"Minnesota Bound"

Dear Family and Friends,
Summer is officially over. We were blessed with a truly beautiful summer here in Stonington. July and August have always been extremely hot and humid months here, but this year temperatures were mild, there was relatively low humidity and evenings remained cool. Joey and I are not fans of humidity, so for us it was an ideal summer. 

The beginning of July started out with a visit from my parents and my aunt and uncle from Virginia. We enjoyed celebrating Joey's birthday on July 2nd, and we were planning a big 4th of July celebration in the borough. In fact, we were all ready to walk in the Stonington parade and have a BBQ on the deck, but unfortunately, mother nature had other plans. We experienced huge downpours of rain and thunder and lightening most of the day. Sadly, the parade was cancelled. However, the show must go on, so Joey proceded with his third annual "Stars, Stripes and Pipes" performance, and while we didn't get the usual full house, we still managed to get a pretty full audience. In spite of the weather, the mood was celebratory and everyone had a great time.

Happy Birthday Joey!

New England Lobster Dinner on the deck!

"Stars, Stripes and Pipes!"

Happy 4th of July!

GG, Clara and Uncle Harry, 4th of July!

On July 5th we, along with my parents, began our big trip to Minnesota. Joey was invited to give an organ recital as part of the "Young Artists International Piano Festival" at Bethel University in Saint Paul, so we decided to take a couple of weeks off and also make it a trip to see family and friends. We spent four days in the car on the way to Minnesota. We took a route north up to Canada and crossed the border at Niagra Falls. We came back into the United States in Michigan, where our trip took us through the Upper Peninsula and down through northern Minnestoa, eventually ending in Saint Cloud. The trip was long, but it went very smoothly. Clara was great and enjoyed watching DVDs in the car and singing and coloring. We had fun at Niagra Falls in Canada, and in Michigan we visited my Uncle Thomas at his home in Oxford. We also stopped in Frankenmouth, MI, a touristy German village which houses "the largest Christmas store in the world" as well as other neat shops and restaurants.

Niagra Falls!

Hotel Fun!

Uncle Thomas, Clara and Dandad.

When we got to Minnesota, we were able to spend time with Joey's family in Princeton. We had fun doing various child-friendly activities with Clara, and we got to see some of Joey's extended family and friends. 

Playing Music and Grandma and Grampa Ripka's House.

Summer Fun!

Dancing at the Minneapolis Children's Museum.

Look, it's Thomas the Train!

Historic Carousel at Como Zoo, MN.

Aunt Kimmy and Clara! Kim brought Clara beads from New Orleans.

Jam session.

Bethel Univeristy housed us in their dorms for a few nights prior to Joey's concert, so that he could practice. The dorms were right across from the performance hall, so it was very convenient. Joey had a great experience performing for the students. Many years ago, Joey had been a piano student at the festival, and so he returned this summer as an alum. After the concert, Joey worked with a few students and talked to them about transitioning from piano to organ. The students seemed to enjoy his talk, and were interested in learning more about what it is like making a living as a professional musician. 

Dorm life.

Listening to Daddy practice.

My parents remained in Minnesota, and Joey, Clara and I drove back, stopping to pick up our friend Lois who rode with us back to Connecticut. Lois was in Minnesota visiting her family, and we all agreed that it would be fun to take a road trip together back home to Connecticut. We took a different route home, and we were able to stop in Kenosha, WI to see my brother Steve and his family. Clara had such a good time with her cousins, and we left the visit feeling sad that they don't get to interact more often. I have two brothers with children, and we don't get to see them nearly enough. We are always thankful when an opportunity arrives to visit with them.

Cousins! Madeline, Clara and Mariana.

Joey, Erin, Madeline, Uncle Steve, Clara, Carson, Aunt Christy and Mariana.

