This week I finally get to discuss our trip back to my mother’s house in West Milan, New Hampshire! It was a much-needed break for all of us. It was wonderful to get back into nature, and back home with my family for a bit.
Abigail Turns 3!
It’s hard to believe that just over two years ago when I started this blog one of my first entries was about Sara Gail’s third birthday. Now my baby Abigail is a big three-year-old too! I was so excited to be back at my mom’s house to celebrate. Firstly, because I had access again to the type of decorations I need to truly get the house ready for a birthday celebration!
Secondly, Abigail was able to celebrate with more of her family around, meaning Uncle Jer and Grammie!
We started the day with a special treat: some mini donuts that I made to match the theme of her birthday, The PJ Masks. Both the girls are really into the show, so I tried to make the décor and treats to match. Of course, the girls ended up with colorful faces and teeth after these sweet treats!
Since it was Grammie’s first day off for the summer, we all decided to take a family walk together up to the top of the road and back. The girls are loving all the nature and beautiful sights! Though they did get lazy about actually walking sometimes.
For lunch they got to eat out on the deck. It was so nice to see the two of them out there, just chatting away like old friends. I love how close these two are becoming; closer and closer with every passing day!
In the evening it was time to open presents and enjoy the cake! Grammie continued in her tradition of decorating birthday cakes and made Abigail a special PJ mask themed cake. The girls love it, and it was delicious!
Sara Gail even treated her sister, and the rest of us, with a special “Happy Birthday” song performance on the keyboard! She is getting really good at playing the piano and we couldn’t be prouder!
All in all, it was a wonderful birthday celebration for Abigail. We all had a wonderful time just being at home in West Milan. And there were more gifts to come in the form of a trip to Story Land!
Living Shores
The weather did not agree with our original plans for our Story Land trip, it seems that we somehow brought all the rain with us from Ghana! So, instead, we decided to spend the 4th of July at a relatively new attraction in the area called Living Shores. It is an aquarium set up in a former museum that used to be run by the same family that originally ran Story Land for over 50 years. The museum was based on the history of New Hampshire, and I personally always loved visiting. But it had fallen on hard times a few years back and just wasn’t attracting enough people to visit. So, the company that bought Story Land decided to turn it into an aquarium. I had heard about it for a few years and was curious to check it out myself. Now, just before we traveled, the state of New Hampshire had lifted its requirement for wearing masks indoors for those people who were fully vaccinated. Since Varun had only just gotten his first dose a few days after we arrived, and the girls had obviously not been vaccinated yet, we decided to play it safe as a family and just keep our masks on.
The aquarium was very well put together, even if it seemed a little on the small side to me. But the girls really loved seeing all the wildlife in an indoor setting. And Abigail was even brave enough to pet a snake! I would never even do that myself!
We all had a lot of fun exploring the aquarium together. And the girls even got a sneak peak at Story Land because it was right next door!
After we found lunch Varun took the girls home so I could squeeze in a little bit of shopping with my mom. Even though we didn’t do any fireworks or other sorts of celebrations, it had been a fun and productive 4th of July!
Story Land!!!
The next day was the day I had been looking forward to for months, years even! We were finally going to take a family trip to the amusement park where I had worked as a teenager! I absolutely loved my summers working at the park, doing jobs like cleaning the park and the bathrooms, performing on stage as a scarecrow, or even playing the part of Cinderella. I know I must be in the photo albums of dozens of families dressed as the iconic princess! It was such a treasured part of my youth, working at this wonderful, family-oriented place. And I had always dreamed of the day I could bring my own family there. The day had finally come!!! On the drive over, Varun couldn’t help but appreciate all the beautiful mountains in the surroundings, including Mt. Washington!
And then we finally got there: to Story Land! I was just over the moon excited to be there! I felt like I was coming home, I knew where everything was, all the places I wanted to show the girls and the fun rides I wanted to take them on! They were so happy too, we had a lot of fun as a whole family there. A few of the rides did have longer lines than one would hope for, but overall we didn’t have too much waiting to do. And there was so much for the girls to see!
We tried a few rides that the girls were not big fans of, Abigail especially, but they were good sports for most of the day and had a great time themselves.
Of course, we had to make a stop at Cinderella’s castle to pop in and say hello. It was a bit different from when I had worked there, admittedly. Firstly, Cinderella now has one thing I never had when I occupied the palace: a helper to ensure that not too many guests go into the castle at once and that everything flows well. When I was Cinderella, we were expected to give a tour to each guest ourselves and then make it back and forth from our breaks all on our own. But walking through the park as Cinderella, every little girl has to stop you on our way back to the castle for a hug and a picture! With COVID, there were protocols, and beautiful velvet ropes, in place to keep Cinderella at a bit of a distance from all the kids, but she was still able to speak to the girls as they told her how far we had traveled to see her! I could also get to see that Cinderella got quite the dress upgrade from back in my day! And then we took a pumpkin coach ride back down to the bottom of the hill and continued with our visit.
