Our 1st Vacation!

When we lived in SC, any substantial time Jeremy had off was always given to family. We'd either be making a trip up North or we'd be hosting visitors. Now that we get to see family wayyy more often, we got to take the kids on a much deserved and needed vacation! 

First stop was to take Nala to her babysitters! Huge thank you to my nieces for taking care of her and to my sister and brother-in-law for letting her be at home with them while we were gone! 

Since dropping her off was a bit out of our way, we didn't drive to our final destination on the first night. We had a quick dinner at Chick-Fil-A and went to a hotel in Springfield, MA. 

Just like with Kylie, Mia hasn't tolerated me drinking coffee. A very, very sad thing. BUT, I learned while on vacation that I can order fun drinks and she doesn't know that it's coffee LOL Typically my Starbucks drinks have multiple shots of espresso in them because I like the kick of coffee flavor versus all the sweet, but leaving that out made it drinkable for Mia and a great day for Mommy! 

When we told the boys we were going to MA for our vacation, Seth got very excited about what he had learned in his history book, so we added a destination to our plans!

Lucas found a stick to put on his head just like the reindeer 😆

Seth wanted to take a picture!

And then we finished our short drive to our final destination.....!!!!!

We went back and forth on this for a long time when we were deciding on the trip. The price can seem extravagant, but when you consider all it has to offer (which a lot of it is extra add ons that we just chose not to do) it ended up way worth it in the end. Especially when we saw the MANY different room options. This one, giving us a completely separate bedroom for the kids, that didn't access the main hallway and allowed us to put them to bed and still have an evening to ourselves!

The boys totally got a bigger bed than we did but...worth it 😆 

One of the many things they offered on site was pizza - pretty spectacular pizza at a great price! So after our early check in, we got a few hours in the water park and then had a relaxing pizza dinner right in our room without having to get back in the car!

The next day we headed into Boston...a place Jeremy and I greatly did NOT enjoy! It made Charleston seem like an ant hill. 

But the Children's Museum was a HUGE hit. I'm not sure if it was because of COVID or if they've always done this, but you had to buy tickets in advance for a specific time slot - and when your slot ended you HAD to leave. Well, although we left early, Boston traffic still got the best of us, we ended up being late on our tickets which means when it came time for us to leave, we were not ready to leave! It would definitely be a place we'd go back to - THREE stories! 

He made a ship!

From there we took them to Dave & Buster's! The boys LOVE arcades so this was on the top of Jeremy's list. The eating end of things was terrible, but we'd for sure go back to their awesome arcade! 

Then it was back to the lodge for more water park fun! 

The next day we were back in Boston for the aquarium! We are glad we went but it's not a place we'd go back to. I think our expectations are a bit too high with the aquariums we've had!

These baby jellyfish were adorable!

The giant sea turtle won all of us over!

These giant shrimp freaked Kylie out!

And this freaked Daddy out! 

She just wanted to jump in with the penguins!!!!

Baby seahorses were also adorable!

Petting stingrays was a highlight for the boys!

We got to enjoy more of the water park that night and again the next morning before it was time to say goodbye (which had lots of tears). Kylie had some business to take care of first.....

Part of me wishes I had gotten some water park pictures but I didn't want to buy a cover for my phone. And it was nice to just sit and take in the kids' EXTREME joy instead of trying to take all the pictures! We ALL look forward to going back again, perhaps in a different location. I think the only thing we would change is to stay put and enjoy the lodge more, versus planning other outside activities. 

We had one more adventure on our way home, riding on a ferry! A first for the kids AND Jeremy! Jeremy was beyond anxious about the experience LOL

Lucas couldn't see over the side so he found a peep hole 

(Daddy loved this) 😅

Life smacked us in the face HARD when we came home - stories for the next blog - but it makes me even more thankful for the time we had away and the memories the kids made! ❤❤❤