Our amazing weekend in NY!

Every time I go to post about our incredible weekend, I'm not at home (and that is where the pictures are) so I've not posted.
Well, I'm still not home, but I'm going to post now and update with pictures this weekend!

We had an incredible weekend in Long Island (or New Island, as Maddie calls it).

We left here around 4pm and due to a few things (one being Cape traffic, the other being rush hour, and the other being Yom Kippur) it took us over an hour to get through the city of Providence.  Once in CT, I couldn't wait for my guilty pleasure (any time we take along car ride, I allow fast food - McDonalds to be exact!)  I was practically drooling when we finally pulled up and although it has been probably six years since I've had one, I got a Big Mac.  Oh my goodness, I forgot how delicious those are!!!

Maddie was awesome in the car.. all 5.5 hours of it!  She watched Tangled on the dvd player and then a Strawberry Shortcake movie but then was done with the dvds.  A few times she asked when we were going to get to Melissa and Eric's, but other than that, she was completely content the entire way!

We pulled in at about 9:30pm (which was almost 2 hours after Maddie's bedtime, and she didn't nap at all in the car) and after they showed us around their gorgeous house, we all sat and chatted for a little while.  Their house is absolutely beautiful!! Granite counter-tops, brand new hardwood floors, two and a half bathrooms, fireplace, the master bathroom has his and hers sinks and is humongous!!  I instantly fell in love with the house.  And, if I didn't love Melissa and Eric so much, I would have been insanely jealous!!

Kate and Brett were at Melissa's parents' house (which is only .7 miles away *how awesome is that*) so they came over right after we got there.  I was just in my glory, so happy to be with all of them and chatting it up!!
I think it was almost 10:45pm when we finally put Madison to bed (which - she was not ok sleeping upstairs while we slept downstairs, so she slept in the bed with me and Ryan slept on an airbed - you know you're a family when this is the sleeping arrangement and everyone is actually pretty happy about it!  Ryan had a bed to himself, and I didn't mind sleeping with Maddie at all - we never let her into our bed, so it was kind of sweet!)


The next morning, our plans were to go to a winery and spend the day.  I had no idea that this would be phenomenal... but it was.  I pictured a place where everyone just tastes wine and buys a bottle and leaves.  No no no, this was a wide open area with picnic tables, farm animals, flowers, kite flying areas, and you bring your own food.  Melissa bought so much food and her parents brought lots of food too... there were exquisite cheeses (some I've never even heard of) and pasta salad, cold cuts, chips, hummus and crackers... we ate like kings!!  Those drinking wine went it and bought a few bottles and came out and enjoyed wine while we all chatted away.  Reilly and Madison were pretty content (they were able to run around, look at the animals, play with hoola-hoops, soccerballs, and people watch!)  I'm told the wine was fabulous!  As far as the company and food - they certainly were!

Maddie will tell you that there were cute little piglets that had just been born - and she's right.  These pigs were so small and looked as if they couldn't even fully open their eyes yet.  So cute!!

As much as we tried, the girls would not nap.  Instead, they had so much fun and both slept on the way home.

On the way home - we stopped at a little farm stand to get a pumpkin... Maddie would have liked to stay there longer - there was a lot for kids to do.

After the glorious day in the sun at the winery, we came home and the men fell asleep!  Then we went to Kate and Melissa's parents' house for a delicious italian dinner.  The girls were so cute playing together and dancing all around the living room!  After dinner we went to Yogurt Crazy.  If you've never been, you should!! This place is amazing.  It's a self serve yogurt place with a bunch of different soft serve yogurt flavors and toppings.  SOOO good!  After yogurt we went back to Melissa and Eric's and watched their wedding video from this summer.  It was so fun to see the whole thing again from a different view.

Sunday was nice too, the ladies went shopping at an outlet mall while the men did some grocery shopping to prepare for football!  Although we are diehard Pats fans, they are all diehard Giants fans!  We got home just after the Giants had started so we were able to catch both games.   Sunday night was a fantastic dinner of steak and veggies. So good!

Monday we enjoyed bagels from the bagel chalet and then packed up and headed home (not without a stop for McDonalds for a late lunch, of course!!)

Maddie kept saying "Mumma, I'm so happy.  I love Melissa and Eric and Kate, Brett and Reilly" and she does!!  Each morning, Melissa told her that when she woke up she could come upstairs and let us sleep.  Well, each morning, she was so excited to go spend time with Melissa upstairs!!  And I was so excited to sleep - I can't remember the last time I slept past 8am - never mind 2 days in a row!!

Overall, the weekend could not have been ANY better!  And, I will tell you... before we left, I was very stressed about money.  I didn't tell anyone that I was really nervous about it - I just decided, this is a weekend trip that doesn't come along often, so we'll charge what we have to and figure it out later.  (we just put the roof on our house - so that was all of our savings that we normally would have been using).
Well, when I described Melissa, Kate and their parents in this post, I didn't stress just how generous they are.  Not knowing any of my stress over money - just being themselves - they wouldn't let us pay for ANYTHING!  Not even the yogurt or coffees!! I felt so terrible at the time because we certainly didn't plan on them paying for all of that!!   But it was almost as if they read my mind and prevented so much stress.

We will never forget how wonderful they were and are!!

And, I'll post pictures soon!!