Hello From Montreal

Good Morning! We are in a hotel in Montreal, Canada. We got here at about 9:30 last night and won't be here long so I won't be posting pics on my blog until the weekend at the earliest but I thought I'd write a quick post to check in. We camped the last 2 nights in Maine. Both nights were kind of rough but we survived and made some memories. :) The first night we camped by a river in Bethel and came close to being eaten alive by huge mosquitoes. It was crazy. Within seconds of getting out of the car we were covered and started busting out the bug spray. We all proceeded to spray our whole bodies clothes and all. I even wiped bug spray on my face and came close to spraying it in my hair. We quickly set up camp (very primitive--no picnic tables, yucky bathrooms) and left to go find dinner. We ate dinner at a restaurant at a lodge in the mountains and then went back to camp. With the bug spray the mosquitoes didn't bother us and we slept well. Then on Sunday we spent the morning at the campground gem mining. You'll see pictures later and that will explain better but basically we bought buckets of rocks and sand and then mined the gems. The kids found a lot of pink, blue, and green tourmaline as well as garnet and amethyst and quartz crystals. It was really fun and exciting. When we left there we drove to Acadia and managed to get a nice campsite. It was spitting rain and continued to spit rain on and off until morning but we had a great time. I cooked dinner while Ollie and the kids set up the tent and then we spent the rest of the daylight hours at the ocean playing on the rocks. We didn't sleep much that night because it was freezing cold and raining! It was rough and we had to rely on body heat to keep us warm. Translation: I "slept" in a twin size air mattress with Grace and Joe. Yep. Not much sleep happening but we survived. Yesterday we ate breakfast at the ocean and then packed up and Ollie dropped Hannah and I off in Bar Harbor while he, Grace, and Joe drove up Cadillac Mountain. Then we met back up, had a lobster lunch and then hit the road for 8 hours of driving! It was exciting to come into a new country and we are looking forward to checking out the city this morning. I'm not sure where we're camping tonight, it depends on how long we decide to stay here in Montreal. I probably won't be back online for a few days, Au Revoir! (They speak French here in Quebec)

Pictures With Wally in Boston

Big Road Trip Day 7--Boston Part 2

We donned our rain gear--well, the kids donned their rain gear, Ollie and I don't have rain gear---and we headed out to tour Boston in the rain. We opted not to pay for any tours and so Ollie was our tour guide on the Freedom Trail.

We saw this guy as we made our way out of the Boston Common and I had to get the kids pictures taken with him since my nephew is a huge Red Sox fan. A few minutes later a man came over and asked if they could use the kids in their photo shoot. They were taking promo pictures of Wally (the Red Sox mascot) on the Freedom Trail. So, we let them use our kids in their photo shoot so I am thinking that the kids are going to be famous.




The girls and Ollie went to the Granary Burial ground where all sorts of famous people are buried. Joe is freaked out by graveyards so he and I waited outside the gates and eventually got some hot chocolate from Dunkin'.

All of the Puritan graves before 1800 have this symbol on them--kind a freaky...
I am having fun making the kids do these goofy ninja moves all over the place.

Big Road Trip Day 6--Boston

Since the rain was not letting up we had to get a hotel in Boston. After getting settled in we decided to go check out the city despite the rain. We found a grocery store not far from the Bunker Hill Monument and bought some dinner and took a hike in the rain to the monument. Once there we sat right on the front steps under the shelter and ate dinner. Isn't this the sort of thing all normal families do??
I had a lobster roll, and Grace had some New England Clam Chowder, Hannah had a salad, and Ollie and Joe had bread and some sort of dip stuff. I think Joe just ate bread though.

Big Road Trip Day 5--Chocolate World and the Poconos

A storm blew through overnight but thankfully the rain had stopped by morning. But--everything was wet. We had left our dishes drying on the table the night before on the tablecloth and of course the tent and the tarp were wet. Thankfully checkout wasn't until 2 so we ate a quick breakfast of fruit, nuts, and cinnamon raisin bread and left everything and went to Chocolate World--this is outside of Hersheypark and more about Chocolate and less about roller coasters.





