Trip to Massachusetts!

Well, I have a LOT to post about, so we'll see if I can get all caught up in the coming days.

First, I want to write about our trip to Massachusetts. We had a blast. We ended up leaving on Sunday night to drive as far as we could before tiring. We had Easter dinner at our house and so we did not end up leaving until 9:30, we drove for about 3 hours before we had to stop for the night. We stayed in a cheap motel and got up the next morning and headed out after breakfast. Caleb did well on the trip for the most part. He slept a lot in the car and we stopped as necessary to make bathroom trips, eat and let him get out of his carseat and stretch his legs.

When we started the trip, we realized that my GPS wasn't working, so we wrote down directions at the hotel on how to get to our friends' (the Austin's) house. Well, I continued to pray that the GPS would start working and eventually, it did! I plugged in the address and we used the GPS when it was working and the written directions when it didn't work.

As we were driving and nearing the Austin's house, I realized that it must not be right. The GPS stopped working again, so we stopped at a Best Buy to buy a cord for the GPS (luckily that's all it needed) and then I found a computer and checked the address and realized that I had entered the wrong city into the GPS. We were in Amherst, but we should have been in Ashland (an hour and a half away). I felt bad that we were late for dinner and that poor Caleb would have to be in the car for another hour and a half. But I also felt grateful that we realized right before we arrived at what we thought was the Austin's home. I called the Austin's and let them know of our situation and told them we'd be late.

The funny thing about all of this is that Jeff's dad had mentioned to us that we should get a map, twice. If we had done that we would have realized we were headed in the wrong direction. Also, if the GPS continued to not work, we would have gone to the correct address, since the directions that Jeff wrote down were accurate. I just had to keep praying that it would work. : /.

We got to the Austin's almost 2 hours later than originally planned, but we were still able to visit with them. Caleb had a blast playing with their little dog. And we had a good time chatting and catching up. It had been four years since I had last seen them and this was their first time meeting Jeff. We stayed the night in their home and then in the morning, we had breakfast, talked a little more, packed up our things, said our goodbyes and then headed into Boston.

In Boston, we walked the Freedom trail, visited museums, and climbed the Bunker Hill Monument (all 294 steps! Whew!).  We also climbed aboard the U.S.S. Constitution. Boston is really nice. I loved the city. The houses were beautiful, the people friendly.

We made it to the top!

Checking out the scene below.

Jeff carried Caleb down.

The top of the monument.

My studly boy.

We stopped to check out the water below (along our Freedom Trail walk across the bridge).

Jeff's middle name is Bruyn- so I wanted to get a picture.

Caleb loved the hammock.

I love my little family (aboard the U.S.S. Constitution).

My little sailor.

After Boston, we headed to Concord. We hadn't had lunch and it was nearly 5 by this time, so we decided to stop and get some food. Concord is beautiful. I could live there (if I were a millionaire). We walked down some little streets and peeped into store windows. We stopped in at a Market and Cafe and had dinner. The waitress we had was super friendly and told us about her granddaughter who was about Caleb's age. It was open mic night at the restaurant, so we decided we'd go to the Minute Men National Park and then come back for the open mic night for a few minutes and eat dessert there. When we were done with dinner, I went to use the restroom. When I came back, Jeff and Caleb were waiting on a bench right outside for me. Caleb had had a major blowout. And I mean major! So we cleaned him up and put new clothes on him and decided we'd just head for the hotel. So we went to the hotel, brought our things in and let Caleb crawl around. It was probably good for him to be able to be mobile since a lot of the day he was either in the car, in the stroller or in my arms. 

We decided to go back out to the cafe for dessert. On the way out, we realized that we had left Caleb's bag of clothes at the Austin's. Luckily, I had a diaper bag with some extra clothes in it. We  made it tot he cafe and ordered dessert and we were able to check out some of the music. Caleb loved it! He hadn't ever been to anything like that before, but he seemed to really enjoy watching the people, listening to the music and watching people clap. Lots of people made comments about how cute he was. Someone even stopped me on the way out to tell me how adorable he was and find out how old he was. She said he was such a good baby and had the most beautiful eyes. I must admit, I love hearing positive things about my baby boy.

That evening, Caleb had another blow-out so I had to change his clothes again. I ended up having to wash his clothes in the sink to clean them. I hung them to dry and blow dried them with the hair dryer.

Anyway, that night Caleb had a terrible rash. I am not sure where it came from exactly. He'd had a rash all day, but it had gotten worse by the night time. I had never seen it so bad before. He was in the wind, but not too much and we didn't put sunscreen on him. It was better by the next day, but still not great. I called his doctor and they said to put some cream on it (I used Aquiphor healing ointment) and give him some ibuprofen. If he wasn't better when we came back into town, I was to take him into the doctor.

We headed to Cape Cod the next morning. We got to tour a cranberry bog in Harwich. This is one of the things on my bucket list. It was so cool! Of course it isn't harvesting season, but it was really neat to learn how the cranberry bogs work. The one we toured was an organic bog. Our tour guide and owner of the bog, Andrea, described how the bog works and compared it to non-organic bogs as well. She explained how nature works together so that they get a good crop. It really was neat. We also got to pet a duck and see a baby goose and day old lambs. Caleb really loved all of the animals.

