My Vacation in Review: just the highlights

• Arriving at our hotel in Massachusetts! After 18 hours in the car and one night in a nasty hotel (the kind of hotel that requires mom to tell us to "pile your suitcases in front of the door" !!!) we were SO glad to finally unload our two cars and crash in a nice, clean environment.

• Tour of BOSTON!!! Oh my goodness!!! My history loving family had the time of our lives driving around Boston in a tour bus. We saw just about everything you could want to see in Boston. Key points of interest being: The Old North Church, and the DUCKLINGS!!!!

Not the actual ducklings of course. These statues of them. We asked the driver if we would be able to see the ducklings and he said "No. We drive by the park but there are too many trees in the way." :( Very sad. We just said "Ok, thanks." Next thing we knew the driver is turning down a "No buses" street and we're going right past the Boston Public Gardens and we see them! We all started shouting and pointing and laughing and whipped out the camera but didn't manage to get a decent picture. If you're clueless about why the ducklings are SO exciting, and wanna hear the story let me know. Otherwise, just know that this was definitely a highlight for our family!

• SO many exciting things in BOSTON! I'm going to upload some pictures and share more then.

• Teddy Bear Factory and tour (SO cute!)

• CHOCOLATE factory tour!
  

• THE IDD REUNION!!!!! Or, actually, I guess we should call it the IDD UNION since most of us had never met before. 13 girls, talking, laughing, shopping, movies, chocolate, picnics, being goofy, sharing, cooking, eating, toe-nail painting... and SO much more. I can't even remember everything and if I think about how much I'm going to miss all those wonderful girls I'll probably start crying again. Don't know what IDD is? you can Join in the fun!

• Going to Canada. I had never been to Canada. Now I can add it to the list of countries I've been to. The list is growing slowly, and it's kind of fun to see! Sadly, though I did not get a stamp in my passport. What's up with that?

• Niagara Falls! Again, I'll upload pictures. It was SO cool. We saw it twice, at night and in the morning. At night it's lit up with cool colored lights and in the morning it's gorgeous. Just gorgeous. Oh, by the way I had no idea that Niagara Falls was so commercialized. WAY over commercialized. Like, gag me. Vanity Fair anyone?

• The drive home. 3 torrential downpours, 14 hours in the car, almost getting STRANDED in no-man's land. We were waiting in line to go through customs and literally OUT of gas. Running on fumes I'm pretty sure. The truck has this nifty little feature that tells you how many more miles you can drive on the amount of gas you have in your tank. So, we turned it on to see how bad it was. And watched it slowly tick down the miles as we sat in line and waited to go through customs. And waited. And waited. Shifted into neutral. Waited. Waited. 6 cars in front of us. Taking an average of 3-5 minutes each to go through. 2 miles of driving gas left. And we lose a mile every 5 minutes. You do the math. Thank God for a shift changed in border patrol guards. Guard number two started whipping cars through at a rate of 45 seconds per car. Can you imagine how awkward it would be to run out of gas in the customs line? Not fun, I'm sure. We limped to a gas station and filled up. :)
  

• Finally arriving home at midnight last night. Stumbling to bed and then reading for an hour because I was too keyed up to sleep.

• Waking up this morning in my own bed :)