Cape Cod

Cape Cod was different than what we all expected, but the part of it that we saw was full of little beachy towns and some pretty ocean views.  I'm wondering if we would have made it up to Princetown if it would have been more of what we imagined.

We went to the Southern most Eastern part of Cape Cod...on the open Atlantic Ocean.  We aimed for a lighthouse, which wasn't all that exciting, but it put us on a pretty beach, so it all worked out.

 The Chatham Light House:

 I couldn't get over how bright green the seaweed was!

 Fun to see the long grass in the sand dunes:

 The clouds were pretty amazing that morning!

This little hut was mad of things found on the beach (at least that is what we are assuming) it was pretty funny to see some of the stuff on it.  

We went to the cutest café for lunch and I had the best Spicy BLTA.  So yummy!

 One last stop at Sandy Neck beach on the north west part of Cape Cod.  By then the storm clouds had taken over and it was raining.

 Loved this little collection of painted shells and rocks.  I brought home one to go in my jar of rocks and shells from this trip.  Its the one that says Be the Light.

 On our way back to the Boston Airport we made one last stop at Plymouth Rock.  It was much smaller than I thought it would be.  I was picturing a haystack type rock, like in Oregon.  The man working the exhibit said that it probably used to be 2 to 3 times as large as it is now, but over the years has been broken down, and actually literally broken while being moved.

My favorite part was when we got out of the car I went running for shelter as Tami and Darcy go their umbrellas out.  There was a guys standing under this big covered area so I was a little hesitant to go under there with him, but decided it was worth being out of the rain.  As I go running under the shelter I look down on the ground and there is THE rock.  I ran into it without even knowing where I was going.  I was like "Oh there's the rock" and the guy said "Yep, there it is".  He was a worker and shared some info with us about the rock and the Pilgrims that found it.

April Fun

Happy 59th Birthday to my wonderful Mom!

Cam was sick for a few days.  It ended up being an ear infection.  I always know she isn't feeling well when I find her like this...

 Warm days = popsicles and hanging out with mom while she vacuums out the cars :)

 Still not feeling well...

 My sitting room is finally coming together!  It still makes me happy when I walk downstairs and see it!  The rug unfortunately smells like marijuana.  It's awful.  I keep hoping it will go away, and while it is much fainter now, the smell is still there.  Sad face.  Luckily not many people can smell it.  I actually sent my preschool moms a text explaining that my house smelled like pot, just bc of a new rug, not bc I was smoking it!  Haha!  Only one mom could smell it though.

 Cam attended a roller skating birthday party and the big girls decided to tag along.

 Sam all dressed up and ready for a dance:

 My addition to our Youth Dessert Auction for Young Women's Camp

 They used all the pieces to make one big snake...

 Kimber bought scrunchies.....

 Thankful for good friends that let Cam come play when I'm out of town!  These two are so fun together.

 Gum drop creations:

 Allison is playing school volleyball:

 First day on the lake...she was even brave and actually swam around for a minute.  The water was so cold!

 Texted this picture to Kimber to see if she thought I could go out in public like this.  She said only if I had a leather motorcycle jacket to go with it :)

 Shadows!

Rhode Island

The 3rd day of our trip we rented a car so that we could drive south to Newport, Rhode Island.  It was a short drive, only an hour and a half.

The Boston airport is full of rocking chairs....anyone know why?

 Our main destination in Newport was the Cliff Walk and the mansions. The Cliff Walk was amazing.  So beautiful.  Ocean, rocks, daffodils, mansions, clouds, and sunshine.

 The Breakers.  More pictures to come.

 We only chose to tour one of the 11ish mansions available, The Breakers.  It is a Vanderbilt home and is completely massive.  128,000 square feet of gaudy craziness.  There were two spaces I liked out of 70 rooms.

 Every summer house needs a ballroom:

 And a fancy dining room:

 These wall sconces were from Tiffany's:

 These are made out of platinum.  Unheard of in those days, but still look amazing 130 years later!

 The music room:

 I liked this little game table :)

 This bathtub is made completely of marble.  The maid would have to fill it and empty it a few times before the bath could actually be used b/c the marble was so cold, they had to use warm water to warm up the bathtub itself before the bath water would stay warm enough for a bath.  They mentioned that sometimes they would bathe twice a day! (and that women would change clothes about 7 times a day!)

 This was in the wife's bedroom.  An awesome phone and then a little "intercom" system (on the wall behind the phone) so she could get the attention of the different servants.

 More in the wife's room:

 The bedroom all seemed to have these little doors built into the wall.  So when they were closed it just looked like the wall for the most part.  This one went into a closet.  Some of the children's rooms actually connected to each other through these doors in the wall.

 Wouldn't mind this view!

 The other room I liked.  Its way to big, but it was simple and beautiful.  The Vanderbilt's had a different house that burned down b/c of a kitchen fire, so when they had this house built they made sure the kitchen was far away from the main living areas and that it couldn't really catch on fire.  Most of it was made of iron.  Hardly any wood at all in the whole room.

 One of the side ends of the house:

 That's the back of the house

After touring the house we decided to do some more of the Cliff Walk:

 I collected some white rocks from this little beach:

 This white house was all of our favorites:

 I loved seeing daffodils so close to the ocean!

 More of our favorite house!

 Our favorite house has a name:

 and an address (in case I ever wanted to Zillow it or anything :))

After finishing the Cliff Walk we drove around a bit on a little scenic road and then went to a little pub for dinner.  I ordered some fried pickles (yum!) and a grilled cheese sandwich.

At this point we didn't have any other definite plans.  We decided at dinner that we would drive back into Massachusetts that night and stay in the Cape Cod area so we could check that out on our last day.