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The last weekend of August, we drove up to Maine to visit our dear friends, Geneva, Layne and their girls, Phoenix and Lennox. We almost didn’t go because that was also the weekend of Hurricane Irene. I am so glad we decided to go for it. It was nice to get away from the drama of the hurricane (subway closings, flooding, etc.). We missed the major part of the hurricane and only got some heavy rain in Maine on that Sunday.

We left that Friday, early in the morning - 6am! We stopped for breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Connecticut (my secret plan as I knew there was one up there!). It was pretty smooth sailing all day. There was one point we had to pull over and Sienna used the travel potty (the first time to use it too and we bought it in May for Myrtle Beach!), she just had to go. It worked out well. A cop pulled over behind us and we got nervous but when he saw Sienna, he told us to take our time. Whew! You never know about those CT cops as I always remember it was in CT that I got my first speeding ticket ($285!!)

We stopped off for lunch when we hit Maine and I got my lobster roll!! MMMMMM. Starr had mentioned to me about all the lobster shacks there are as you head up north and I found one! We went to the lobster claw in Saco, Maine. See how big my lobster pieces were?

Posing with the fisherman

We made it to their house around 4:30 and as you can see, Sienna made herself right at home with Phoenix and her friend, Delaney!

Let me say that Maine is a pleasure and such a different place! The girls played all afternoon, going in the house, going out the house, going next door to another girl’s house, etc. Since they all knew to stay out of the street, it was safe for them to play outside and up the street without having to constantly watch them. They don’t lock their doors! Having never lived outside New York, that concept is so foreign to me! Yves even marveled at how he saw a woman pull into a Target parking lot, left all her windows open and went into Target! Wha?! Anyway, I didn’t see much of Sienna the rest of that day as she was so busy playing with Phoenix. It was so great to see! Makes me miss them that much more.

Lennox getting in on the fun!

They had a ball jumping from the giant bean bag to the bed. They were doing this for awhile! Everyday!

Saturday, we went to the American Folk Festival! Food and music!


Too loud for Sienna!

So yeah, I was too busy eating to take photos of the food! Sorry! Here’s a list: pulled pork BBQ sandwich, mini donuts, chicken on a stick, root beer float and fried dough. Sienna got cranky because she was tired and it was humid out. We went into the neighbor’s pool to cool off (how awesome is Ann, her neighbor?!) but we didn’t stay very long as the water was really super duper cold and Sienna did not want to stay in.

Later that night, Geneva’s neighbor (Delaney’s dad), Matt, BBQed some seafood. Bacon wrapped scallops and salmon pinwheels. I made guacamole with tomatillos and Geneva made cole slaw and corn on the cob. MMM!

Matt did a great job and we went over his place later that night and took a walk around the block.

Sunday was the day the rain came, heavy at times. Geneva took the girls to a bouncy house place (sorta like BounceU) so me and Yves could go out. We intended to go to Bar Harbor, a touristy area by the water that is an hour away, but it really was pouring down hard so went to The Lucerne Inn instead. Their seafood brunch was very good!! I was so into the food that I forgot to take any photos!

Later that day my dear Geneva took me to the craft store, how can I say no? We left the brood sitting on the couch playing video games.

Geneva picked up these pirate mask to color for the girls.

Later that night, we took everyone out for dinner, a small gesture to thank them for the hospitality they have shown us.

We promised the girls ice cream so went to another place to get it. They had cute retro decorations all around the place.

They had a ton of ice cream flavors too. They mix it to order and I thought that was pretty neat. Unfortunately, Yves’ butter pecan was pretty flavorless but my creme de menthe and Sienna’s chocolate was delicious! And Phoenix let me try her tutti frutti too! That was also good.

The next morning, we started heading south toward home. We were going to take 2 days to go home so we can stop at one of the beach towns along the way. More on Salisbury, MA in another post. We went to a local bagel place for breakfast. Geneva turned me onto their apple cinnamon bagel. It was very delicious!

Her face shows the attitude I’ve been getting from her lately. Hmph indeed!

I finally managed to catch a photo of Lennox laughing!

Good-bye hug.

Earlier today Sienna told me she was sad because she missed Phoenix. I told her that I missed Geneva too so she asked me if Daddy missed Phoenix’ daddy, Layne. LOL! And how can I forget a photo of their cute puppy, Elsa?

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Being tourists at “the Bean”!


At the Target sponsored Family tent. There were a few giant fans in there and being the hot and humid day that it was, it was a bit of a relief (although not much!)

At the Crown Fountain. If only I wore the right shoes, I’d be in there with her!

