Last one

Okay, I'm sure you are all sick of my blogs recently and I apologize for all the vacation stuff. I have one last one and then I'll move on with my life.

August 8
Today was the day that most people were leaving the house besides us and my parents. My sister Tiff and her family weren't flying out till later in the evening, so we all stuck together. After saying goodbye to everyone else, we drove back down the coast towards Portland, stopping in little coastal towns to do a little shopping. We stopped in a fun city called Camden and ate lunch and shopped. It was a cute little town. Then we stopped in a town called Freeport that had a bunch of outlet stores. Then we headed to Portland, ate dinner and went to bed.

Camden, Maine

Eating lunch

My sister Tiffany, her husband Brooks and their 3 kids: Hayden, Grant and Karlie

August 9

We started our drive back down to Boston today. We stopped first at a town on the coast named Gloucester, MA. It's the oldest seaport and is located on Cape Ann about an hour northeast of Boston. We weren't there for very long. We stopped to see a museum/aquarium and it was pretty neat.

Bella watching the lobsters and fish

splashing herself

Paige in the museum

Maggie in the museum
After this, it was kind of getting late in the day and we didn't have a lot of time left because most touristy things close between 5 and 6. So we decided to go into Boston and go tour the USS Constitution.
"The USS Constitution is a wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy warship of the United States Navy. Named after the Constitution of the United States by President George Washington, she is the oldest commissioned naval vessel afloat in the world. Launched in 1797, Constitution was one of the six original warships authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794. Constitution is most famous for her actions during the War of 1812 against Great Britain, when she captured numerous merchant ships and defeated five British warships. The battle with Guerriere earned her the nickname of "Old Ironsides" because their shot (from Guerriere) seemed to rebound harmlessly off Constitution's hull. A sailor reportedly exclaimed "Huzzah! Her sides are made of iron!"

Picture of "old Ironsides" from the internet

Beds the sailors slept in

Paige climbing the steep ladders
Inside the Constitution

The outside

It was under construction for some reason, but that's why it looks a bit different from the internet picture.

They had a pretty cool museum there that we went through, right before it closed. We wished we had more time there because there were a lot of "hands-on" exhibits for the kids.

Lydia testing out a sailor's hammock

Trying to hang on!

August 10

We drove to Plymouth the night before when we were done with the museum. We wanted to be there in the morning so we could get an early start sightseeing. We went to a place called Plymouth Plantation where they have an Indian village (Wampanoag Tribe) and a 1627 English Village. All the people that work there are dressed as either the Indians or the colonists. The Indians speak English and are not in character, but are very informative and tell about their culture and their houses and way of life. The colonists all speak 17th century English and are role-playing like they actually living in 1627. I really loved this place, it was so fun to listen to them speak and ask them questions about how they lived.

At the entrance of the Plantation, there was this cow--named the "Mooflower"

one of the homes of the Wampanoag people

Wampanoag tribe members
Inside a house of one of the colonists

one of the houses

One of the colonists we talked to

The village

Looking down on the village from the town hall
A statue of a colonist

On our way down to the Mayflower, we stopped to see Plymouth Rock

Plymouth Rock

Also part of this Plimouth Plantation, was the Mayflower II. It's a replica of the original Mayflower that sailed over in 1620. This also has role players in period costumes to talk about the journey over--which one of the colonists said was horrendous. There were 102 passengers on board the Mayflower. One person died and a little baby was born on the voyage. They also had staff in modern day clothing that were there to answer questions as well. It was very interesting and very informative day.

I think this was the Captains's quarters

One of the colonists on board the Mayflower

Listening to a colonist talk about the voyage

Mayflower II

We would've liked to spend more time in Boston but we had to catch a flight home the next day . We wanted to go on a Liberty Walk, where you walk around Boston and learn about all the historical sights, but it was an hour and a half long, and we knew our kiddos weren't going to walk for that long. Someday...I'd like to go back and learn more! It was a fun vacation.

Vacation #3: Hansen Family Reunion

Part 1 of many posts, I'm sure :)

After we drove home from Utah, we had a couple of days to do laundry and repack. For our next vacation, we were going to Castine, Maine to rent a beach house for my family's reunion. We left Oregon on July 29th and flew a red eye to Boston, MA. Since flying across the country with 6 people isn't exactly cheap, we used Garrett's saved up mileage and flew for free--hence the red eye flight and the flying into Boston instead of Maine. We got there early and had a few days to catch up on some sleep and sightsee in Boston before we were supposed to meet everyone in Maine on August 1st.

