Highland Games at Loon Mountain

We were in NH last weekend and the autumn season is already wrapping up and the trees are ready for winter. However, we've had some great weekends there over the last couple of months I want to share with you.

In mid September, we had a great reason to go up and spend the weekend there, the annual Highland Games at Loon Mountain. Mike and I have wanted to go to this festival since the first year we bought our condo over 7 years ago. Somehow though, we've never actually made it there. This year we had an excellent excuse not to miss it - we knew a performer! Mike's brother in law, Joe, was competing in the bag pipe competitions and staying at our place for the weekend, as well as niece Emily.

We all went up Friday night and were up and ready to go to the festival first thing Saturday morning. Joe and Emily went before us. We left later, parked on some of the off site parking and took the shuttle to the mountain. 

It was a really cold morning and we felt under dressed. We weren't too worried because the forecast promised that we would be warming up quickly. Only problem was that the forecast was seriously wrong. The sun never made it from behind the clouds, the temperature never went up and we even had some good Scottish like mist We were FREEZING the whole day! We seriously spent the whole day cuddling up to each other and trying to share each others warmth. For that reason, there weren't a lot of opportunity for pictures. And the cold also drove our decision on what to get for a souvenir - a nice, warm, wool, tartan blanket! It was a life saver.

The coolest part of the day (other than the weather), was watching the pipes and drums band march and play down the mountain. It was quite a site. Then we watched them march into the arena, play and march out.

That's Joe in the center of this picture.

After they played we went to watch some of the "heavy athletics" competition. That basically means a whole bunch of guys in kilts throwing heavy stuff. We cuddled up under the blanket and watched the disabled competition (I started to feel my toes again at this point). It was pretty impressive to see guys with prosthetic legs and partial limbs toss a 20 some odd pound rock.

Me and the Boys Snuggling (that's our new blanket over Cade's arm)

Dylan "Falling" Off the Train

And here you can see his cute face.

Despite the cold, it was a pretty awesome experience for all. After the games, we went to a potluck at Joe's band's rental condo and the boys played at the indoor pool with Emily. Cade was able to "swim" around solo with his floaty back and forth between Mike and Emily. Yay Cade!

Cade, Emily, Dylan

Emily and Cade

Joe's individual competition was on Sunday. Mike had to head back to Massachusetts for his soccer game and Joe and Emily left early to warm up. That left with me solo with the boys.

Now, this might sound silly, but I was pretty proud of myself taking the boys to an event like this solo. Mike and I are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel of baby stuff and life seems to be getting just a wee bit easier in many subtle ways.  Little things like Dylan being able to dress himself, open his car door and partially buckle himself and his brother in the car seat all really help to take the load off our backs. It's very freeing! So feeling brave enough to take my little guys solo to a festival where I had to schlep the stroller as well as them through parking\shuttling\traveling back and forth to events and being confident I could manage the two of them without stress....yeah, kind of a big deal.

And I did have a very enjoyable day with them! The weather did a flip flop from the previous day and we were actually too warm in our long sleeved shirts. We got to cheer on uncle Joe in his solo competition and we got to enjoy some more of the heavy athletics. Pretty cool.

Cutie Pop

Joe in Front of the Judge

The Clouds Over the Mountains

The boys wanted to take this picture for their daddy - a table made out of his favorite drink.

Emily Helped with the Boys of Course
Here they are hanging on the ski lift.

Battle of the Merida!
Which One is Cuter?

My Vote's For Cade!

He Also Makes a Pretty Cute Piper

Me and the Boys

Joe, Emily, Dylan, Me and Cade

Throwing the "Light Hammer"

Caber Toss (Aka Log Throwing)

Brother Abuse Caught on Film

Cade Cheering on the Competitors

Definitely a fun experience. I can't say I knew squat about Scottish culture before that day so it was nice to get an intro in that fashion. I mean, there aren't many festivals you go to where the majority of the population is in kilts! (Fashion....get it?)

If you ignore the snot running down his face, this is a cute picture of me and Cade.

First Day of School

This post is either many weeks late or just on time, depending on which of my kids you're considering. The below pictures were taken on Dylan's first day of pre-school in the middle of September. BUT, today is Cade's first day! He couldn't start until he was officially 2 years 9 months old which was yesterday. Although he's been doing a drop off play group for his early intervention program that we call "school," today he'll be starting at Dylan's school, albeit on opposite days that Dylan attends. 

Dylan's First Day of School
He wanted to take a picture with his sword.

Mike will be doing drop off every day. Dylan on Monday\Wednesday\Friday and Cade on Tuesday\Thursday. The boys will get to have some much deserved one on one time with Dad and Mike will have it "easy" with "just" one kid for the mornings.

Man, aren't those just the cutest, most handsome preschoolers you've ever seen? I seriously just want to eat them up!

Disney Round Up

After what seems like a million posts on Disney, I still had a few more thoughts and pictures to show. So, let's go!

The whole reason we went to Disney at this time of the year was so that we could go when the crowds weren't there - i.e. when the rest of the kids were in school. Our time to be able to vacation without the restrictions of the school year are quickly coming to an end. This time next year, Dylan will be in kindergarten and we will be vacationing at the same time as the rest of the school aged kids. We had such a great week at the park, with the grandparents and as a family! And there was so much we didn't get to do. Our hotel had an awesome pool we only got to see and not experience. We were pretty ride focused and didn't take advantage of the many wonderful shows Disney has. We didn't even go around the world in Epcot. In short, before even leaving, I started planning our next trip there.

Now there are many places in the world we want to go. I certainly don't want to spend all my vacation time at Disneyworld but I do want to go back again. When planning this trip, we said it would be the last one for a few years. I don't know if I'll be able to hold to that. I mean, just look at this fun.....

