Day 3 Vermont to Maine!

A longer day in the car than we had anticipated—it helps when you look at the right day’s mileage! Left Vermont in the morning for our drive into Maine. The scenery was fabulous and the kiddos were cooperative!

We had scoped out some geocaches along our route so we could claim one in each state of our journey. The one in New Hampshire was at a Stop & Shop (think Meijer). We got gas across the street & saw 2 monster trucks(Black Stallion & Iron Warrior) at McFarland Ford. We pulled in to check them out & realized it was a 40th anniversary celebration complete with monster trucks, drivers & free hotdogs, burgers & drinks! Super deal for lunch! Ate a quick bite, took some pictures & headed out on the road again.



Arrived at Lamoine State Park in time to fix dinner and check out the park. We biked through the park to the pier and enjoyed some time looking out at Fisherman’s Bay and wandering along the shore. Rachel, our nature girl, collected quite a load of shells & rocks. Luke learned to skip stones & was very happy to get one with 3 skips!

tomorrow is the 4th & we're heading into Bar Harbor for the festivities.

blessings,
the simmonds family
A good nights sleep & we’re headed into Bar Harbor tomorrow for a full day of fun.

day 2 niagara falls touring and travel to east dummerstown, vt

slept to 8:40! ate, showered, packed up camp & headed out by 10am.

parked at the niagara gorge visitor's center & caught the trolley to the cave of the winds. started our morning with an adventure to the hurricane deck that lies just 20' from the bridal veil falls. the boy & the girl thought that was very cool. ascended the elevator much wetter, but happy for the experience.

caught the trolley to the top of the falls visitor center & some lookout that we can't remember the name of right now. daddy, the boy & the girl had fun playing on the hill. they chased each other & ran up & rolled down the hill! amusing for mama & many others.

then toured the reminder of niagara falls state park from the trolley. learned that this is the oldest state park in the country and was bought for 1.4 million in 1901! the first person to survive a trip over the falls was a schoolteacher from michigan who went over in a specially made barrel on her 63rd birthday! another interesting survivor to go over was a 7 year old boy who fell out of a boat upstream. he was wearing only a lifejacket & was rescued at the bottom by a maid of the mist boat.

got off the trolley & checked out the aquarium of niagara. small & old, but had a great seal show & the kids liked the magic show(odd to be at the aquarium, but hey.).

ate some lunch & headed out for the 379 mile trip to east dummerstown, vermont at 2:45.

stopped in bennington, vt for a geocache in the cemetary where 6 vermont governors & poet robert frost are buried. the road from here was windy, hilly (through the green mountain national forest) and included 2 covered bridges!

arrived at our campground about 9:45. happy day for sure!

tomorrow we're off to maine.
blessings,
the simmonds family

Day 1-fishers to niagara falls. ny

departed fishers at 5:45 am!
made 5 stops and arrived at niagara falls north koa at 3:15pm.
we set up camp, cooked chicken on the grill & headed to see the falls by 5:00.

purchased our discover niagara passes & started out with a boat ride on the maid of the mist. our handy dandy blue ponchos kept us mostly dry. it was a great, up close look at the falls. the little people really liked the observation tower as well, though it was super windy.

next we walked over rainbow bridge to canada! our kids are now international travelers! we must say, the canadian side is quite the tourist trap. clifton hill was a wacky international, commerialized spot. most certainly a destination for many. we saw many people from many places speaking many languages. a pretty garden & a look over the side & we headed back to good ole USA--after paying a $.50 toll each! you'd think citizens would be free!

International travelers on the US/Canada border at rainbow bridge

we had a tasty, yet overpriced dinner at the 'twist of the mist' restaurant--a recommendation by the border patrol. dinner entertainment was luke's frequent and spontaneous war cries & chase of the pesky begging seagulls. a chocolate cone & a vanilla cone & we were headed back to the falls to visit goat island. we rode the trolley over to the island, checked out the visitor center & waited at prospect point for the fireworks celebrating Canada day.

long day, but a fun one. back to the campsite where we all fell asleep quickly!

blessings,
simmonds family

maine adventure...

we're taking off on tuesday, july 1 for our 2nd annual summer adventure.

here's the plan...
july 1 drive to niagara falls, ny
see the falls lit up at night, fireworks for canada day
july 2 see more of niagara falls in daylight!
drive to brattleboro, Vermont
july 3 drive to lamoine state park in maine
july 4 see Bar Harbor/acadia
july 5 see acadia national park
july 6 see acadia national park
july 7 fun times in acadia area
july 8 drive coastline to mystic, ct avoiding boston
july 9 drive to hershey, pa avoiding nyc
july 10 play in hershey, pa
july 11 drive to fishers, in

see you when we return: pray for safe travels, we have no hospital visits, gas prices to go down, we get along!, seeing some wonderful pieces of God's creation!
blessings,
liz

science fair...

