Goodbye for the Winter, New Hampshire

We spent this weekend in New Hampshire, our final trip until the house opens next May. It was, to be honest, not a wholly successful trip. We were supposed to go Thursday afternoon but couldn't leave until Friday because of a last-minute work obligation for Andrew, which meant I had to unpack and then repack most of the hundred or so bags a weekend trip requires. The drive on Friday was long, and then, when we got there around 4pm, we discovered that the heat wasn't working. The temperature was in the low thirties. The house was freezing. We drove into town for dinner at the pizza place (thrilling the girls, who love the arcade room) and bought two space heaters. When we got back to the house, bedtime now, Andrew and his dad plugged in the heaters--and promptly blew a fuse that they then couldn't find. I had to get the insanely wound-up kids into their ten layers of pjs in the darkness, lit only by their mushroom nightlights. They were beside themselves, jumping on the beds, running around, etc. Andrew and his dad finally fixed the fuse, but since only one heater could be plugged in, Andrew's dad slept at a cousin's house, we put the girls in one room, and we ourselves huddled under ten blankets, including a fifty-year-old electric one we were too scared to keep on during the night. Of course, in the morning it was freezing, so we spent a few hours at Andrew's cousin's house while a repair person finally was found and came over to fix the heater.

We did manage to have a lovely time at a pumpkin patch on Saturday afternoon, and we took a nice nature walk.

Then, Sunday, the girls had a blast playing in the leaves in the woods; and then it was time to pack up, close up the house, and drive home. It took over six hours because of traffic and multiple stops.

So. It was not a restful respite from the real world, this time, but we did manage some nice moments for our last trip of the season. And now it's time to bid goodbye to the lethargic wasps, the ladybugs huddled en masse in the corners of the ceiling...and the amazing views and beautiful starry sky.