Part III of our Spring Break Adventure -- The Rest of New England

We woke up Friday morning and headed out of Boston towards Plymouth, Massachusetts.  Here are some pics of Plymouth Rock and a replica of the Mayflower.  Fun spot.

From Plymouth, we headed into Rhode Island.  Our first stop in Rhode Island was Nine Men's Misery, a site that commemorates the oldest war memorial in the United States.  Nine men died in King Phillips War, and one of the five men known to be buried in this spot was one of Sam's ancestors.  Definitely not a site that many visitors to Rhode Island seek out, but that's just how Sam likes his stops -- off the beaten path.  Grandma and Grandpa Allen were good sports about this stop.

From there, we headed into Providence for another State Capitol picture, and to film the Rhode Island State Rap.  The kids are HUGE Studio C Fans, and memorized the rap from one of the Studio C sketches, added an additional verse, and came up with some choreography.  We filmed a few takes.  Lots of fun.  Providence is a cute town.

From Providence, we drove out to Newport, Rhode Island, so that Grandma and Grandpa Allen could tour the International Tennis Hall of Fame.  We were originally hoping that they could play a game on the grass courts there, but we were too early in the season and they weren't open yet.  But Grandma and Grandpa seemed genuinely thrilled to tour the grounds and look at the exhibits.  Glad we could do something geared specifically towards them!

After the Hall of Fame closed, we spent a little time driving around the coast and seeing the amazing homes in Newport.  It really was a remarkable place, and the downtown was very picturesque.  We were definitely rushed, and it was cold and windy, so I would love to go back to Newport sometime with Sam and really take it in.  It was a neat place.

We drove on to Hartford, CT that night and spent the night there.

Saturday morning we went to the Mark Twain home in Hartford, CT (another stop geared largely towards Grandpa, but everyone enjoyed it!).  Harriet Beecher Stowe's home was right next door, and the kids and Sam walked around it as well, while I sat with a sleeping Cal in the car.

Before heading out of Hartford, we got our last State Capitol picture of the trip.  There was a gun rights/2nd amendment rally going on while we were there, which was exciting!

Reagan snapped this picture, and I thought it was nice to include since I'm rarely in photos!  And there is our trusty van -- it has traveled many miles for us, and always been so reliable.  Love it.  Sad we will have to get a different car this Summer as we prepare for baby.

From Hartford we left Connecticut and made our way to New York.  We spent the bulk of the rest of the day at West Point, the Army Academy.  We met up with Uncle Matt and Haley here, which was lots of fun.  We spent a good amount of time in the museum looking at the exhibits before we did a self-guided tour around the grounds.

Inside the Chapel, which had an amazing organ.

Have I mentioned that this was April 5th, which just happened to be Calvin's 2nd birthday.  He specifically asked to spend the day at West Point.  No, actually he didn't.  But he seemed to be happy enough spending his birthday there!  Love this crazy little two year old boy quite a bit!

 Pics with the Birthday Boy!  He loves his Dad and his brother, and his grandparents so very much!

After we left West Point, we headed towards New York City and slept near White Plains that night.  Sam and the kids and Matt and Haley swam while Grandma and I went and got dinner and birthday cupcakes.

Haley captured this awesome picture -- this is the luggage for our family and my parents for a one night's stay.  As my dad loves to say, we travel like the Joads -- we love to take everything we own when we go on vacation.  The irony of that is that we usually stay in a different hotel every night, so we get to lug this amount of stuff in and out of every hotel we stay in on a daily basis.  Good time!

When we got back, we had a little party for Cal.  He was acting a bit out of sorts, had no interest in a cupcake, etc.  We figured he was just tired from a busy day and from the swimming, and just pushed on celebrating his birthday.

 Cal got two presents at his party.  Grandma and Grandpa had brought a gift from the Allen's with them.  And Reagan and Campbell had picked out a Mark Twain finger puppet at the Mark Twain house that morning.  He was thrilled!

Not really.  He was acting weird.  So Sam got him in his jammies, and then took him down to the lobby to get milk.  Elle when with them because she loves to make Hot Chocolate at night in the lobby.  Well, on the way back up to the room, Cal started to throw up.  On Elle.  And all over the elevator.  Since we were in New York, this was not a typical three story Marriot, but it was a tall, 8 or 9 story Marriot.  And we were on an upper floor.  So it was a terribly long, painful elevator ride for Elle as she was hit with throw up and then had to be in the elevator with Cal while he continued to throw up.  Happy Birthday, to him, right?  So sad that he was feeling rotten that night.  There had a been a quick little stomach bug that Sam and I had both gotten on the trip, and unfortunately Cal was the next victim.  Oh his birthday.

Sunday morning, we headed into New York City for the morning.  We spent 3 days in New York City back in 2011, but one thing we didn't do on that trip that the kids were disappointed about was the Empire State Building.  So that was our one destination for the day.  We found parking (Sunday was a good day to do this, and we were early enough that things weren't too crazy yet), and then made our way to the building.  It is quite the ordeal getting through security and getting up the Observation Deck, but we eventually made it, and enjoyed our time up there.  It was a beautiful, clear day!

Once we were down, we walked across the street to find some lunch.  We landed at a pizza shop that proclaimed the sell the best pizza in NYC.  And the pizza was not great at all!  It totally reminded us of that scene in Elf where he stops in the coffee shop that sells the world's best cup of coffee.  We had to laugh.

After lunch, Grandma and Grandpa had to head to the airport, we said our goodbyes to them and Matt and Haley, and then we headed out of New York City.  It was a short stop, but fun to end our site-seeing of Spring Break on top of the world, or at least on top of New York City.

Once we left New York, we were officially headed home.  From there, we drove the 5 hours to Washington, DC.  We were excited to see Trent and Caroline and Zella on our way home.  An added bonus was that Grammie and Grandpa happened to be in DC for the week, so we got to see them as well.  We arrived early enough Sunday night that we got to spend some quality time together and eat dinner and visit which was so nice.  Grammie and Grandpa were also nice enough to get us a room in the same hotel they were staying in, since Sam's original plan was for us to all cram into Trent and Caroline's apartment.  Elle and Bennett did have a sleepover with Zella, but the rest of us went to the Doubletree with Grammie and Grandpa.

We were up bright and early Monday morning to make the drive home.  The kids were amazing in the car that day.  It was day 12 of our trip, and we drove 9 hours with only one stop for gas and lunch.  We have 5 kids under the age of 12, remember, and they HAVE to be the best travelers.  Such great kids.  Love them all so very much.  And so grateful to cute Sam for planning this wonderful trips for us.  Now Ellery and Bennett have been in 46 of the 50 states.  They just have Hawaii, Alaska, Minnesota, and Wisconsin left on their lists of states to visit.  Not too shabby for an 11 year old and nearly 10 year old.  These are pretty lucky kids to be so well-traveled.  Life is good, that's for sure.