The Jones Girls

We spent the day at the Stoneham Zoo.   It was such a wonderful zoo.  It was so hot today..ugh!    There is a huge heatwave going on in New England right now.  

We met up with Chery, Lee and their twin 2 year old daughters, Lilly and Ana.    We enjoyed seeing all of the animals then we hit the playground in the zoo.  What a great playground.   Then the girls had to hit the bathroom,,,ugh that was a huge endeavor trying to find and use the bathrooms in 100+ heat!

We then enjoyed a few kiddie rides and then went to Friendly’s for lunch.  They were too crowded for us to sit down so we grabbed something quick at the convenience store.   

There was a great kiddie water park that I wanted to take the girls to, but it was so crowded there was no parking.   We had a nice drive along a pretty lake.

Then we drove back to the Woburn Marriott and we did some shopping at Target.  The first order of business was buying a crap load of water bottles so I could freeze them and use them throughout the day through this scorching heat.   whew!  I got some munchies, some sand pails for the girls and a back pack for me because we are going to be going into the city and I need a backpack to carry our stuff.

 Originally we all were supposed to fly back home from Boston on July21st, but Cliff had to fly back home to go back to work.  He could only take 2 weeks off from work.   We were able to change his ticket free, but our tickets would have run us at least $600 plus any increased airfare rate.  So I decided the girls and I would stay in Boston from the day we dropped Cliff off (today) and stay till July 21st.

I have lots of friends in Boston that belong to my online motherhood board.  So I planned to spend some time with my friends who all have the same aged kids as I do!

Thankfully my dear friends, Cheryl and Lee, who stayed with us in Vermont last summer for a few days on vacation, spent some time with us and showed us their beautiful town of Boston.

I am so grateful and thankful to Cheryl and Lee for spending time with us and showing us around.    Thank you thank you!!

Cliff and all of us dropped by Cheryl and Lee’s for a quick visit.  We had a nice time!   Then Lee joined us on the drive to the Boston airport, about 20 minutes from their place.

We dropped off Cliff and then I drove Lee back home.   Then I used the GPS and we drove from the airport up to our hotel, The Marriott Residence Inn at Woburn.  Lee helped me get the car unpacked and moved into our room  I  This place was great!   They have daily FREE complete and amazing breakfasts.  The also offer free dinner M-Thurs.  Free internet and fabulous indoor pool.   Our room was really nice too with a complete kitchen, mini dining room living room and even a full sized fridge and freezer.  Totally perfect for us!   There is even a Target close by and I shopped there for a bunch of stuff for us.

We drove Lee back to his house in    So I checked in Malvern then on the way back to Woburn Marriott I stopped at McDonald’s and got the girls dinner.

I got us all unpacked and got the laptop hooked up.   The girls loved Nickelodeon and each night I gave them special toys that I had purchased as a fun thing for them to look forward to at bed time.

We set out early to drive up to The Vermont Teddy Bear Factory.   This was the girls 3rd time going.     It was Taylor’s 1st time going.  We took everyone on the Teddy Bear tour.  They had a blast.

Then each girl picked out her own bear and bear outfit and got to stuff it and help sew it closed.  They put a heart inside the bear before putting the stuffing in the bear.  It is finished off when they fill out the bear’s birth certificate on when the bear was born.  So cute!

Then we headed ot Ben & Jerry’s for a tour of the world’s fantastic ice cream factory.    We got to try a new flavor of ice cream….it has delicious choclate bears in it…yummy!

The girls picked out their cute tye-dye shirts and got a few other fun stuff.

Then we headed to Burlington and went to Church St. to go shopping.    Taylor wanted to head to Old Navy.   We shopped there and she found a cute outfit.  I found some cute things for the girls too.

We were all hungry and went to a fun place, similar to Benihana’s.  The food was not as good as Benihana’s though.  It was a fun experience for Taylor, she had never done anything like that before.

Then we drove Taylor home.  It was a fun filled day and we didn’t get home till midnight.  Wow!

Today we got to meet Taylor, who is Robin’s little sister, and who is also Mindy’s little sister.  Taylor lives about 2 hours from our house.    Taylor’s father drove over and we had a nice dinner together.    Cliff’s mom and Mel also came over and we all had a nice visit.

Taylor had such a good time, she asked her dad if she could spend the night.  I told her we would take her to Teddy Bear factory and Ben & Jerry’s and then go shopping on Church St. in Burlington for a new outfit.   She was so excited.  Her dad gave her the go ahead to stay with us.

Taylor is a lovely and mature 12 year old.   She sat and spent time with her Uncle Cliff and they discusses websites and all sorts of computer topics.

Robin and I took the girls to Six Flags Great Escape in Lake George.  This is the first time I took the girls.   It was such a HOT day.   Almost 110 on the black top.    It was hard to breath the humidity was so bad.

We had a problem getting a locker so it took a while to get settled in to drop our stuff off.   The we went on a bunch of rides.

We stopped off for Popsicles.   I couldn’t believe we spent $20 on Popsicles for 6 people – CRAZY!!

The really neat thing about this amusement park is there is a water park inside the amusement park.  So we went to the locker, changed into our bathing suits and cruised over to the water park.   We were there for over an hour and they closed early, at 5pm rather than 7pm.  We were so bummed!   The girls had a blast and it was a great way to cool off.

We stopped off at the girft shop and the girls each picked out a toy.  They all got cute little animated dogs.   

I was really disappointed in spending $200  for th 6 of us and they were closing the park at 5pm, 5 hours earlier.   I complained because we got there at 12pm which meant we only got to enjoy the park for 5 hours.   They gave us a full refund because they never told us upon entering the park that they were closing early.  That was cool!

This is our 3rd year going to Magic Forest in lake George.  This year the triplets were able to go on all of the rides!! 

It was hotter than a dickens though.  I think it was 105 on the ground…whew!

The first ride we went on was the scrambler and it was super fast. More for adults in my opinion.  Poor Amanda banged her head on the ride and had a little goose egg.  

We got the girls cute Pinocchio hats and they each picked out a toy from the gift shop on our way out of the park.

Since we arrived in Vermont on July 1st, I have been thinking I would like all of us to meet Cliff’s mom’s side of the family.  I spoke to Cliff’s mom, Mary, and asked her what she thought of it.  She loved the idea! 

She gave me all of her relatives phone numbers and we invited them all.  We had a nice potluck dinner and a wondeful family reunion.    There were relatives that Cliff had never met.   Others hadn’t seen him since he was a baby.

An even bigger suprise is Cliff’s niece, Robin, came down to visit us. She lives a couple of hours away from our house.  Robin stayed a few days with us.    It was our first time meeting in person after talking on the phone for many months.

We got lots of great pictures.   Everyone had such a great time. Hopefully we can do it again next year.