We went to lunch at Hamburger Mary’s in Andersonville where I got a delicious chicken salad sandwich (with cranberries in it! yum!), yes, I know, I did not get a hamburger at Hamburger Mary’s! Then we stopped by this cute shopping gallery, the name I did not catch. It was 3 levels of a bunch of little stalls on each floor with handcrafted items for sale. It felt like Etsy in 3D! It was really cool and I enjoyed looking at everything. Most stalls did not have an actual person in it but there were 3 woman that worked there that could help you. I ended up getting a pair of pretty blue earrings.

Sienna and I both liked this WW mosaic.

I thought the Catwoman was really cool. Sienna didn’t like it but only because it was Catwoman.

An interesting WW hubcap art!

Theresa then wanted to check out a shoe store, a real shoe store with salesclerks that measure your feet! I ended up buying another pair of awesome Dansko sandals, Yves bought some Keen sandals and we got Sienna a size 12 sneaker (she’d been walking around in a size 10! Yikes!). Rich also bought a pair of Keen sandals and the only person to not buy a pair of shoes? Theresa! The one who wanted to go into the shoe store in the first place! Ha!

We really didn’t do much touristy stuff this trip but the main reason was really to hang out with Rich and Theresa. Plus the weather was just too energy sucking (hot and humid) to do much. I did manage to take Sienna to a playground that was 3 blocks away from the house!

On our last day, we decided to go out for breakfast and we went to Walker Bros pancake house. Huge omelets and lots of pancakes! Needless to say, we were stuffed!

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We took a long overdue trip to Chicago, we haven’t been there since Rich and Theresa got married and Sienna was a baby. Airfare was outrageous so we decided to drive there. Sienna is a very good traveller (as evident from the Myrtle Beach drive) so we weren’t worried. Google maps said it would take 13.5 hours to get to Rich’s house so we decided to do it in 2 days. No documenting of the hotel but it was a Hampton Inn (our preferred hotel!) somewhere in PA. There was delays on the I80 due to road work so we didn’t get as far on the first day as we had hoped. On Friday (15th), the 2nd day was really long because we were making up time from the first day plus by the time we reached Chicago, it was rush hour. That was torture as it took 2 hours to get through it!! We finally made it! Yay! Our main goal was to just relax and hang out with Rich and Theresa. They got a new dog named Dexter and Sienna really enjoyed playing with him.

Saturday we had lunch at Superdawg, a place I wanted to check out. It’s one of those drive in places where you place your order through the intercom by your car and then they bring it out for you. Even though I ended up eating outside the car standing up because it was so hot, I enjoyed experiencing that concept.

you can’t even see my hot dog because of the pickle. It was very yummy!
We wanted to see Rich’s parents, Bob and Martha while we were there so they came over for dinner. Rich made pizzas on the grill. Last time Sienna saw Bob, she cracked up whenever he looked at her! He didn’t even do anything. I’m glad to say that he still makes her crack up. Sienna had a great time with him playing ball. He’s got great energy for someone in his 70’s! (BTW, last time Sienna saw Rich, she cried every time he tried to hold her. Glad to say that that did not hold up!)

Atta’ Boy! from Lisa on Vimeo.

One of the many grilled pizzas Rich made. Very delicious!

More Chicago to come!

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As promised, the last installment of our Myrtle Beach vacation! We ventured away from the beach one day and went to check out one of the many shopping centers/entertainment places. We picked Broadway on the Beach. We really didn’t want to do much shopping so we went to a little tiny amusement park called Pavilion Nostalgia Park. You could really feel the heat when you are away from the nice ocean breeze so it was HOT!

Sienna really liked this ride because it whipped around the bend. She went on it at least 2 times.

She claims to have enjoyed the ride although her face doesn’t really tell it.

She rode several other rides as well as this train ride but I will spare you!

Yves being silly

Feeding the fish and boy the fish were hungry! See:


Did I mention that it was hot? So someone got grumpy!

I’m sure she is smiling under there!

The sun wore us out so we ordered delivery! It wasn’t bad!

The next morning we DID NOT GO TO WAFFLE HOUSE! Gasp! HA! You can’t find banana walnut pancakes at Waffle House!

Fried Green Tomatoes at Mr. Fish. We came here twice because the food was very delicious!

Shrimp Po Boy

I guess Sienna is really hungry!

Outside our hotel, there was a cute little area with tables and swinging chairs.

We checked out a playground a few blocks away.

Checking out another area of Myrtle Beach, by a pier.

Back to Mr. Fish on our last night. Soft Shell Crab and fish and chips.

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The long waited part 2 of vacation is finally up! I realized I do have a lot of photos from Myrtle Beach so part 2 will be divided into 2 parts. I promise not to wait as long to do part 2 of part 2 as I did to post part 2!

Our Room at Camelot by the Sea. We stayed in a 1 bedroom. Top left shows the bedroom with the front door. Top right shows the kitchen which leads into the living room (bathroom is opposite the frig). Bottom left is the living area with balcony. Bottom right is the couch in the living area.