On the Buzz Lightyear Ride
Mike and I have this picture with just us, then with the addition of Dylan and now with Cade too!

The Whole Gang on Main Street
Nana,Bumpa,Mike,Cade,Me,Dylan,Mimaw and Pipaw

Don't we look great?!?

And Swing It Around for a View of the Castle
(That's Mickey's Castle if you ask the boys.)

Cuties

Will we be back next year? I just can't say for sure. If we do, I'm sure you will be again be bombarded with thousands upon thousands more pictures. Goodbye, Mickey. Hope to see you again soon!

Final Day at Disney

Our final day at the parks, it was just the 4 of us. The grandparents were safely back at home and we were left to visit\re-visit our top picks solo.

Since we didn't have any pre decided meet up times to adhere to, we had a leisurely morning making our way to the park. We arrived around 10.

We headed right over to Space Mountain where Mike and I alternated fun on the ride and hanging with the kids. Then the group split up. Dylan and Mike went over to the Stitch ride (which Cade was too short for) and Cade and I took a spin on the cars. Pretty special treat for him since he is the designated passenger in our kid car at home. That day, he got to take the wheel and he loved it!

Look at that smile!

We noticed pretty early on in the day that are pace was a bit quicker than usual. Absolutely no offense to the grandparents since we loved having the special experience with you, but it's kind of a given in life that smaller groups bring about easier\quicker decisions. This basically meant that we packed in quite a lot in a pretty quick time line.

Rapunzel's Tower

Since Peter Pan was a hit with both the boys (Cade claims it was his favorite ride...depending on when you ask...that or Winnie the Pooh), we did that one again. Then Dylan mentioned going on Haunted Mansion again. Since he was so (unexpectedly) scared on it the first go round, Mike wanted to hesitate and question him if he was so and I wanted to take him right on it before he had a chance to chicken out. My method won and we went on the ride. This time, he absolutely loved it! Those kids, they just keep ya guessin', don't they?

The Haunted Mansion!

Our Scared Faces
(Sometimes the kids don't perform on queue...well, almost never really.)

Mike and I took more selfish time for us. We switched off riding the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. The boys had a good time watching the ride go by and watching for Mom and Dad.

Waving to Dad Going By

Then we ran into some of our favorite guys and stopped to wait in line for the photo op.

Love this one of Dylan in the middle of the chipmunks.

High Fives!

And Hugs of Course

We hit the Pirates of the Caribbean again (Dylan wanted to wear his pirate shirt that day as well) then grabbed some grub to power us through the rest of the day. Then it was on to riding Aladdin's Magic Carpets and touring the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse. Since the boys thought that was really cool, we tried watching the movie a few weeks ago. Not quite their speed yet but they did enjoy watching the part where they built the treehouse and the Mom got her first tour. 

Not surprisingly, it was another really hot day. We were done with what we wanted to ride, but I thought we needed the Mickey ice cream cone from the shop on main street before leaving. As we headed that way, we realized we were just in time to see the Main Street Parade.

Now, I had my own list of things I wanted to do on the vacation. Topping the list was a date night to watch the fireworks with Mike. That didn't pan out but we did get a mini date and watched the Fantasmic show. Good enough. The other thing I really wanted to do was see the Electric Parade and that also did not happen. BUT, I would be very satisfied with seeing the Main Street Parade on the way out of the park to fill that gap.

It was hot and Cade was tired. While Mike went in the shop to get ice cream, I tried to find a spot of shade to stand in with the boys. Before Mike even got out with the ice cream, Cade had started to snooze. You just can't let good ice cream go to waste so we gave it to the boy sitting next to us. He and his mom felt like they had just won the ice cream lottery and it was nice to be able to make someone else's day feel a little more magical.

My Tired Baby

Hanging in the Shade Watching the Parade

Belle and Beast

Prince Charming and Cinderella

Olaf, Ana and Elsa

Rapunzel

Maximus and Flyn Rider

Sebastian

Skull Island\Peter Pan Float

Smee

Tick Tock Croc

I was bummed that Cade missed the parade, especially the Peter Pan crew. But him getting sleep is important too. We tried to take lots of pictures so that he could at least experience it that way.

Merida

Fire Breathing Dragon!!!

It was really cool!

The Finale - Mickey and Minnie

After that, we went back to the hotel, cooled off and got cleaned up. It was raining that night so we nixed going back to the parks for dinner. Since we'd already eaten at our hotel restaurant, we headed over the sister resort which was just a small distance away. And since it was raining, we took the shuttle over.

At that resort, there was a big cafeteria style place that had a 30 minute wait and a much nicer restaurant (nicer than anything we would normally take the kids to) with no wait. Being a really hungry group and figuring that a Disney restaurant would be fairly tolerant if our kids weren't perfect in that fancy restaurant environment, we took the gamble and went fancy. And the boys did awesome! Cade charmed our hostess who had recently moved to Florida from South Africa. We got to reminisce about places we'd gone on our honeymoon to her which was  treat for us. My picky eaters found some food that made them happy, they played with their toys at the table and sat happily for a good amount of time. Dylan (who does not venture far from his food norms) even tried some "different" looking donuts for dessert.

My Sweet Boys at Dinner

After dinner, the rain had stopped so we had a nice walk back to our hotel. It was really a lovely end to our Disney adventure. The next morning was packing and traveling home. I know I raved about the ease of traveling to Disney but home was almost even easier. We checked our bags at the airport desk in our hotel lobby, hopped on the bus and didn't see luggage again until we were back in Massachusetts. Very nice!