Sunday, September 1, 2013

End of Summer Vacation

We decided to take a short end-of-summer vacation to New Hampshire. We left on Thursday and head to Storyland, a small theme park in Glen, NH. What a great place! It is totally created for young children and families. MFG had the best time!

If you go after 3pm, you can stay until they close and you can go back the next day for free, so that is exactly what we did!

Let's see...where should we go first?

The merry-go-round, of course!


Next we took the Pumpkin Coach ride up to Cinderella's castle


Francie was a little nervous to meet Cinderella in person, but she admired her from afar and wanted to take our picture with her :)

Then we rode the Flying Shoes (these are based on Wynken, Blynken and Nod)

The shoes were a big hit! I think we rode these 3 times

Next were the Twirling Turtles - these spun so fast!

Happy family riding the train back to the entrance since the park was closing

The drive to our hotel took about 30 minutes and was a gorgeous ride through the mountains



 We stayed at the Mount Washington Hotel - what an amazing place!




We checked out the river before dinner



We had a great dinner and Francie and Daddy took a late night swim in the hotel pool. No nap and up until 10pm - our girl is a trooper!

The next morning, this little lady was up early and ready for Day 2 at Storyland

One of the first things she wanted to do was go back to a game we did the day before to try again to win a prize. Here she is holding up her prize

Riding the Whirling Whales - you can tell she loves it!

Posing in Cinderella's coach

Spinning in Alice's Teacups with Daddy

There was a play area based on nursery rhymes that she loved







She also drove the antique car (We waited for a pink one, of course)


It was getting hot, so we let her get an icy treat

She wanted to get her face painted and asked to get a pink kitten. She sat so still!

So excited about her face paint!


One happy girl!

We rode all of the rides including the roller coaster and the flume ride! She loved them all. Storyland is awesome!

We stopped for ice cream on the way back to the hotel

We had dinner in the dining room at the hotel that night and MFG thought it was very special!
 They made her a special pink dessert

And she owned the dance floor!




The next day, we headed to Franconia Notch to go hiking at the Flume Gorge
Our little hiker was ready to hit the trail!


The was a covered bridge as we headed to the trail

The hike follows a river upstream through a steep gorge - it was beautiful!

You walk up these wooden walkways and stairs to get to the waterfall at the top



The waterfall at the top 

She did it!

The view back down the gorge - you can see how we got up there

 Checking out the huge waterfall

From there, we still had about a mile and a half hike through the woods
Francie loved taking pictures 

Another covered bridge over the river

Looking at the view from the covered bridge


MFG did a great job and hiked on her own until about the last half mile and then she rode on Daddy's shoulders 

After our hike, we went to the Tilton Diner, one of our favorite stops in New Hampshire. We took MFG there 3 summers ago!

2010 and 2013

We got home just in time for a big family beach party at Phillips Beach complete with s'mores

A great end to our end of summer vacation!!


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