Meeting Friends and Beautiful Mansions

Vacation was good, but the GREAT part was meeting fellow TallyScrappers, Gina in Long Island and Tami and Chris who drove to Newport.

Can I just say I was misplaced when I was born in the south? I LOVE New England, LOVE Falmouth, Martha's Vineyard, Provincetown, Newport, etc. and really want to visit Vermont and more of the New England states...New Hampshire maybe? Tami??

Let's see, we made it to NJ on Sunday at lunch time. This was after the previous day of a car sick little boy who was also fighting a cold that I thought was getting better, but took a turn for the worst.

Monday, we took care of some things for Pat's dad. I helped him pick out a digital camera, as he's wanted one for a while now.

Tuesday we drove to Long Island to meet Gina! Gina was so lovely, and she was such a gracious hostess. I loved her home with its beachy feel! She was so sweet to have a gift for Jake and SHUT UP! An ENTIRE box of Yankee Doodles for me. (Inside joke! LOL!) She drove us to Port Jefferson for lunch, and we also walked around taking photos of the sites. Sophia is the most adorable little girl ever! And YES! She is crazy for buggies!

NYC sklyine as we crossed over to Long Island

Jake and Sophia. I had no clue that Jake would love a jack-in-the-box! Poor kid has never had one and loved Sophia's!

Look at this! YUMMY!

Gina and me in Port Jefferson with Jake and Sophia who was having a pop.

Is Gina not beautiful??

Thank you, Gina, for a wonderful time! I hope I can visit again!

Wednesday we headed to Newport, RI. This was supposed to be a 3-1/2 hour drive, but actually took about 4-1/2 because of traffic.

We picked up tickets to tour some of the Newport mansions. The three we toured were just wonderful! I'll have pics of those later. After that, it was back to the hotel. We were all wiped out and Jake and I were more than ready to sleep, which is what we did after arguing over what time to get up, explaining what a wake-up-call was, and telling Grandpa Q to turn the television down so we didn't get tossed from the hotel.

With excellent timing, we saw the windmill and our third mansion and made it back to Bowen's Wharf in plenty of time to wait for Tami and Chris.

I was never so happy to see two people I'd never met walk down a street in my life! LOL! I really was though! Tami and Chris are wonderful ladies and I'd love to live closer and be able to spend more time with them both.

Tami is Tami, just like she is on the boards, on the phone. Chris is much taller than I expected and so bright and bubbly. I felt comfortable with both of them, not nervous at all.

Tami was wonderful to bring Jake a car and two books, and may I recommend Handy Manny's interactive auto repair book? Jake played with it all the way back to NJ! Thank you, Tami!

I also got from Chris the adorable knitted baby rattle for Carson, and I cannot wait to give it to her!

Tami and Pat were very agreeable on what junk food they preferred, too.

We were at lunch here and this was about the third or fourth try at a picture with my eyes open!

My favorite picture!

We figured we'd better let Pat get in at least one shot.

Honestly, I hated to leave once it got closer to 2:15. We did end up going over our time limit though, standing around talking at the car. You'll be happy to know we made it back to NJ before the sun went down!

Thank you Tami and Chris for driving to Newport just for little old me!

Look for more vacation pics once I've finished going through them. These of my Tally friends were most important!