In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire Hurricanes Hardley Ever Happen...

 How has almost 4 months already come and gone in New Hampshire? Or a better question is how have we already been on this road trip adventure for 6 months already? Time flies when you are having fun I suppose. Being in one place for a few months really allows you to get to know the people as well as the surroundings pretty well. This contract for Isaac is actually longer than a normal 13-15 weeks, so it has given us more time to explore. 

New Hampshire is lovely. I really enjoy where we are. Everything is within walking or a 5 minute drive, traffic is pretty much non-existent, and the people are friendly. There are beautiful mountains, waterfalls, and trails. I wish we had more time to really explore them. When traveling with 3 kids and with one or two being still fairly young, I've learned to be choosy about the things we do. Little Isaac could keep up with a 4 mile hike, the other two aren't there yet. And I know that's okay, but it can limit what we choose to do with our free time. So we opt for train rides, or stopping to explore a waterfall while on a beautiful car ride versus hiking. Either way, I do look forward to when we can all hike and keep up, and until then I enjoy meeting them where they are at. 

Things I've learned about New Hampshire: 

1. They are the first state to have their primaries for elections.

2. They have a huge mountainous region called the White Mountains. 

3. There is a lot of homelessness here in Concord. 

4. It was the first state to have it's own constitution.

New Hampshire has allowed for us to explore a few other New England states. To get anywhere here it takes 1-3 hours and people just zip by, I have yet to sit in major traffic in New England. Now once you hit New York that all changes. Do you know how many New England States there are? I feel like when I was in school they didn't tell you there were only 6 and New York and Delaware are not one. I saw a tic tok or something that was a video of the New England states showing up at a meeting and New York was there. The leader said New York why are you here? New York answered "everyone thinks I'm part of New England so I thought I'd sit in." Which is true. 

We ventured into Maine for a night right before Thanksgiving. We went and had Christmas pictures done at a dairy farm in Sabago Lake, Maine. Sabago Lake is Maine's 2nd largest lake with a depth of 316 feet. It was the bluest lake I've ever seen. It is also the major water supply for Portland, Maine. Which is where we headed next. We went and had dinner at Luke's Lobsters. It was right on the water, had fresh lobster and you could watch the lobster boats come in and out of dock with seals trailing behind it. That to me will never get old. Sir Isaac ordered a lobster meal that came with the whole lobster and some clams. Eli and I had lobster rolls and my two land creatures had chicken nuggets and a burger. It was all so delicious. The next day we headed up to Freeport, Maine. Someone at our hotel said it was where the L.L. Bean headquarters are and they have a Christmas village going on for the holidays so it might be fun to check out. It was fun exploring the stores, enjoying hot chocolate and the boys played shuffle board and Rosie was able to get out and walk around and explore. We debated spending another night, but figured since it's only 2 hours away we could come back. So we hit the road and since it gets dark here at 4 we drove by the coast to see ocean before we headed home. It was such fun. 

We went into Boston for the opening of the first permanent Central Perk Coffeehouse. They have a cute set up to honor Friends with several orange couches for guests to sit and be apart of the friends crowd. Their menu is fun and includes entrees like Joey's meatball sandwich, Phoebe's grandmother's cookies, My Scones. Coffee flavors like the Pivot Blend, and Gunther's Espresso. They had a small tribute to Mathew Perry in a form of a coffee sleeve, and were originally set to open before his death, but then waited so they could honor him. There was a rumor Matt LeBlanc, who is from Mass, would make an appearance, but I'm not sure if he ever did. Either way it was a fun day, and I always enjoy exploring Boston. 

We have also explored in Vermont a few times. The first time was to go see the original Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory. We signed up to do the tour to see how the ice cream was made and then had to try some of the yummy flavors. This factory still operates but is now one of the smaller factories. After each batch is made they close down the factory completely clean it top to bottom before starting a new flavor. They have a fun Flavor graveyard where you can see all the flavors that didn't make it. And then of course at the end of the tour you can enjoy some of their most popular flavors or a couple that are only made there in factory. While we there we googled places to eat near us and the Von Trapp Lodge came up as being only a 20 minute drive. Isaac and his family grew up watching the Sound of Music and knowing their history so he was excited to see it. We drove out there and up into Stowe, Vermont where the lodge is located and while on our way we decided it would be fun to surprise his parents with a trip there when they came in December. 

