The Queen's Rambles

We had a wonderful, relaxing, spectacular vacation. It’s funny how much I loved it, considering how little planning I did for it. Basically I decided to go to Boston and then realized Boston was near Rhode Island. RI sounds magical to me, so I wanted to stop by and see it, but then I discovered that there’s really nothing there. Mystic, CT, home of a great LJ friend (not sure if you want your name here if I say the name of the town!) was right there as well, so I kind of planned around that. Silly way to plan a vacation, but doesn’t the name “Mystic” sound like a place you must go if you get a chance?

Then my mom was supposed to go with us, so I discovered it is cheaper to get a beach house than two hotel rooms, only they didn’t have any opening in Mystic so we ended up staying in a little house in Niantic, CT. I don’t recommend Niantic as a tourist destination, but it was beyond wonderful to have our own house during this trip. As soon as we’d get home from the beach we could hose off and throw everything into the washing machine. We could cook as many meals as we liked, put the kids in bed and enjoy our evening, sit out on a private deck, drive down to the HOA private beach that hardly had any people using it. It was beyond fabulous. Even if it did smell like a stinky old lady.

The house itself was spacious, but it was obviously owned by an old grandma who died and the heirs decided to turn it into a beach home on the cheap. It needed a serious dusting and the smell needed to be cleaned up. I think it was caused by a mattress in the kid’s room. The first night I was very hesitant and ready to leave, but by the end I was sold on the vacation experience even if it was not a luxury home. I don’t think I am ever going to want to stay in a hotel again when I’m traveling with kids.

We wanted to break up the trip a little, so spent a day at Sesame Place. We all had a good time, but I sure am glad we were there on a weekday. It must be a complete madhouse on a weekend. We never saw Elmo, but did get a picture with Cookie Monster. Erik kept saying he loved the vampire best, and I kept telling him that Sesame Street doesn’t have vampires. Doh! The Count! I even let him buy a Count plush that he will never look at again. It was a decent souvenir, I suppose.

I was pretty nervous about visiting the beach because Elsa is a water baby and I am terrified of the ocean (so why take a beach vacation? I love the beach, just not the water). I was very relieved when I realized that our private HOA beach was extremely shallow. Erik could walk out to the ropes and only be up to his waist. The kids wore floaties and Mike went with them. They were never in any danger, though I was having some panic-attacky feelings when I saw my whole family out in the ocean.

When we weren’t at the beach, we were driving over to Mystic to do some touristy things. We tried to do touristy things in Niantic, but there was just nothing there but a few expensive shops. Children and expensive tourist shops don’t mix.

We went to the Mystic Aquarium. Shocker! I really enjoyed it. They had all the fish indoors, so you didn’t have to see them if you didn’t want to look. I had to stand against the wall and try not to have a freakin’ heart attack while the kids were in there. I had to tell myself that the tanks weren’t all going to break and the fish weren’t going to swarm to me. Thankfully the kids weren’t that into the fish.

There were lots of other cool things, though. They had beluga whales, a sea lion show, penguins, a sting ray petting pool and a 4D Sponge Bob movie. We also saw a Titanic exhibit that the kids rushed through (I probably could have spent a significant portion of the day in it) and a big canary house where you could feed the birds. The kids loved that one. I think the belugas were my favorites of the day.

We also visited Mystic Seaport. I had no idea what it was and we almost didn’t go, but my friend’s husband works there so I wanted to check it out. I’m so glad we did! It was a little historic seaport with all kinds of hand-on activities. It had a very full schedule. In fact, there were so many things to do we couldn’t do everything. We were going to go back the next day (tickets are good for two days) but ran out of time.

They had a small troop of actors who went around doing little plays. They needed volunteers for two of the plays, so you know Erik was all up in there, thinking he was the star of the show. He’s a born actor.

We had a chance to meet up with my LJ friend and eat at Mystic Pizza. I know I saw the movie when I was a teen, but I don’t remember it at all. The pizza was really good and the company was even better. It was so fun to meet my friend and her family. Our boys are just a couple of months apart and very similiar in so many ways. They took to each other right away and now Erik has a plot to have them move into our neighborhood. There’s a house for sale, after all!

Her daughter reminded her so much of me. Very serious, and very tired of her younger sibling. Ha! She was smitten with Elsa, but Elsa was having none of it. People she didn’t know looking at her? The horrors!

Mike enjoyed getting to know her husband, or maybe he just enjoyed speaking Swedish with another love immigrant.

I was hoping to add some pics to this post, but Flickr is not letting me upload so that will have to wait for tomorrow. If you’re on my FB, you’ve probably already seen them anyway.

Guess I better get to bed. Back to reality tomorrow. Camp is over, so we’re going to have three long weeks of Erik claiming boredom.