The lazy river! Our first time experiencing a lazy river. This was the first and last time we tried it. I thought it was fun although I was giggling the whole time I was floating around it. I guess because I don’t know how to swim and I’m not familiar with that floating feeling is what was making me giggle. The water was pretty warm. I think Sienna rather be in the water than floating on it.

Pool! There was the lazy river and 2 pools and 2 jacuzzis (one of each partially inside and one of each fully outside), and a wading pool with a water sprinkler. This was the inside pool. I don’t have any action shots of us enjoying the jacuzzi because I was mostly in the jacuzzi enjoying it!

Here are views of the outside pools from our balcony. The blue awning was over the bar.

Beach time! A self portrait. LOL

View of the hotel from the beach

Food! A sampling of some of the food we ate.

Waffle from Waffle House. This is Yves’ waffle. I don’t put butter on mine. Actually, I don’t usually get a waffle at waffle house! HA! We only went 2 times.

Our thai dinner after our first full day.

Our 2nd time at the River Cafe. We came here the first night we got there. Sienna really liked this place because you can throw the peanut shells on the floor and she got doritos with her hot dog.

After a full day of fun, this is what we found on the sofa:

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I’m going to separate our vacation to Myrtle Beach into 3 parts. Part 1 will be the drive down, part 2 will be the actual Myrtle Beach vacation and part 3 will be the drive home. So here is part 1!

Yves’ plan was to leave at 8 am on Saturday and we actually left on time!!! Since the drive to Myrtle Beach is supposed to take 12 hours (and that’s without stops), we were going to stop somewhere past the 6 hour mark and stay in a hotel. I sat in the back with Sienna since this was going to be such a long trip. Things went pretty smoothly. We stopped at a rest stop after 2 hours and then for lunch after about 4 hours. We somehow ended up at Frank’s Diner in Jessup, MD. Pretty unassuming place and kinda happy we didn’t end up at a chain (we took care of that on the way home! LOL). It’s an old diner that smelled like old people when you walked in and even had mini jukeboxes at each table! There were only a few tables occupied but like 6 waitresses. Sienna got a grilled cheese and both me and Yves got patty melts with different bread and cheeses. Something must have happened in the kitchen because our food took awhile to come out. The waitress apologized to us and even when Sienna and Yves’ dish came out, mine took another 5 minutes to come out. I do have to say, tho, that it was pretty good!

With the help of our ipad2, we found a Hampton Inn in Colonial Heights, VA to stay in. Although it was not really super necessary to use the ipad to find a hotel, it sure helped us find one with free wifi (which most hotels offer), LCD tvs (which not every hotel offers), indoor pool and vacancies without getting out of the car! Come on, that’s cool, right? We almost picked a hotel with the tube tvs, which would not have worked with the apple tv we brought along, so quickly found one with the LCD. It ended up not working anyway because their wifi was not so high speed. We relaxed a bit in the pool and jacuzzi (woohoo!) before having dinner at Ruby Tuesdays. Yes, a chain but unfortunately, I did not have the energy to try and find a local place. Surprisingly, the food was pretty tasty! We even got dessert! They had one of 4 mini cupcakes (2 red velvet and 2 carrot cake), which was perfect for us!

The next morning we ate the breakfast the hotel offered and off we went! Sienna decided to take over my camera and wanted to take photos too, just like mommy and daddy! Here are her feet:

Find her set of photos on my flickr page here.

We had a planned stop at South of the Border, a place I really wanted to check out! We were going to even eat lunch there but after some investigating, decided we would rather stop somewhere before that to eat (reviews were pretty bad for the restaurants). I used my ipad to find a restaurant and found rave reviews at the restaurant we ended up at. Well, what a disappointment! It wasn’t horrible but wasn’t all that. I can’t even remember the name or where it was!

Anyway, we made it!

It was a pretty hot day so we didn’t stay that long here. If it wasn’t for Sienna, me and Yves probably could have spent a couple of hours walking around the place taking photos! But that’s ok, we got some nice photos.

and some ice cream!

(You can see more in my flickr set!)

Here’s another Shot by Sienna photo that I would like to end this post with. After South of the Border when we were back in the car. Cracks me up!

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As mentioned in earlier posts, we went to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia a few weekends ago. We decided to make a weekend out of it and booked a room at Crowne Plaza Hotel, chosen because of the indoor pool (which ended up being close for renovations! GRRRR!) Anyhow, lots of photos were taken so I’ll keep the words short. Pete joined us for the trip and it was great fun to have him with us. The museum totally rocked, the building majestic and I would definitely recommend this place and want to go back!

On to the photos!

Pete was a good crayon assistant to Sienna in the back seat

The sign outside

The beautiful ceiling (I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo of the building, which is beautiful)

They had a few of these cutout head bodies. Lots of fun!

