Connecticut

 

You all may remember when we told you we were going to Connecticut…and how we  came back and told you nothing about it 😀    We are just slow…kind of like all the pictures from our trip out East we promised you.  We haven’t forgotten about that either 😀

So here you go…lots and lots of pictures from when we took a trip out to see our wonderful friends in CT again.

We girls wanted to get on the road as soon as possible…our goal was 6:30 but we left somewhere around 7:00…which isn’t too terribly bad.

When you’re driving for 18 hours, the camera becomes entertainment…you wouldn’t believe all the crazy pictures we have of two or three people just making faces at the camera.  But I will spare you those and show you these instead 😀

 

At a rest stop eating lunch 😀

 

 

Susannah and Noah

I like the angle of this picture 😀  I see Leah  has a rice crispie treat…we made lots of those for snacks on the way over.  Looks like Anna has one, too!

 

For supper, we ate our taco salad on the road because we wanted to get to our friends’ house as soon as possible! We spent about an hour eating lunch at a rest stop, and we didn’t want to waste that much time again 😀

Mommy is driving, Lucy our GPS who was directing us, Bear who often was Lucy’s pillow to keep her from sliding around, and I was texting someone…probably our friends in CT, telling them how far away we were (-:

We made it!!!  It was about 11:30 p.m. when we arrived and we didn’t get any pictures that night, but we were SO glad to be there, SO glad to see our wonderful friends again, and so glad to be out of the van!

Laura and Charissa, wearing matching jumpers…they were like two peas in a pod, and whenever they wore their matching outfits, we had trouble telling who was who when they were turned around 😀 Charissa made Laura’s jumper, as well as her cute little kitty bag 🙂

There were always people talking, playing, visiting…I don’t know that it ever got quiet unless we were sleeping 😀    Once Kelley, Leah and I got back before everyone else when we went to church, and it was so quiet, I was glad when everyone came back to bring back some noise!  Cassia’s holding Andrew, and some of us in the back of the picture are playing Scattergories 😀

Leah, Kelley, Allison and I were playing Skip-Bo  🙂  That game is so much fun 🙂

More visiting, talking, eating… 😀



What little boys do best!  Joseph and Isaiah got along quite well 😀  One day I woke up and came upstairs to find both of my brothers helping Joseph chase the girls with guns that shot soft foam pellets…my, but they were having fun 😀  I love watching little boys play!

A little more ladylike…Charissa and Laura playing…Old Maid?!  I think that’s what it was.

Scott, Colleen & Cassia (the twins..they’re so much alike!) Anna, and Kelley and I 🙂

The moms who started it all!  If it weren’t for them emailing, our families wouldn’t have known each other 😀

 

Scott showing Colleen and Cassia something interesting…at one time he kept us entertained with shark stories he had read about, all in a book about shark attacks 😀  Which led to looking up pictures of sharks on the laptop, which also led to snakes.  He brought up a video of ‘the longest snake in the world’, and at the end we girls actually screamed! It didn’t matter that it was inside the computer, we still screamed, lol!  😀  And of course, then we find out it was a joke video all along…oh well…it was fun getting scared I guess 😀

 

 

While we were there we got to meet a very sweet friend of our friends 😀  It was fun having Hannah there and getting to visit and play games with her 😀

Sweet little Andrew…between his aunts and uncles, real and adopted, he never lacked for attention!

Ticket to Ride, a new game we played while we were there 😀  If you ever get the chance to play, it’s a lot of fun.

This was a fun picture I got of Leah…I was trying to take a picture of the snow outside on the deck (it snowed about 3 inches while we were there!).  It looks like Leah is a ‘giant’ and like she’s using the house as a cabinet or something 😀

 

Some of the girls also played Chess with Scott.  He was giving them lessons in it, too 😀  I think they enjoyed that.

Allison and Anna…also so much alike 😀  How could two families have so many people who are so alike?!  There were so many times as we were at their church, or out and about, people asked if Mommy and ‘Auntie Jen’ were sisters, or if we were cousins 😀  It sure was fun!