Bella at the airport

The redeye flight went as well as I expected. The first half went pretty well and the last few hours were never-ending! We didn't have a ticketed seat for Bella, so she was on my lap the whole time but she ended up sleeping for the first 2-3 hours. Paige slept pretty much the whole time; Lydia slept on and off, but wasn't too cranky and Maggie watched a movie for the first hour and a half, slept a couple of hours, but then was awake and cranky for the rest of the flight. I dozed when I could, but didn't get much sleep. When we got to Boston, it was 6 am (3 am Portland time). We called to see if we could check into our hotel early because usually they don't let you check in until the afternoon, but luckily they let us. So we ate a quick breakfast at the hotel and then bribed the girls with swimming after lunch if they took a nap. Miraculously, everyone was able to nap for a good 3 hours. So we went swimming, ate lunch/dinner at the Rainforest Cafe (pretty cool place: a first time for us), then went to see Ice Age 3. Then it was back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep!

July 31

We decided for one of our sightseeing days (we'd have a few more days in Boston after our Maine vacation) that we would drive to Salem, Massachussettes to check out the town of the famous Salem Witch Trials. I thought this was a neat little town and I learned a lot. My kids were scared of the whole idea of witches and didn't want to go anywhere. We finally did convince them to go to one museum with us and they closed their eyes and plugged their eyes pretty much the whole time. Such funny girls! The museum we went to see was called the "Salem Witch Museum".
This is from their website:
"She afflicts me! She comes to me at night and torments me! She's a witch!"
Words such as these struck terror into the hearts of Salem townspeople in the early spring of 1692 as hysterical young girls called out names. By summer, 180 people had been accused and imprisoned - defenseless against accusations of witchcraft in a society driven by superstition and fear. The court, formed to try the victims, acted quickly. Bridget Bishop was tried on June 2 and hanged on June 10 thereby setting the precedent for a summer of executions. In total, nineteen men and women were hung to death. In addition, one man was crushed to death; seven others died in prison and the lives of many were irrevocably changed.
The Salem Witch Museum brings you there, back to Salem 1692. Visitors are given a dramatic history lesson using stage sets with life-size figures, lighting and a narration - an overview of the Witch Trials of 1692.
I quite enjoyed being there and learning more about something that I didn't know much about. We mostly walked around the town and went into some shops, looking for a souvenier T-shirt for me. We were meeting my parents in Portland, Maine that night so we left and drove a few hours to meet them. We ate dinner at I-HOP and went back to our hotels for bed.

August 1
My sister Tiffany and her family and my brother Tad and his family were getting in this morning and so we all met at our hotel. It was so great to see everyone! I hadn't seen my brother and his family in over two years--and I had never met their little girl Mailei either. We were meeting my other sisters Charee and Megan and their families at the house later that evening. After everyone finally got there, we went out to lunch at Chili's.

Micah, Grant, Tiffany, Paige and Bella

Brooks, Hayden, Micah (blondie in front), Grant, Tiffany and Paige

This was everyone...it's hard to see everyone in the back, I know.

After lunch, we drove up to Castine (90 minutes from Bar Harbor) which was supposed to be a three-four hour drive. It took us five because we took a scenic route along the coast and we hit quite a bit of traffic. It was a pretty drive, though and we got to see lots of cute little towns. When we arrived at the house, my sister Charee had been there for awhile and my other sister Megan was just getting there. It was fun to see them again, too.

We stayed at a really old (100+ years) place in Castine called Northrop Cottage. It was huge! It had 10 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 4 porches, 3 full floors and more than 7,000 square feet of living space. It fit all 26 of us quite comfortably and it was quite a maze. The place could have used a little fixing up, and some new furniture, but it was a really neat house.

Northrop Cottage

We all got there in the evening and realized that there was no food in the house at all. So my dad and a few of my brothers-in-law went out to find some dinner. But since Castine is so small there really aren't a lot of options, food wise. So they stopped in at a bar and ordered some pizzas. Trying to feed 26 hungry people...there's entertainment! It reminded me of Home Alone, except with not so many pizzas! :) These are pictures of everyone waiting for food...

Bella

Tiffany, mom, Garrett and Paige
Mom, Bella, Garrett, Paige, Megan
Charee, Mailei, Solviej and Tad

Tad, Micah, Grant, Rachel, Emily and Hayden

More to come from our adventures in Maine....