Wrapping It Up

I want to put up some of the rest of our road trip photos because I need to move on to my new quilt project and also posting the results of my drift into making up my own recipes (Upside-Down Foccacia!).

So, we drove from Vermont to New Jersey so that the Utah girls could meet some of their New Jersey family.  We stayed with brother Jeff (ah, home...).

The girls got to meet lots of new cousins. 

Abigail and Emi Baker, the littles in the blue and orange swim goggles.  Water ballet??

Friends already, Evie and Abi.

Jamie and cousin Patrick Baker, and their girls.

Some of the boys, my brothers Jeff and Doug, cousin Patrick, Jamie and cousin Rob.

I added myself to the mix - why am I looking so short next to these guys???  Except for Doug, I believe I babysat (and changed diapers) for every one of these little boys.

Bella and Evie are ready to visit the horses!

First they learned all about grooming and other horse stuff from Auntie Ann (I am not so brave around animals and stood well back).

Riding!  Definitely the highlight of their week.

We went down to the river (the Delaware) and walked around the Red Bank Battlefield and I tried to jam lots of Revolutionary War history into their brains.

I like to think it worked as Evie and Bella decided to reenact the great battle.

They are great battle reenactors.  FI-RE !!!!!

Swinging on Jeff's backyard rope swing.

And ending our visit with ice cream at Dippy's, of course.

--cds

Vermont

With a brief overnight in New Jersey, we drove on up to Vermont, crossing Lake Champlain via ferry.

Scanning the water for the Lake Champlain Monster.

Oldest granddaughter Isabella playing with youngest grandson Marcus.

High-tech girlies.

But Ruthanne still loves low-tech playtime as well.  While we were relaxing on the deck, she disappeared into her swingset/playloft and came back down with a bucketful of mud for mud-pie making.

And the dress washed up beautifully, by the way.  As did the child.

Bathtime, in fact, was always fun, loud and splashy -- silly-hair-girlies.

We took a morning to visit the Ben & Jerry's factory.

School playground fun.

And best of all, we were able to gather at our dear friends' home in Charlotte for a rather rainy day BBQ.

Evie and Jaycee - Kaye Ellen's daughter.

We sort of forced Kaye's son Kenneth to hold Marcus so we could get a shot of  "the boys." I think Kenneth was afraid he'd get leaked on or something.

Some of the big kids:  Sarah, Josh, Kaye and Adam (Sarah's husband).

Bella, Kenneth, Evie and Jaycee.

Last time these kids were together (Josh and Stephanie's wedding), they looked like this:

Evie was only 4 months old.

The week went by all too quickly, of course.  I'm already planning another gathering, here in Florida perhaps.  --cds

Moving Along

So we decided to motor up to New Jersey and Vermont so that the Utah girls could meet their East Coast relatives, and son Jamie had a wish list of places and people he wanted to visit (mostly involving food spots, we discovered -- Al's!  Handy's!  Magic Hat!  Dippy's!).

Our first stop was Charlotte, North Carolina, because...  you know... NASCAR Hall of Fame. 

I must say it was more impressive than I had anticipated.

 

There were lots of hands-on exhibits for the girls to try though their knowledge of racing isn't much more than the cars are cool and go fast and their Dad and Grandpa yell at the TV a lot.

 

They did a great job as members of the pit crew.

 

 

Their favorite thing was walking up and down this red carpet area in their best Academy-Award-Night manner...

And posing in front of cars...

Jamie and Jim also visited a couple race team garages in the Charlotte vicinity.

Definitely worth the trip for Nascar fans. --cds