Thomas and more

What a weekend. Friday we met up with Dan in Dover at a hotel. With the kids sporting their newly fitted ear plugs, they swam like they never have before. Nathaniel was putting his head under the water, he treaded water/sorta swam the length of the pool, he showed amazing confidence in the water finally. Audrey loves jumping in from the side.

 























After swimming, Dan ditched us left for his gig, the kids & I walked to a pizza shop. Then we walked to get ice cream, then we walked to a store to get wipes to clean up our ice cream, we walked all around town - we watched a band playing in the commons, we said hi to the police horses, we walked over a bridge and watched the water for a while. We did it all. At some point we lost Audrey's beep, so we walked some more up to Rite Aid to replace the precious item. So much walking, I bet it was about 2 miles, the kids held up amazingly well! We even walked by where Dan was playing and he came out to visit with us for a minute. The kids thought that was great. We finally made it back to our temporary home, did baths and crashed.
 

FINALLY the morning of Thomas!   

I insisted on getting the most of our hotel and made sure we got the most out of the continental breakfast.  This of course, made us late. Since we had two cars, Sir Talks A Lot rode with Dan, while I kept Sleepy Pants Audrey with me.  Just as we're about to pull onto the highway, Dan makes some weird turn to get around me so he could lead the way.  He failed to notice the cop that was driving right behind him.  OOPS!   That provided some entertainment for a wide eyed 4 year old in the backseat who now thinks you can go to jail for cutting in line. 

It poured on our way up. Things weren't looking good. 

We barely made it to Thomas in time. I swear we pulled into our impossible to find parking spots at 11:27 and our train ride was leaving at 11:30.   Oh and did I mention I lost our original train tickets, so we still had to go to the will call window to claim our reissued tix with one minute to spare. 

It worked out in our favor actually because we were brought right on board, got great seats and the train left almost instantly.  

They played chase for a while

And then we fill our faces with more ice cream

Before heading home, we took a slight detour to visit the Manor where we'll be spending our 10th anniversary.  There was a wedding going on so we couldn't see everything but It Is Beautiful!  

I can't wait to see it on a sunny fall day.  

The hot tub overlooking the mountains is screaming our name.  

Who wouldn't relax in a room like this? 

or read a book and take a nap on this lawn, wish I could show you the view... believe me, there are mountains behind those evil rain clouds

We started our trek home but 5 minutes into it, we both decided we were too tired to make the drive, so we found another hotel to park it for the night.

The kids were clearly devastated.  

The boys brought subs back, we ate, watched a marathon of Dirty Jobs and were all asleep by 8pm. 

Sunday gave us an amazing day to drive home.  We stopped for breakfast, then MORE ice cream, some scenic stops and finally home by 1:30.