We decided to pay the exorbitant prices and do a few things since it was vacay and who knows if we will ever be back. The kids and I did the Create Your Own Candy Bar and it was really fun. First we had to get suited up. I actually had to wear a beard cap in addition to the rest of the getup b/c of my nose piercing. First you used a computer touch screen to create your candy bar. You could choose your base--dark, milk, or white and then three add-ins. I chose pretzels, almonds, and raspberry pieces on dark chocolate. It is soooo good (I'm still working on it--it makes a big bar!).

Then you get to watch your bar being made...



Above you will see that no matter what your base is they all get "robed" in milk chocolate.

While the candy bars go into the cooling machine you go into another little room and create your label.

They give you a fancy tin to take your bar home in. Joe and Grace finished theirs within an hour but Hannah and I still have ours. :0)

We also did the Chocolate Tour--that was free and was basically a ride where you learn about how they make chocolate bars. We also saw a 3-D show that was disappointing. I thought it would be more informative but mostly it was just dancing candy bars. Overall though we had a great time at Chocolate World. Sorry I am not bringing home any chocolate souvenirs. We have NO room for anything that is not necessary for our trip so no souvenirs.

After Chocolate World we went back to the campground and used towels to dry off the remaining water and took the tent down and did all that stuff. Then I took the kids to the pool (and read my book) while Ollie loaded the car again. I'm working my way through a biography of Diana. It's interesting and when I get home I'm going to look for another biography that will tell more about her life after Prince Charles.
We didn't get out of Hershey until almost 2 so we had to change our original plans of driving to Massachusetts and instead went to another campground in the Poconos. There were no grocery stores around and we hadn't planned earlier for dinner so we ate at a great seafood restaurant for dinner. It was a nice treat and we all ate everything they gave us.
Then the kids did some Parkour outside the restaurant while Ollie tried to find us a good place to camp (we don't plan ahead much, can you tell?). That's him on the bench in the background using his iPhone to find a place preferably with laundry facilities since we had a bunch of wet stuff.

And this is what he found. It was just beautiful! It was more of an RV park but they let us camp on the grass in front of the lake. They also had a washing machine and dryer but no detergent or machine to change dollars into coins...so, Ollie went out looking for a convenient store...before he left he helped us get a fire started and the kids finally got to roast marshmallows! After fire time and climbing trees I got the kids ready for bed and Ollie started the laundry and we eventually called it a night.


We all slept well but then woke at about 6:30 to the rumble of thunder. We took down camp faster than ever and crammed everything in the car finishing just as the rain started. We were rolling out of there by 7:30 in the morning in the rain and it hasn't stopped since.

Big Road Trip Day 4--Hersheypark

On the way to Hersheypark we went right through Lancaster County, PA. We stopped for "lunch," at a roadside stand. Lunch was whoopie pies, black raspberries, strawberries, cinnamon raisin bread, and Kombucha tea.




The inside of our tent looks different every night but here's a pic of this night. I, being the aching matriarch of the family, get the air mattress.
We arrived at our campground in Hershey and quickly made camp and cooked up some leftover canneloni--soooo good!! Hannah set the table and it was time to eat.


Then it was on to Hersheypark. Before you go in you have to see what size you are so that it is easy to tell which rides you can go on. Joe was a Hershey's and the girls were Twizzlers.
The kids wore their bathing suit tops because we had heard that there were a lot of water rides, they should have worn their whole bathing suits because in addition to lots of roller coasters there is also a waterpark. They went on everything anyway and got totally soaked. Didn't slow them down though.






It was a good day that lasted well into the night. We didn't leave the park until 10 pm when they closed. We had heavy rain overnight and woke up to everything wet....more on that in the next post.