Fast forward to when his parents arrived. We told them to pack a bag we are going for the night up to Vermont. "Will there be snow?" Maybe. Boy was there snow. I, personally, have never seen so much snow. It was fun watching the temperature drop on the GPS as we headed into Vermont. We were early for our reservation so we took his parents by the Ben and Jerry Factory and all had an ice cream snack before heading to the lodge. The snow was gorgeous. Blankets of white everywhere. Mountains, trees, houses all covered in freshly fallen snow. Frozen lakes and ponds. We pulled up to a beautiful mountainous view and a lodge that looked like it fit in Old Europe not New England. We had our rooms for the night and then went down for dinner. We had a wonderful Austrian meal and after wards we went into the game room and played games for a few hours. Little Isaac enjoyed finding massive ice sickles and stomping in the snow. The next morning,we walked down in the snow to the coffee house, spelled Kaffeehaus and had breakfast. It was fun stomping in all the snow, watching the boys play in it and throw it up in the air and having mini snowball fights. We finished off our stay with hearing a history lesson of the Von Trapp family. It differs greatly from the movie. To me the most interesting parts of the story were: That the family was requested by Hitler to sing at his 50th birthday party. To escape that they took a picnic lunch packed, like they normally would, and fled into Italy. The next day, Hitler had the borders closed from Italy and Austria. He then moved himself and Himmler into their house. To this day you can still see some of the furniture with swastikas carved in them. The other interesting fact was that the family sold the rights to their story to a German company for $9,000. The company made 2 movies. Disney turned around and bought the rights from the German company and so the family never made a dime off of the move The Sound of Music. Also, the real Maria flew out to give Julie Andrews tips on how to best portray her. Julie Andrews wanted nothing to do with Maria and was annoyed she was there. The whole history of the family was fascinating. My history ears perked up during the talk.

We emjoyed Isaac's parents while they were here.  The boys and I took them on a tour of Concord and spent the evening playing games. Something all those Newtons love to do. Isaac requested his mom make curry, so we enjoyed a home cooked meal made by someone other than me! We were so happy they spent the week with us. 

We tried to keep traditions going with it being the first Christmas season away from home. We went and found a Christmas tree farm and cut our tree down like we would at home. Except it was much colder on the farm than at Berry's in Convington.  I found some grab bags of ornaments at the goodwill to decorate it with and it turned out to be a pretty tree! We made latkas at Hanukkah and ate jelly donuts and played dreidel. Emory loves that game. We met up with cousin David and Lisa again and we played dreidal with them while we ate pancakes at a cute diner in Keene, NH. We went and saw a Christmas ballet at one of the schools here and the boys learned that yes you can do ballet and be a boy, haha. We made Christmas Tree Rice Krispies, or attempted to. They had fun and learned about measurements and to much green dye does things to your bowels, ha. We went and watched the Polar Express at the church we have been attending. They wore their pajamas and sat on blankets and pillows on the floor and had popcorn. When the hot chocolate scene came on, they brought in carts of hot chocolate and passed them out to all the kids, and ended the evening with a visit from Saint Nick himself giving each person their very own bell to ring. 

Isaac has enjoyed the hospital here, much more than the one in Massachusetts. He has however been on night shift, which hasn't been easy. Thankfully for the last month he will be on day shifts. His body, his sons, and me are all thankful. We spent our Thanksgiving as a family of 5 enjoying a small meal and watching movies. It was nice. Which I guess to us was just dinner with a fancy name. Maybe. Who knows. 

We have enjoyed exploring New Hampshire. We have loved the house we are in and the people we have met. We have one more major place to explore and then we will head out to our next stop. We find out hopefully next week where that will be. So I leave this blog with a fun fact:: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were created in Dover, New Hampshire. In recent months, a historical plaque was created to honor the birthplace of Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo.