Day Twenty-two

Day twenty-two we all went to Weirs Beach with Jim’s brother George and his family.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day!!  Sam and Adam played on the beach, and Sam even managed to brave the cooler water temperature and go swimming.  He is used to the 80 something degrees of Florida water, but this lake temperature was in the low 70’s.  Needless to say, I barely got my feet wet!  Brrr!  J

It was a great beach day, and super relaxing.  A little stroll down the pier took us to the bumper cars where the gang tested their driving skills.  A quick stop at the restaurant at the end of the pier for a cold beer and some ice cream for others, and we headed back to Concord for the night.

Day Twenty-One

Day twenty-one – Fourth of July!  The reason we came to Concord so quickly on our trip!  Family time!  The day started early (yawn!) with a paintball war.  There were eighteen people all together, not counting observers or dogs.  Since I was not participating (and neither were Sam or Buster) I was hanging out for a while watching everyone gear up and get their game faces on. 

I didn’t really listen to the long safety speech given by one of the referees, but I do remember the phrase “red is dead.”  Sounded pretty important to me!  I also remember him stating that getting shot with the paintballs didn’t really hurt, but I wasn’t buying it!  J

Sam got involved with a “treasure hunt” by picking up all the intact paintballs that were left on the ground in the staging area.  He spent a couple of hours on that project and collected a HUGE bag of paintballs!  I opted to leave and take Buster back to the rig since it was getting pretty hot outside.  Jim’s sister was staying for quite a while to snap some pics, so Sam stayed with her to continue on his quest.  Everybody finally used up all their ammo around 1:00 pm, after having a blast!

Afterwards, everyone gathered at Grammy’s house for LOTS of food and company.  We played some “Minute to Win It” type games, which were quite imaginative and pretty challenging.  I was shocked to actually complete some of the tasks – they seem impossible at first glance.  The little ones ran and played endlessly.  Later, there was a food competition where everyone was to prepare a food that looked like one thing, but tasted like something else.  There were some pretty cool presentations!  I convinced Jim to prepare his “breakfast pizza” which is something he makes quite regularly – like an omelet but looks more like pizza with pepperoni, etc.  He placed it in a pizza box for presentation.  One of the funniest moments of the contest was when Shawn took a piece of “pizza” for a taste test, only to discover it was actually eggs – one of the only foods he detests!  We all had a BIG laugh over that one since he was totally fooled!  J  Elizabeth won the contest with her great presentation of spaghetti and meatballs that was really a humongous rice krispie treat topped with frosting – even the plate was part of the “dinner.”  Jim tied for second place – woo hoo!!

As if we hadn’t done enough on this wonderful day, we finished it up with the town fireworks display that night at 9:30 pm.  The kids were still full of energy, and the fireworks were ooooh and ahhh-some.  Great day!!

Day Twenty

It has been a few days since I wrote on here, and I am getting flack from all directions!  J  Evidently, there are people reading this!  The family keeps asking for the updates.  So, back to work.

Day twenty was the Sunday of July Fourth weekend, and we spent the day visiting with family members at Grammy’s house.  Everybody came by and checked out our new “house” on wheels – it met with a seal of approval!  The weather was overcast and cool all day, and it felt great after all the 90 plus days we had been experiencing lately.  Later that day, we took the rig to the campground we had reserved for our stay in NH.  When we arrived, the girl at the office gave me the paperwork and told me what site to proceed to, but when I looked it over, I knew that was NOT going to work!  It was only 30 amp service, and I had specifically asked for 50 amp, and the site wasn’t really a site at all, but a spot to park in front of one of the bathhouses.  It was right in front of a playground, the place to fill propane tanks, and next to a big pavilion where they were having a concert that night.  After some confusion and discussion, we were moved to the next site, but had to get other people to move their cars, which were parked there.  The place was packed for the holiday, and everyone was checking us out in our big rig, since most of the surrounding campers were families in weekend pull-behinds.  Talk about drawing a lot of attention!

Anyway, we finally got it into place, but we were supposed to meet everyone for dinner at 6:00, so we didn’t get to finish setting up.  We all went out to eat at a restaurant called Newick’s – YUM!  Great seafood, good cold beer, and fantastic company!  Nothing better!  J

Day Nineteen

Day nineteen was a travel day – headed to Concord, NH!  I saw three huge tom turkeys this morning when I was walking Buster, and a hen in the woods would call to them, then they would “gobble” in return.  I tried to show Sam, but he was still snoring away! 

We arrived at “Grammy’s” house around 6:00 pm.  Yeah!!  Since we made the whole drive in one day instead of two, we had no campground spot for the night, so we dry-camped in Grammy’s driveway.

Day Eighteen

Day eighteen we decided to go downtown to Philly and see the Liberty Bell and some of the historic buildings.  We realized that it was not a good day to be going there afterwards,  when we saw the LONG line of people waiting to see the Liberty Bell – it was Friday of July Fourth weekend. 

After walking around for a little while and seeing the crowds, we decided to buy some sandwiches for a picnic lunch and then we went to the Smith Kid’s Play Place.  This is a cool playground and park-like setting for kids to play that is a few blocks from the zoo.  Sam loved it!  He played for two solid hours while I ate lunch and relaxed.  When he was finally ready to leave, he could barely walk to the car, he was so worn out!  J  Once again, he slept all the way back to the campground.

Later that day, at the campground, Sam met some new friends with kids coming into the campground for the holiday weekend.  He went snake hunting with one boy, and then spent several hours biking, running, and playing with two other boys.  They caught some fireflies after dark to finish up the day.

Day Seventeen

Day seventeen and we went to the Philadelphia Zoo – the oldest zoo in the united states.  A little bit of a crawl on I676 coming from NJ over to Philly, but not bad after that. 

They are working on a cool overhead transit tunnel for the primates to enjoy around the park, and it will be awesome for them when it is complete!  They will be able to go all over the place and check things out from above.  The weather was gorgeous, and we enjoyed some great walking around the zoo for a few hours. 

 After lunch, Sam was pretty tired out, so ended up leaving around 2:30 without going over to see the African safari animals.  He fell asleep in the car on the way back to the campground – awww!

The prairie dogs were adorable!

Day Sixteen

Day sixteen found us at the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ.  This place was massive!  It was twice the size of the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, and beautifully designed with large tanks and exhibits. 

They have a tunnel to walk through one large aquarium where you can view the fish and sharks swimming above you – very cool!  They had lots of touch tanks, and a large variety of sea creatures to study and view.  We had lunch at their cafeteria, and I have to say, the BEST pizza I have ever eaten!  Jersey knows pizza!

We enjoyed the place so much, that we went through it all a second time after lunch.  Sam used my phone camera to take his own pictures the second time around, and he caught a lot of great shots!  Now, I just have to figure out how to download them out of the phone…hmmmm.