We ended our visit with a nice ride on the Ferris Wheel-type ride they have and had a beautiful view of the mountains surrounding this quaint little park. Then we hopped on the train to get back to the front of the park!
When we got home, Varun got to have his fun, grilling up some burger patties, hot dogs, and corn on the cob for us, while enjoying a much-missed American beer! I honestly couldn’t have pictured a better visit to this meaningful place with my entire family in tow, especially my beautiful little girls!
The Park
The rest of our trip was pretty relaxed and we just played each day by ear. But there was one other thing that Varun had to do before we came back to Accra: play tennis! When we lived in Houston, he would play tennis with our close friend almost every single week. Ever since we moved back in 2018, he had never really had a chance to pick it back up again. It was just so busy in Charleston, and we were there for such a brief time, he never took the time to find a court or someone to play with. And here in Accra, he’s had even less time for leisurely stuff like this, and he’s been traveling so much that he’s hardly been in town to consider finding a court or a friend to play with. Since we were back in the states, and my brother is a fairly avid tennis player, Varun finally had a chance to get back on the court and have some fun!
The girls were lucky too because the tennis courts were right next to this beautiful little park just in the next town over. They had so much fun exploring the playground and playing out in the open air. And Grammie enjoyed some quality time with her granddaughters too!
Church Landing
Varun and I decided to take this opportunity being back with a built-in – free! – babysitter, to get some time away, just the two of us. Since we were in New Hampshire, we wanted to stay in the hotel where we had gotten married back in January 2012. We were lucky enough to even get the same suite we had stayed in when we were there!
We used this trip as an anniversary gift of sorts, even though our 10th anniversary is several months away. We went around the hotel and explored the areas where our wedding took place. I felt like a blushing bride again and was smiling from ear to ear the whole time!
We tried to be a little active during the few days that we were there on the lake. So, we signed up for a few different lake activities, and enjoyed the views! We even got to see a loon! It’s a type of bird that is native to the Northeastern United States. When I was little and my family would go on boating trips on lakes in the area, my mother would always hope to see a loon. So, I was so excited to see one up close when Varun and I decided to go kayaking!
The rest of the time we had there on the lake we spent just soaking in the views, and each other’s company, kid-free!
Home with Grammie
The rest of our trip was spent comfortably at home with my mom. The girls had fun with all the old toys that my mom has kept all these years, and their uncle and Grammie, as well as taking pictures with our phones.
I was happy to enjoy some of the little pleasures of being back in the states, like a whole bacon section in the local grocery store, when I’m lucky if I can find bacon here in Accra after searching in several stores. Or our neighbors stopping by on their way home from a trail ride on their horse! It was wonderful growing up so near to our neighbors, who all had farms and farm animals, and I love getting to share that with the girls!
I even had a chance to sew a bit during our stay and I got the girls’ Halloween costumes ready. Abigail is going to be Moana and Sara Gail will be the purple Power Ranger (a superhero that she made up herself).
Varun loved the scenery and surroundings. He was content to just drive around and dream of the day we might be able to retire up in the White Mountains ourselves.
He even took the time to take out his instrument that we have left at my mother’s place for safe keeping. It is called a veena, it’s like a sitar but bigger and needs to be played across one’s lap. We’ve kept it at my mom’s house because it has wax to keep the strings in place, and that wax would most certainly melt if we had it here in Ghana. The girls were really excited to see him play, especially Sara Gail since she’s been taking her piano lessons.
But, sadly, the trip ended far too soon, as all trips do. As the travel date approached, we scrambled to find somewhere to get our PCR tests done and returned in time for our flight back to Accra. The only place we could find was about an hour from my mother’s house, and the tests were not cheap! But we did get a bit of a scenic drive out to the clinic, though the girls did get a little motion sickness from all the turns.
That was one thing we never took into account before we left Accra. Since I had grown up there, and Varun hadn’t really driven too much at my mom’s house, we never worried about the possibility of motion sickness. But the girls would complain almost every single time we’d get in the car. Though, to be fair to them, there is quite a lot of change in elevation even just during the 10 minute drive from my mother’s house to the nearest town. One hill is a 200-foot change just by itself! We did pick up children’s Dramamine which helped a lot, but one trip we gave it to Sara Gail only and Abigail ended up getting sick all over herself, which made for fun clean up at a local gas station and a missed visit with friends.
All in all, though, it was a wonderful trip back home spent with family, and I did get to see some friends. The girls had fun being with their Grammie and Uncle Jer, Varun loved being in the mountains, and I was just happy to be home for a bit. But, before we knew it, we were back in Accra.
Come back next week to read about how we spent the rest of our summer holiday in Accra!
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