June...in a nutshell!

Let's see if I can catch up again...or at all.  I'm hoping to post highlights of each month until I catch up.  So these next few posts will be extra photo heavy; if you can imagine.  But I hope friends and family enjoy.

Some scenes from Connecticut

Oliver turned 4 years old June 11!

strawberry picking

Back in Manhattan

Museum Mile Festival

Four years ago (from this photo) Brian took a photo of me with a very large pregnant, uncomfortable, overdue belly.  What a blessing this sweet boy has been!

Shakespeare in the Park.  My all-time favorite NYC summer date.

Double date in Brooklyn with good friends.  The Big Quiz Thing was a blast.  We got a prize for lowest score!

Cape Cod

We bought a minivan and started exploring again.

Back in Connecticut & NYC

Cherry picking

Morning run around the Jackie O. Reservoir

Epic water fight in Central Park.  Masses of people came and threw water at each other; we stayed on the outskirts. 

Fingers crossed July's update will follow soon!

Coming Home

As we drove north along the Blue Ridge Parkway the temperature outside became chillier and chillier.  We also had several raining days and we were feeling fatigued.  There wasn't a spot where we wanted to stop for a couple of days to relax, cause it was cold and rainy.  We had planned on visiting the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, but with cold, rainy conditions combined with the park services not opening for another week, we decided to skip it.  And once we got north of Shenandoah we felt too close to home to stop and enjoy the things that are close enough to visit from home, on a weekend trip (i.e. Washington D.C.).

So we drove as long as we could drive, landed in Princeton, New Jersey for a night and made it to NYC on a Saturday morning.  The church was having their annual tag sale to raise money for the youth to go to camp, so we stopped by there and surprised many friends.  It was so good to see so many of our favorite people again.

And it was a very surreal experience to be "home" again.  While we were on the road it felt like we had been gone forever.  February was forever ago.  Winter was gone, we had been to so many neat places and done so much time really slowed down while we were traveling.  But as soon as we drove into the city a time warp happened again.  I felt like we had not been gone hardly at all.  The city was just as it was when we left it, although much warmer.  Even though we had been traveling for almost 3 months once we were back in the city that all seemed to shrink and I felt like we had been gone only a week.

Since we returned sooner than planned our apartment was still being used by the subletor, so we couldn't go home.  But NYC is our home; our apartment is just the place where we sleep.  After stopping for a few hours we then drove to Brian's parents' home in CT.

Returning to Connecticut in May was lovely and perfect.

Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina

When we traveled from the Great Smoky Mountains to Asheville we took the longer, beautiful route along the Blue Ridge Parkway; the most southern portion.  Then we continued along the Blue Ridge Parkway when we left Asheville and drove north.  We intended to take it all the way to the northern most point, but encountered days of fog and rain.  Not the best conditions for driving on small, tight, winding, scenic parkways.

The few days we drove along the parkway were extremely beautiful.  We were surprised that spring was only beginning in the mountain tops.  Even though the trees were bare the bright, luscious  spring green was stunning.  We were at the Blue Ridge Parkway a little before the official season started, so most of the visitor centers were still closed.

Difficult children.  :)

The next several photos were when we hiked to Second Falls near Graveyard Fields. It was a perfect hike for our kids and I thought it was one of the most beautiful short hikes I've been on.

Other beautiful stops along the Parkway...

I had to document our usual lunch.  I made tons of pb&j sandwiches while Brian drove over the course of our travels.

The below photos are of our campsite at a state park in North Carolina.  It ended up being our last night camping (not what we had planned) and we hurried home the next day.  I will explain more about that decision in my next post.