Oh yes…and Auntie Jen said that it isn’t ‘anty Jen’, but Auntie Jen 😀  Here always call our aunts, ‘ant’, but not so in Connecticut 😀

 

 

Another familiar sight…shoes and lots of them!

 

Here’s a picture of everyone helping Mr. S pull down a tree he is cutting.  That was a whole story in itself!  They helped pull down a couple of trees with no problem, but then one of them ended up being heavier than expected, and it started leaning towards the house!  Kelley, Susannah, Laura and I were at a bridal shower, but everybody else, even the moms, helped pull on the rope.   That is approximately 15 people 😀   They were pulling and praying and thankfully they were able to hold on until Mr. S got the rope hooked to a truck and pulled the tree safely away.  They didn’t start out with everybody out there on the rope, and they said every time they recruited new help, the newest helper didn’t realize just how serious it was until they got on the rope, too 😀

Some beautiful crocuses…the girls got a lot of good pictures of these!

 

 

We got to go on a walk that Sunday while we were there…it was so pretty!

 

I think we may have posted about these stone fences before, but we just love them!  They are everywhere and they are so quaint and old fashioned–so pretty!

 

Kelley and Leah

 

 

A picturesque old barn…so pretty!

This one is kind of a blurred picture, but it shows everyone in the group–Leah, Colleen, Kelley, Cassia, Susannah and Anna.  I was behind the camera that time.

 

Loved the green against the perfect blue sky!

More of those lovely stone fences!  I used to wonder why people would take so much time to build these…it seemed like it would take a long time, but then I saw how stoney their fields and woods are, so I figured that it was actually a way to get them out of the way 😀  Besides the fact that they look so nice!

When we got back, some of the girls and the boys were out playing tag 😀

Rebekah had her birthday while we were there 😀  Our friends were so nice as to make her a yummy cake and bought 7 kinds of ice cream 😀

 Dishing out the ice cream…

Bekah, opening her gifts 😀  This one was a collage of animal pictures from Laura (right).  Bekah loves animals!

I love the look on Isaiah’s face…

Bekah with her new purple jumper from Leah, and once again, I love the boys’ expressions!

 

Joseph, writing in one of our visual journals 😀  They were all so kind to sign their names or write little notes in our journals, and we wrote some in theirs, too 😀

Kelley, Andrew and I 😀  It was wonderful having Kelley there all of the time, since she and Scott now have their own little apartment in her parent’s basement 😀  We got to stay up late and visit ever so much more than last time!

Alas!  We had to leave!  We were all very sad to go, but knew that we had a huge drive ahead of us.  I think we left at around 8:30 a.m.  Connecticut is so hilly!  We flat-landers kept popping our ears because of the pressure on them from going up and down some of their hills 😀

Waterbury…where some of our ancestors lived at one time 😀

I love how these houses are all kind of ‘stacked’ on top of each other.  With so many hills it really looks that way 🙂  It kind of reminds me of paintings I’ve seen.

One of the bridges we crossed.  We love bridges!

 

Once again, I love the look of these houses and the hills…it looks so New England-ish…I wonder why?!

 On the way home we got to have a delicious supper with the N. family again–we almost felt like we were on our East Trip in reverse 😀  It was wonderful to get out and stretch and have such a yummy supper.   We had what we girls now call ‘Ohio tacos’, since we had them in Ohio, but it was basically a build-it-yourself-taco salad with taco sauce, sour cream, and all kinds of goodies!

We arrived home at 4:00 in the morning, with Mommy and I taking turns driving–everyone was sleeping and when Isaiah got up and we told him to get ready for bed, he said, “Can I just wait until it’s bedtime?”  It is bedtime dear!  Right now! 😀

So there you have it…okay, almost all of it.  Another thing we did with our friends in Connecticut was play our own version of “Chopped”…just like the TV show, with real food and everything!  But that has quite a few pictures in itself, so that will be a separate post 😀  Be on the lookout for it!

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