Because Jeremy's job has landed us in the Northeast, we want to take full advantage of the opportunity to experience New England and all there is to do here. So, for our family vacation we decided to head four hours north to the mountain town of Stowe, VT. This town is at the base of Mt. Mansfield, one hour south of Canada and full of adventure for just about everyone! We arrived on Monday with plans to leave on Thursday but after the first two hours in Stowe, we decided to bump our stay to Friday because we were having so much fun already! Here's a recap of the week with a couple of pictures from each day......
We left our house at 9:30 a.m. in order to make our 3:00 reservation at
Gentle Giants for an hour carriage ride. Here we were with Jack. Fiona got to sit up front with Mr. Scottie our driver.
There is Mt. Mansfield and if you look closely you can see several of the ski runs.
After returning to the park, Jack was rewarded with three carrots. Here is Lincoln feeding his to Jack.
We then drove to the
Brass Lantern Inn where we stayed for the week. This was the best Bed & Breakfast Jeremy and I have ever stayed at. The owners, Mr. George and Mrs. Mary Ann were so wonderful and awesome with our kiddos! The breakfasts were out of this world! Our room was big, clean and perfect for the five of us. And they had so many fun things to do in the house and outside that we were never bored or in want of entertainment. In fact, Scarlett said one day that she hadn't played with the iPad all week because she was having sooooo much fun!
Here's Lincoln perfecting his game of bocce ball.
Every afternoon at 4:00 until 8:00 p.m. there was a fresh plate of homemade cookies, hot tea, lemonade and ice water sitting in the dining room. Here are the two little ones enjoying this special treat on our first day. We enjoyed this special treat EVERY day!
Jeremy and Fiona played rounds of horseshoes. They both were pretty good. I, on the other hand, well lets just say that you never quite knew where mine were going to end up!
Scarlett fell in love with ping pong....this was far from a regulation size table so it was a bit challenging but we played this for hours and hours and hours!
To end the day, we ate dinner at a mexican restaurant in town called Fridas, which was really good!
TUESDAY!!!
Here we are at our first of four A-mazing breakfasts prepared by Mr. George! Fresh fruit, omelets to order, walnut muffins and juice was this day's menu....So Good! We ate indoors on this morning but the rest of the week we ate our breakfasts outside on the patio...made breakfasts even that much more enjoyable!
We then headed to
Eden Dogsledding for a morning of dogsledding-on-wheels (since there's no snow). Probably the coolest thing we've done! Linc. was a little, ok - a lot, nervous so we held him most of the morning, but the girls jumped right in with lovin' on the dogs, putting on their harnesses, hooking them to the line, giving them treats and cooling them down after our run. Here we are with six of our nine dogs that were on our team. They bring them in two at a time so you can get used to them and they to you. Unlike my children, they got to climb all over the couches! These dogs were the most friendly, affectionate, loving dogs! Of course, Fiona thought we needed one after this experience was over!
Scarlett was harnessing up Phyllis.
Fiona was helping hook in Maski and Phyllis to the line.
We were all set to go! Jeremy and I swapped out every 7 minutes, everyone else got to ride the whole time. Our guide was Andy.
Lily, Lucky, Fusilli, Brain, Phyllis, Maski, Hosta, Abbie & Leonard could not WAIT to run! You can see them lunging forward, they were barking and howling like crazy!! They were super excited!
These dogs are Alaskan Huskies and their ideal temperatures to run in is 0 to -20 degrees. Today was in the mid 80's so they were HOT! They love running though and would go until they passed out if they weren't stopped. Here they got to cool down, drink some water and eat some kibble before hooking back onto the line for the last part of our little journey. If you ever get the chance to experience this, I would highly recommend it! What a blast!!
After dogsledding-on-wheels, it was past lunch. We decided to tour and enjoy "lunch" at
Cold Hollow, a cider mill in town. All of our items being displayed here were made right there and they contained apple, therefore they were nutritious!
After our oh-so-healthy "lunch", we drove a mile down the road to tour and indulge in our afternoon snack at
Ben and Jerry's. We got a small glimpse into how they make their ice cream and we got to sample the day's flavor.....Chocolate Nougat Crunch....would recommend! And because that wasn't enough, we each got a scoop of more ice cream at the ice cream shoppe located as you exit the tour!
After dinner, we tried out the hot tub on the back porch, which looked out onto the Green Mountains.
WEDNESDAY!
After another fantastic breakfast, we were energized for our day of hiking. We started out going to Moss Glen Falls. This was our first little break on the way back through the forrest. Jeremy is teaching the kids to skip rocks. There were tons of perfect-for-skipping rocks here.
We then decided it was time to cool off, so all the shoes and socks came off and everyone jumped in - Geesh, it was COLD! Can you tell by their faces?
And here are the Moss Glen Falls. Pictures don't do it justice, absolutely beautiful! It starts at the top of this picture but you can't tell with all the shading from the trees.
And this swimming hole was at the bottom of the falls. The kids had a blast splashing around in freezing cold, crystal clear, mountain fresh water!
We had another late lunch at the Snack Bar....little shack along the road with Creamies - - - another word for soft serve ice cream. It was in the 90's today so this hit the spot!
After refueling from lunch, we headed to Sterling Gorge. This is another water fall, and it was gorgeous too! Here we are at the bottom of it....attempting a family photo. I set the camera on a rock about 10 feet in front of us and had a game plan to hop on four rocks sticking out of the water, jump up on this rock and smile for the camera before it snapped in 10 seconds. As you can tell, my foot slipped and I nearly pulled two other family members into the water with me! My knee slammed into that unforgiving rock and I've got a lovely bruise and scab as a result! It made for a great laugh though, after I got feeling back in my shin!
Another shot from the bottom of Sterling Gorge. It was getting to be late afternoon, so we headed back to the B&B, showered, ate dinner and the kids crashed!
THURSDAY!!!
Lincoln had been a bit scared on Wednesday of the possibility of seeing bears. Mrs. Mary Ann came up with this bell necklace for him to help "scare away" the bears. He was much more confident today and took his job very seriously! He also found three rocks at the bottom of our 2.2 mile, 900' elevation climb that he wanted to carry the entire way up so that he could throw them in the pond. There were a trillion other rock along our entire journey but these three made it to the top and are now sitting at the bottom of Sterling Pond!
And this is Sterling Pond....Gorgeous!! The view was definitely worth the hike.
Lincoln climbed the entire 900' elevation without one complaint. On the way down though, he was pretty tuckered out so he went down the mountain as Daddy's backpack.
As if our 4 mile morning hike wasn't enough, we decided to do a 10 mile ride that afternoon. We rented bikes and traveled the Recreational Path that runs along a brook at the base of the mountain. It actually reminded us of the golf cart paths we miss in Peachtree City, GA. Here are Fiona and I going over one of the bridges.
Jeremy got a major work-out on the 1st half of the trip...all up hill and pulling these two.
Here was his reward at the end of the five mile, up hill trip....cooling off in the mountain stream.
Well, that sums up the week. Jeremy, Fiona and I are all in agreement that this was the best family vacation we've had thus far! We had a very full week with getting exercise, enjoying God's creation, spending quality time together as a family and creating priceless memories but there is so much more to do in Stowe....both summer and winter. If you ever want to make the trip with us, we'll be going back and would love to take you too!