Garage

Water Area

These clouds and rainbow were above the water area, I loved them!

This cracks me up!

They have an awesome Alice in Wonderland area!

We played with blocks for a little bit and Sienna enjoyed knocking down all our blocks.

These were taken downstairs in the “city” area. I don’t remember why they had a vespa there. Sienna found this dog in the house area and played with it what felt like forever! This was also the area where Pete’s video was taken of the shopping. There was also a hospital but we did not go in there.

There was also a section of old stuff and I really thought the typewriter was cool!

They also had a display of retro toys (not in the same area as the old stuff). I had to take a photo of this because we had one when I was younger.

Waiting in line to shoot a “rocket”

Shooting the rocket!

There really are so many photos I am not posting. I ran into some old friends at the museum (small world!), me and Sienna rode the carousel, Sienna ate a hot dog for lunch and we went to Dalessandros (recommended by a friend) for cheesesteaks! MMM!

And of course, I have to show Sienna wearing the 4 shirt I made for her for her birthday (which she did not want to wear on her actual birthday but the day after!)

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Our CSA is over in November and I haven’t really written about it. It started in June and I was a little overwhelmed in the beginning. I got better at it but there were still a few things that ended up in the garbage because I waited too long to use it or didn’t know what to do with it. Some pluses are that we discovered a like for swiss chard, mustard greens and leafy greens of that nature (and that they taste extra delicious when you saute them with turkey bacon!) Also Yves also discovered that he likes pesto!

We also got a fruit share and got some really yummy peaches, apples and pears. There was some fruit that was a letdown such as the watermelon. It wasn’t very sweet and it had seeds (I got spoiled eating the seedless!) But that’s from a different farm.

Anyhow, we were invited to visit the farm at the end of September. It took a little over 2 hours to get there, it was up by Warwick, NY. We got brunch with fresh squeezed orange juice (totally wasted on Sienna because she doesn’t like the pulp.) The french toast was a little disappointing as the crust of the bread was really hard. The omelet was better but I could have eaten 3 of them and the potatoes were cold. The “tour” consisted of a girl telling us the history of the farm and allowing us to pick some stuff. Sienna and I picked a couple of edible flowers and I tried to find some basil but the season was pretty much over for that.

We were disappointed with the trip but at the same time, it was interesting to see the farm where our vegetables come from.


Cool city girl waiting for her country breakfast

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The Pool! We all really enjoyed the pool, especially Sienna. She was so confident with her floaties, going in the deep end and everything. Whenever the noodles were available, I snatched it to use and Sienna even used it once.

The Eats! The most stressful part of the vacation was figuring out where to eat. There were lots of options and part of the problem was reading all the reviews online. Every place had both bad and good comments so it was still hard to make a choice. The hotel gave coupons for a few restaurants like Beach Bun and Burgers and we actually went twice. The first time was better than the 2nd but the cook was different so I think that made a difference. There was also Blue Fugu Japanese Steakhouse. I thought it would be fun for Sienna to see the chef cook food in front of her. She really wasn’t that amazed. The food was good but like all Japanese Steakhouses, pricey. We probably wouldn’t have gone if we didn’t have a coupon. Plus we met a woman who recommended Buono Pizza for Italian, which we ended up going to when we saw the Thai place we originally planned to go was too expensive. It was really good! We both got sandwiches (not pizza) and they were huge. Of course there was the Waffle House, an Yves favorite. We went there almost every morning for breakfast. The last standout is a Thai restaurant we went to the very last night and if we discovered it sooner, probably would have went back. Nori Thai which also has sushi. The food was very good. The one place we went to that was a real disappointment to me was a seafood restaurant called Friendly Fisherman. I was bugging Yves to go to a seafood restaurant and we didn’t go to the one I really wanted to and went to this one out of convenience, well, we paid for it. The food was tasteless. There was also Bella Habana, a Cuban restaurant that everytime we passed, I told Yves we should go there. Finally got him to go and he LOVED his dish (fried cow) while I thought my ropa viejo was just ok. At least Sienna loved the chorizo.

Most lunches were mainly in our room.

We only ventured away from the pool and beach a couple of times. One time to check out the Pier, which was disappointing because it really wasn’t much and it’s “aquarium.” I use the quotes because I feel aquarium is used loosely. It was basically a big room with tanks in it. Literally took 15 minutes to walk around and only because we slowly looked at things. At least we ran into a pelican. One afternoon we went to a playground across the street. Bad move. That lasted 5 minutes! It was too hot and no shade. We went back to the pool. HA!

The hotel had a parrot named Houdini and Sienna went to say hello to him every chance she got, which was several times a day!

And somehow Sienna managed to get Yves to buy her a Minnie Mouse doll at Wal-mart.

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