rachel wanted to do it. matt thought she should. i did not.

of 7 second grade classes, only 5 students did projects. rachel placed third. :) yipee! i'm happy for her. i sucked at science fair projects. she did most of the work & learned something.

way to go girl!
mama

it's cookie time...

some of my favorite cookies are girl scout cookies. they are the first cookies i remember eating. they may not have been, but they are the ones i remember first. thin mints. my dad taught me the value of storing them in the freezer to 1. make them last longer & 2. they are quite tasty frozen. what a great feeling to be looking for something in the freezer in the late summer and find a sleeve of thin mints. yummy!

great, now i'm craving them & they won't come till february! now that's a lesson in patience. i can make it! in our consumer driven/immediate gratification society, we really don't have to wait long for much. sometimes the things we wait for are the best. or we appreciate them more. we waited a long time for a child and now we are so thankful (most of the time) (no really, all the time) for our 2 kiddos. i waited a long time to hear God telling me what i was supposed to do in my life(this one is really all my fault. he was there, but i wasn't listening). sometimes it's our fault we have to wait and sometimes it's just how it is. maybe we should be more thankful for what we have.

my gram died this week. she wasn't married until she was 24. in 1938 that was pretty old. she hadn't found the right guy. then she and grandpa decided to get married. they had to wait for him to make some money & find a place to live and such--they waited 3 months. about a year ago, i found the letters he wrote to her from june to september. they were married sept 2nd. they had to wait. they didn't tell anyone they were planning to get married. they eloped!

it was so fun to finally be able to read them. gram said i had to wait until she was gone because she'd be too embarassed if i read them while she was alive. (how cute is that?) the letters were beautiful declarations of his love for her and his desire for her to be his wife and about the plans for their life together. he wrote about how hard it was to wait, but that he knew it was the right thing.

we are to wait upon the Lord. we don't know how long it will be, but we're to keep busy whilst we wait. grampa had to earn some money and take care of some things while he waited. we need to be getting busy chasing after Jesus and letting other people know what great things God has done for us while we wait until our time to be in heaven. we have to make the most of our time on earth. it will help the time pass till we get to spend eternity with God in heaven. that's where gram is now. i'm thankful for the assurance of her salvation. don't wait too long. you never know the day you'll meet Jesus. until that day: get busy! there's lots of room in heaven & God wants us all to be there.

anyhow, now rachel is a brownie & selling cookies. she enjoys selling them. me not so much. but her troop gets a portion of the money and that helps them do fun things. so, i'll buy some. if you want some, see rachel (or let me know).

new ones this year: lemon sandwich cookies & sugar free chocolate chip.
gone: the nasty brownie cookie from last year
perennial favorites: trefoils, samoas tagalongs & thin mints.

blessings,liz

ps. my roomate freshman year of college had never had a girl scout cookie in her life. there's just something wrong with that.

funny/favorite things said in 2007

thought i would wrap up the past year with a refresher of funny and/or favorite things said in our family.

10. luke about our yellowstone trip. 'the badlands are bad because it's hot there'

9. luke on dec 31. 'i want the good old days to come back' (then something about a picture from when he was 4 and it was the good old days, but matt & i were laughing too hard to hear.)

8. rachel coined a new term. 'air hug' for when you can't actually get close enough for a real hug

7. matt to me in midsummer 'i'm so thankful that you aren't a high-maintenance wife!'

6. rachel during the 2nd week of school. 'second grade is harder than first grade!' (yep, that's sort of how it works.)

5. luke when he's avoiding going to bed makes multiple trips into our room. the last time usually included him flashing the sign language sign for i love you with both hands and saying
'double love'. (a nice thing to go to bed to.)

4. me to luke one night. 'no punching kerbatchi' (kerbatchi is his imaginary friend!) silly mama!

3. matt to me in february. 'i had a dream that we were camping in yellowstone. i think we need to buy a popup camper and go this summer.' (in less than 2 weeks we had a camper & this blog was started to chronicle our trip.) thanks for remembering your dream!

2. by the family 'Xtreme Chaos!' we do a little team cheer after finding a geocache. another new hobby for 2007. gets us out of the house & to interesting locations around us.

1. by luke and rachel. 'you're the bestest mama & daddy in the whole world'. (while that claim is debatable, we're thankful they love us & think we're the bestest.)

hope 2008 brings many great adventures!
blessings,
liz