The Big Trip

We got in around 11:15 Saturday night from our week long trip to Lake Champlain. The girls had many firsts throughout their trip: hotel stay, escalator ride, ski gondola ride, ferry rides, swimming in a lake, trip to Ben & Jerry's (the factory not a store), and really long car ride.

We left on Friday and stayed in Albany because we didn't want to make the six hour ride in one day. We got a room with two bedrooms so the girls could have their own space and we didn't have to go to bed at 7:30. For dinner we went to a local mall where we let them walk around a bit and they rode the escalator for the first time. Lila actually sat down on en route.

We got to the house on Saturday afternoon around 3:00 or so. The house was great. The five of us had our own floor with two bedrooms, two bathroom, a kitchen and a TV room. It was perfect for when the girls got up.

We crammed alot of things into one week, so I'll try to sum up:

~We went on the ferry over to Burlington, VT to visit the VT Teddy Bear Factory. The girls each got a teddy bear of their choosing. Lila has a bear, Olivia has a cat and Ava has a dinosaur.

~We were chased off the beach one day by thunder, so we went back over on the ferry to VT. This time we took then to the Ben & Jerry's factory. They thoroughly enjoyed the end of the tour where they got free samples.

~We got a good beach day on Wednesday and spent about three hours at Ausable Point
(the local park with a beach and lifeguards)

~We took a day trip into the mountains and went to Lake Placid. Uncle Mike had a connection who hooked us up with passes to see all of the Olympic sites. The girls have officially been to about 3688 feet above sea level when we took a gondola ride to the top of Whiteface Mountain.

~We took the girls on a bike ride through the closed Air Force base in Plattsburgh. We have a double trailer that I pull and a bike seat on Lisa's bike. We had to stop a few times because each girl wanted their turn on Lisa's bike.

~We spent our last day in a few places. We wanted to entertain them, so we decided to go to North Pole, NY where they have a Santa's Workshop amusement park for kids. The park is celebrating its 59th year by never changing anything since 1949. It was quite an interesting place.
We drove into Lake Placid again for lunch, then we headed to Albany for dinner, about 3 hours south. After we let the girls run around in the same mall as the week before and we ate dinner, we packed them up and headed for home.

We had a really great time on our first big non-shore trip.

Here's some pictures of the week...