My Week Through Instagram

I feel like a couple of weeks have been packed into this last one. We did so much! Let’s start with a typical morning…

Samantha generally gets up with the sun. She just can’t fathom opening her eyes, seeing that the sun is out and going back to sleep. For her that’s just ridiculous. Luckily, she’s finally at an age where she doesn’t (always) wake me up the second she gets up. Instead, she’s been making incredibly detailed drawings. One of my favorites is this mermaid she made this week (she’s still in sea creature mode from our trip to the aquarium). It’s currently framed and sitting on top of our bookshelf.

Then there’s Ellie. I like it when she finds herself in places like this. At least she’s contained…

When she’s not contained, she’s in places like this. We can no longer keep chairs around any of our tables when she’s loose. If you turn your back for a second, she pulls out a chair and stands on the table with a devilish grin.

On Friday, we went to Jumpin’ Jeepers (which is more or less a big indoor playground) with our friends. The kids had a blast. This is Ellie with her buddy Caroline.

And here she is going for a ride with her future boyfriend, Benny. The big girls were too busy running around like maniacs to get a picture.

Later that night we went to our friends’ house for a game night to celebrate Chris’ birthday. How awesome is this cake Janine’s coworker made for Chris?!

On Saturday the girls and I went to lunch with my mom. Since I usually show pictures of the mess Miss Elyssa makes of herself, I thought I’d show a shot of the mess she makes of me. This is her tomato sauce hand print on my jeans.

On Sunday, the girls and I headed out to Long Island for the first stop on our mini-getaway: my in-law’s house. This is Samantha getting serious with her bubble wand while ready for spying action with a new pair of old binoculars from her Papa.

She also got to play cards and get some cuddle time with her Uncle Colin (though their last game of Old Maid was highly contested).

The next morning we headed out to East Hampton, where my husband’s aunts have an amazing house. I have way too few pictures of the fun we had there, but that’s mostly because I spent a lot of  my time making sure my little animal was safe. Samantha did a lot of swimming (and blowing water out of pool noodles) while Ellie enjoyed throwing things into the pool for her sister to fetch.

We also wandered around town and through Sag Harbor. Samantha’s absolute favorite stop (aside from the ice cream place in East Hampton) was a sea shell store in Sag Harbor. She could have spent all day in there.

We also fell in love with this wall of vintage handkerchiefs in the house’s master bedroom. This shot does it absolutely no justice. The entire wall is filled with framed handkerchiefs that Eileen picked out. It is seriously amazing and has me and Samantha thinking of similar things we can do in our own house.

Related articles

• My Week Through Instagram: Getaway Edition (atouchoflovely.wordpress.com)
• And We’re Off! (atouchoflovely.wordpress.com)

And We’re Off!

Paperfashion

I didn’t think we’d be able to do it this summer, but the girls and I are headed out on another little getaway! This time the hubs is staying home (he has to work, boooo) and we’re going out to East Hampton to hang with his mom and aunts for a couple of days.

My Week Through Instagram: Getaway Edition

So we finally took that little getaway I’ve been hoping for! It was just a short 3-hour car ride and a one-night stay in Mystic, Connecticut, but it was just what the doctor ordered. We had a blast.

We loaded everything into the car–including tons of activities for the perenially bored Samantha (who is recently obsessed with the Frankly, Frannie book series)–and were on the road by 7:30 on Tuesday morning. While we finished packing up Sam ran around the house singing “Vacation’s all I ever wanted, vacation time to get away” all morning (thank you, Chipwrecked).

There was no sleeping during the car ride but the ladies were all smiles (score!).

After Sam told us a bunch of facts about dolphins from a new book she got, Ellie decided to check things out for herself. Apparently she’s reeeeeally talented at reading upside down.

Our first stop was Mystic Aquarium, where Samantha’s excitement was contagious. This is her touching the glass as a beluga whale swims by. She thought it was pretty much the coolest thing ever.

We also saw everything from penguins (which she’s checking out here) and jelly fish to sharks and a sea lion show. The sea lions “competed” against each other, doing tricks like seeing who could bark the loudest and who could retrieve items from the pool the fastest. Samantha loved every second of it. Ellie was pretty amazed too.

After we saw everything at the aquarium, we headed to lunch at Friendly’s (Sam swears they make the best grilled cheese in the world) and then to our hotel. We hung out there for awhile, exploring, and swimming in the pool. Ellie even took a little nap (those are her toes!) before we headed out to dinner.

We decided on a place in town called Voodoo Grill. It was soooo good. We got alligator bites as an appetizer and somehow got our pickiest eater (that would be Sam) to try them. OK, so we bribed her with $4, but still. She tried them and she liked them!Elyssa loved them too–shocker, right?

I got their chicken wrap and Tim got the gumbo. It was all so delicious! Afterwards, we took a walk through town where we window shopped, listened to a band play on the water, and got some ice cream. It was an absolutely perfect day.

On Wednesday we woke up, had breakfast at the hotel and did a little swimming before heading over to Mystic Seaport. It was brutally hot out (even at 10am), but we still checked out the Children’s Museum (that’s Samantha doing laundry there), saw a show at the (airconditioned!) planetarium, and checked out a ship from the 1800s. Sam also printed a book cover at their little Art Spot and dipped candles.

When we were hot, tired, and had exhausted most of our options, we headed towards town to find some lunch. After making a couple of stops and not finding any food on the menu that Samantha would eat, we decided on Bravo, Bravo. The food was great and Ellie did a little happy dance with every bite of Sam’s pizza she ate.

We had a great time and I’m already itching to plan our next getaway. Any suggestions?

Take Me Away

My husband and I have been talking about taking a little summer vacation for the last couple of years but have yet to actually act on it. We’ve spoken about it recently and I’ve decided that this is the year we’re definitely going on a mini-getaway with our girlies.

To make sure this happens, I’ve decided I need to stop talking about it and start planning. I thought a great place to start was by asking you guys for affordable recommendations in the northeast. We live in NY and aren’t planning on going very far, basically a car trip and a few days away.

All this thinking about vacations definitely has me romanticizing the idea (click the photos for sources).

Let’s get real though. A family vacation will probably look a little more like the picture below than any of the pretty little photos above. Lots of togetherness generally leads to getting pretty sick of one another, no?

To be honest, I’d be perfectly happy with something in between perfectly blissful and choking each other in frustration.

What do you like to do on vacation? Are there any spots that you’re particularly fond of? Do you have any good family vacation stories that will make the rest of us feel better about our experiences? Share it all below!