road trip around New England

 Spencer and I had a few reasons to plan this road trip around New England...
1- we're moving in the fall and don't know when we'll be back to the East Coast
2- Memorial Day weekend was coming up and Spencer hadn't used any of his days off
3- our 10 year anniversary was June 1st and our original destination wasn't possible (mostly because it hasn't been built yet).

 Hats off to my dad who has been planning our family trips for years and years. He's probably planned over 100 trips. Proper vacation planning is hard work.  It took me hours to figure out what route we should take, what sights we wanted to see, how long each would take, where we'd be for each meal and what fabulous restaurants shouldn't be missed. I'll be honest and let you know I spent the most time looking up restaurant reviews and locations. Plus, I had to make sure there was a Marriott at every stop since we were using all Spencer's Marriott Rewards on our hotels. I have a hard life huh???

 Hi Delaware! You were our first state and were so small we blew right through you.

 To make this semi-educational, yet still fun (my constant goal with homeschooling) I printed off 2 handouts for each state. One with the state outline to color in and another with a picture of the state bird, state flower, info about the state and the state flag. So, the kids have a little binder full of info and pictures about each state they've visited. They also have a little passport book that took me way too long to make where they can glue each state flag into it's proper spot when they visit the state.

 Hands up kids! We're going up the bridge! Some of those bridges were steep.

 My main (self-appointed) job on the road was to find the state signs. You would not believe how many I missed. I would look at every sign for 20 miles and then 100 feet from a state sign I'd get distracted and miss it. Most states we drove back through which gave me a second go-round.
On another note, some of these states need to put a little effort into their signs. Really Connecticut? That's the best you could come up with?

 Spencer drove everywhere. I ripped a contact early in the trip and am basically not fit to drive human beings around without it.

 Mystic Seaport, CT

 Ahhhhh... finally in Rhode Island. I have wanted to go here forever (like a year). Who doesn't want to visit such a cute, tiny state? It's just a weensy little speck on the map.

 About 4-5 minutes after entering the hotel room the girls both had their junk piles set up. My girls cannot live without a junk pile/drawer/box/bag...

 griffin thought he'd been starved to death and dug into the food. He was like a little gypsy in our hotels. He'd carry his little suitcase around the room trying to figure out where he was going to sleep that night (ummm... the floor bud).

 We spent the last hour of the day at a nearby playground to wear the kids out before bed.