After the bog tour, we headed to Chatham to the lighthouse and beach. The beach was very windy and kind of chilly, but we walked down to the ocean anyway. We didn't stay too long. This was my first time ever seeing a light house in person.

We then headed to Dennisport where we met a glass blower, Fritz. He was the most interesting man I had ever met. He is an atheist who has spiritual experiences, especially when at the ocean and who collects cat whiskers. He was so open about everything and such a friendly guy. We watched him at work for awhile as he created a drinking glass. He described the process to us as he went a long. It was sooo cool. We then chatted about schools and education, religion, his house, collections (which is where his cat whisker collection came up). In all, we were there for an hour and a half.

We then headed to dinner at a pizza place and then to our hotel, a nice little place.

The next morning, we packed up and headed back to Ashland to get Caleb's bag from the Austin's. Cynthia was there working in her yard. We chatted for a bit, I fed and changed Caleb and then we headed for lunch at another pizza joint (Papa Gino's). Then we headed to Easthampton to visit the Harrison's (Maggie and Ben). A few minutes into the 1 1/2 hour trip, we realized that Jeff's wallet was at the restaurant. (We stopped on the side of the road- it randomly snowed and hailed for a few minutes and then stopped.) Unfortunately, we had to drive for 9 more miles on the highway before there was an exit to turn around, then we had to turn around and go the other way. It would be forty minutes before we'd get back to Papa Gino's.

We finally made it to Maggie's! It was so good to see her and we were all happy to be out of the car for awhile. Maggie was babysitting her niece so we Caleb had a little playmate. It was fun watching them interact. At first, she was really shy towards him. Caleb can be a little overwhelming sometimes. He likes to greet babies by grabbing their hair and "kissing" their faces. This time was no different. Maggie's niece did not really appreciate Caleb's greeting. They did eventually warm up to each other and she kept trying to kiss him (though her approach is much gentler).

Maggie and I got to do some catching up. She and I talked for a bit while Jeff played with Caleb after Maggie's niece went home. Maggie made a yummy quiche for dinner. Ben came home from work and we just spent the evening talking and eating. We stayed the night at their house.

It was the worst night of the trip for Caleb. He did not sleep well at all. Right at the beginning of our trip, Caleb developed a runny nose and cough. So, I think it was just hard for him sleeping in so many different places and not feeling well. We were up early the next morning. Ben had work, but Maggie, her niece, Caleb and Jeff and I headed to Northampton where we walked around, went into some shops and stopped for ice cream and Herrells- delicious homemade ice cream shop.

There is this amazing intersection in Northampton where there is time for only pedestrians to cross the street. And when it is time for pedestrians to cross, they can go in any direction, even diagonally across the street. It was the coolest thing (I wish I would have taken a picture).

That night, Ben and Maggie took us to dinner at a nice, yummy restaurant (called Fitzwillys). After dinner, we parted ways and headed to our hotel. The next morning, we got up and headed to Maggie and Ben's and then we all headed to Cummington, which is where Ben's parent's live. We stopped at his parent's house and checked out their land and gardens. Then we headed to a friends and looked at their farm. They had a bagillion sheep and lots of little lambs. We just watched for awhile, headed back to their house, had lunch, took pictures and headed home. We drove as far as we could and then stopped in a kind of sketchy motel for the night.

It was no easy task to get Caleb to look at the camera.

We got up early and headed back towards Richmond. Finally, we made it home around 3 on Sunday afternoon. We enjoyed the rest of our day just being home. Caleb was so happy to be home that he kept crawling as fast as he could from the kitchen to the livingroom and back again. He was laughing the whole time. It was hilarious. He was just in the best mood and laughed all evening, so happy to be home.

So, what I've learned about Massachusetts.

- They have their own driving rules, at least in Ashland (cars will stop to let you through if you are making a left turn).
- When crossing the street, pedestrians rule- you barely have to look both ways (at least in Northampton).
- Bay Staters are very open people (at least in Cape Cod).
- "Bay Staters" are people from Massachusetts.
- It's a very liberal, but very friendly state.
- There is so much history and so many cool people are from Massachusetts.
- I've finally learned how to spell it without having to look it up or rely on spellcheck.
- There is a Prospect Street in both Amherst and Ashland.

- Parking in Boston is ridiculously expensive (We found free parking, but had to go back and move the car a couple of times- along our walk, we found a parking garage that was like $9 for 30 minute parking and something like $35 for 2 hour parking- sheesh!!).
- Smith University is such a beautiful campus.
- Not everyone has an accent, but lots of people do.
- The homes in some of the cities such as Concord are huge, and I mean huge (and really, really expensive- most of them are at least $1,000,000- we saw some ads for homes).
 - I love King sized beds and really wish we had one- okay this isn't from just Mass., but the hotels that we stayed at had lovely king sized beds and I fell in love.