To kick off the holiday season, we travelled up to Newport, RI to visit Erin, Mark and the kids. As usual a good time was had by all. Not shown in the pictures is the suped-up, tricked-out Chevy HHR that served as our rental car. Imagine a PT Cruiser on steroids. Not a terrible car, but the windshield was designed for drivers who are 5'4'' or shorter. I had a hard time seeing stoplights without leaning forward.
Anyway, the weekend started as it always does in Newport; playtime with the nieces and nephews. Erin gave Kira some tips on playing man-to-man defense, and Graham gave us all some lessons on how to ride a scooter. He's pretty good for a 3 year old. Then it was on to a local farm/orchard to pick apples. We were a bit late in the season, but there were still plenty of apples to choose from. It literally took about 20 seconds for the girls to fill our one $15 all-you-can-fit sack full of apples. Graham, in a display of his ever increasing testosterone levels, entertained himself by stomping on the rotten apples on the ground. Erin used some of the apples to make an apple crisp for that night's dessert.
After the orchard, it was off to the bowling alley located on base. I must say it was one of the cleanest and newer looking bowling alleys we'd seen in a long time. Bowling has come a long way in the past 20 years. Back when I was young, if you weren't strong enough to roll the ball all the way down the lane, bowling was not much fun. Now they've taken the frustration out of it for the younger kids by adding metal ramps that help get the ball moving. Genius!! At the end of the game, they even provide stats for each bowler, including the average speed for your first and second rolls. Very high tech. For the record, Erin was able to outbowl her husband, but fell just a few pins shy of her kid brother.
We also celebrated Kira's birthday during our visit. You can see her tossing her new polar bear up in the air. For her present, we adopted a real polar bear in her name from the Defenders of Wildlife. They help protect polar bears in the Arctic Circle (and other endangered species around the world). Each adopting parent receives a picture of a polar bear, plus a stuffed animal. Kira named her adopted bear Snowflake.
We had some arts and crafts time after dinner, as each kid got to assemble their new paper bag puppets. Kira's puppet was a monkey, Madeline got a frog, and Graham got a lobster. The kids had a blast putting them together, especially Graham. Graham met a friend at a seafood restaurant one day who he named Mr. Lobster. Mr. Lobster consisted of the lobster tail shell that Graham's cousin had ordered for lunch, and who Graham played with throughout the entire meal. Needless to say, he was very excited to get to play with his pal Mr. Lobster again. Madeline is shown with her newly completed Frog.
Madeline had a gymnastics meet on Sunday up in Massachusetts. Unfortunately we couldn't make the trip up for it, so Madeline gave us a preview of her floor routine in the living room. Very graceful and very cute. She also tried to show me some of her stretches. I guess at 30 you're not as limber as when you're 8 because I literally could not move.
Sunday morning, Elin and I headed out to tour the Vanderbilt's "summer cottage" called the Breakers. The "cottage" consisted of 73 rooms (27 of which are bathrooms), a carriage house, ample lawns/gardens and a view of the Atlantic Ocean. 99% of the furnishings on display were actually owned and used by the Vanderbilt's when they lived there (the 1% consisted of the copper pots hanging up in the kitchen) . Lucky for us, they had just decorated for Christmas the day before we arrived. It was quite an awesome sight to behold: bath tubs cut from slabs of marble, faucets for both salt and fresh water, walls lined with gold and platinum, and a special room just to prepare the daily floral arrangements. The kitchen was bigger than our apartment!!
We weren't allowed to take photos inside the mansion, so Elin scoured the internet looking for some indoor shots. These pics don't do the Breakers justice- if you are ever in Newport, you need to go on a tour of the Breakers to see it in person.
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