing...

Adam and the kids fished from the cabin, from the river that runs by Nana's property, and off the bridge where Adam caught his first fish. They fished here, there, everywhere. They caught several fish during the trip, including a few we were able to eat.

So when Adam went to clean these fish, the biggest one was still swimming around a little. The kids named him "Big Gulpa." We were a little worried Lu was going to be upset when Adam went to clean Big Gulpa, but in a sing song voice she told Big Gulpa we were going to cut him into pieces and eat him. Adorable little psychopath...

Canada

Since we were so close to the Canadian border, we thought we'd take a day trip into Quebec just to get the kids another country under their belts. We went to Sherbrooke, which is a college-type town with a lot of murals. They really do speak French there, and my high school French really is terribly rusty. Thus, we ended up in a vegetarian restaurant with our very hungry carnivorous kids. I knew Gus was seriously hungry when he gobbled up his cranberry and brie baguette.

New York

We took another side trip to Troy, New York, so that Adam could attend his college fraternity's National Convention. The kids and I hung out in the hotel, which mercifully had decent wifi. (We also went for a swim in the hotel pool, but there are no pictures of that because one mom, three kids, water...yeah).