Road Trip - Part I

Hailey enjoyed her first big road trip of her young life as we just returned from a 10 day vacation to the east coast.

Our first stop was the Boston area to visit family and enjoy some of the places that I visited as a child and wanted to relive through my kids! So off we went - 16 hours in the car. We decided to do it all in one day based on experience. Previous trips to the Outerbanks and Folly Island, SC, are about the same distance and we had broken those trips into two days. But if Hailey could handle it, we knew that one day would be our best bet and we weren't wrong. Hailey traveled like a champ. It helped for sure to have the iPad for her but she napped, read books, played and ate with only 3 stops of about 45 minutes each on the way there. As for Peyton, we weren't even five minutes out of town when she asks if we are in Boston yet! Austen was the new Adler (who vacationed at Papa's and Grandma Szurgot's houses) and we didn't hear from him barely at all the entire trip - easy traveler as always!

Once in Boston, we caught up with our family (always great to see the Italians!) and also hit up Canobie Lake (an amusement park for younger kids built in 1902), took a tour of Boston where the tour vehicle turns into a boat (the kids loved that!), stopped by Harvard Square and spent a day at the Cape. Oh, and almost forgot that Tom and Austen enjoyed their first visit to Fenway Park for a Red Sox vs. White Sox game.

Peyton was terrified of most of the rides at Canobie Lake but we got our moneys worth out of Austen and Hailey. Note in the pictures how Hailey goes on rides by herself but Peyton make Austen go with her and she still looks terrified. Austen got to drive his first race car (Tom drove behind with Peyton and said Austen drove cautiously - good for when he really learns how to drive!). Hailey loved the horse and buggy ride. Note the pure joy on her face (I had to make that picture extra big so you could see it!). We spent more than five hours at the park and Austen and Hailey could've spent more time there too. It was great to see Austen wanting to go on bigger rides and not being as scared as he was at Disney World. He actually asked to go on the Log Flume ride and loved it! Maybe next time we'll be able to get him on a roller coaster (although I don't remember going on those until I was a preteen).

We had a great day for our trip to the Cape. We visited the beach, of course and our kids had fun building sandcastles and playing in the warm water. No big waves or really any waves but we'll see some during the second part of our road trip to New Jersey. You'll hear all about that in my next blog post. Stay tune!