Mountain Getaway

Talk about a last minute deal...

On Wednesday AM, we booked a room at the Balsams resort in northern New Hampshire. It's one of those old-timey resort places (like Kellermans from Dirty Dancing!) and is at the top of NH just shy of the Canadian border. It was a 4-hour drive each way and my kids don't sleep in the car very much, if at all, on long trips (what's the deal with that????).

This is what we drove up to...

The resort was beautiful...we were surrounded by mountains and in the middle of nowhere. The first day was much cooler than I expected after coming off a heat wave in Boston (don't know why I was surprised it was cool after living in VT for 4 years). We muddled through by trying to be active...rode bikes, hiked with the kids, swam in the 87 degree pool (getting out was hell, but it was nice while completely immersed in the water), played at the playground there, etc. Next day was beautiful and much warmer with almost no wind. We had another great breakfast, played on the putting green for a good hour (amazing how much fun different colored golf balls and 17 holes can provide!), playground time, went out onto the lake in a paddle boat, swam, napped (Rory & Me) and golfed (Joe & Shelagh), swam again, had a nice dinner, played in the game room, and Joe & I managed to squeak out a game of Scrabble hiding behind the bed in our hotel room with a lamp in the closet and the kids sleeping within feet of us. Nice.

The high points of the trip for me were

1. the view and mountain air
2. the intimate and silly Scrabble time with Joe
3. the kids having a ball in the pool (Rory can doggle paddle by himself now with a bubble!)
4. reading an entire book (yeah!)
5. yummy breakfast buffet 3 days in a row (i love breakfast)

The high points of the trip for the kids were clearly

1. watching the commercials running on the Fast and the Furious video game in the game room (quote from Rory "I watching a cars movie"). Joe even played the game once, but the commercials that run were good enough for Rory.
2. eating french fries (Rory) and macaroni and cheese (Shelagh) for 3 days straight. Plus, ice cream every day regardless of behavior to get them to last 10 more minutes in the restaurant.
3. an 87 degree pool

What we've learned from this trip

1. Rory HATES helmets and can scream for 15 minutes straight despite the beautiful nature bike ride
2. Rory does not actually stop after 5 minutes into a tantrum as he used to do. He can actually have a 15-20 minute tantrum including laying on his belly in the grass and banging his arms and legs, textbook style.
3. Without a nap, Shelagh can fall asleep in 2 minutes flat even in a hotel room with 3 other people
4. Neither of my kids really sleep in a long car ride, even after getting car sick 20 minutes into the 4 hour ride home (Shelagh) or passing nap time and watching a DVD without sound b/c he hates the headphones (Rory - what is this kids deal with head apparatus? He likes sunglasses and baseball hats???)

We would definitely go back, although I think I'd wait until the kids got a little older and could do tennis, badminton, golf, etc by themselves and so we could do the croquet, bocce, more boating as a family. All in all a wonderful family trip away!