Our trip also took us through Ohio, where we visited our old schools, Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music. It was summer, so there was not much going on, but it was fun to see our old stomping grounds and to drive by our first apartment as a married couple. There are some great memories there. One of the highlights in Ohio was meeting up for lunch with several of our dear friends from St. Paul's UCC where Joey was organist/choir director for two years. I'm still kicking myself for not getting a group photo, but it was so much fun to see everyone and catch up even though the time together was brief. 

The final stretch of our trip took us though Amish Country near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We stopped at several Amish stores and toured the area. We were impressed by how impeccable the Amish people keep the outsides of their homes. They are beautiful to see, and Clara was very excited about the horse-drawn buggies going down the roads. 

Amish Swing.

An Amish girl who looks a lot like Clara. : )

After such a fun summer trip, we were completely exhausted. We didn't have any lessons scheduled for two days after we returned, and it's a good thing we didn't because we were wiped out. Joey figures we drove a little over 4,000 miles round trip. We had debated about whether or not driving such a long way was really worth it, but when we reflect back on the time we were able to spend seeing family on the way there and back, the interesting and beautiful places we visited (we saw all of the great lakes on our trip!) and how well Clara did on the entire drive, we are really glad that we did it.

MN visit 2013!

MN visit 2014!

It's hard to believe that summer is already over. I've been putting off this post, because the idea of writing about our two week trip to Minnesota seemed a bit daunting. not to mention the fact that I am getting really behind with my blogging. The next post I write will have to be a combination August/September post. There are so many new and exciting things going on in our lives, but it doesn't leave much room for sitting and writing. Once we relax into a routine, things will get easier.

We hope you have had a wonderful summer. I'm always a bit sorry to see summer go, but at the same time, I really enjoy settling into a routine, and we have many fun things to look forward to this fall as a family. 

Until next post,
Joey, Erin and Clara 

Family Vacation!

Dear Family and Friends,
It's August! Joey, Clara and I have a few more weeks of summer to enjoy before our lives get really busy again. It's been a great summer, and I would like to write a couple of posts about the two big trips we took this summer. This post will cover our family trip to Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Boothbay Harbor, Maine. 

At the beginning of June we took a three night trip to Maine. Originally we were going to spend the whole time in Maine, but after doing some research and wanting to break up the trip for Clara, we decided to spend one night in Portsmouth, NH. We had never been to Portsmouth, but there was a lot to do there for Clara, and we were impressed with the wealth of shops and resteraunts in the downtown. 

We enjoyed touring downtown Portsmouth and learning about the history of the city. Portsmouth was settled in 1623, and it claims to be the third oldest city in our country. 

Clara found some fun things to do in Portsmouth, including active play at an indoor gym called "Rumble Tumble", and swimming in the hotel swimming pool with daddy. There was also an amazing toy store downtown, and we had trouble getting her to leave since they had so many toys for kids to play with.

There were many different restaurants to chose from in Portsmouth, and we ended up having a really great dinner at a tapas restraunt called "Moxy". We definitely hope to return to Portsmouth again in the future. It's only 2 and 1/2 hours from us, and it's really an interesting place. 

After leaving portsmouth, we headed to our next destination, Boothbay Harbor Maine. We took our time, and made several stops. One of our first stops was the "York's Wild Kingdom" zoo in York Beach, Maine. It was a really nice zoo, and Clara was thrilled to be able to feed the deer. The goats were a bit aggressive, though, so she let daddy do the feeding.

Once we arrived in Boothbay Harbor, we stayed at the "Fisherman's Wharf Inn". It was nothing fancy, but the room was clean, and we had a nice view of the harbor from our deck. The town of Boothbay Harbor is very charming. It is a beautiful coastal town and is popular with tourists, so we were glad to be there in June before the busy season hit. There are a lot of places to eat, and various shops to enjoy. We had our first meal at "The Lobster Dock", a shack overlooking the water, and the lobster was delicious!

We took a scenic drive around Boothbay Harbor and, as always, we were blown away by the beauty of the Maine coast. It is very different from the Connecticut coast where we live. There are pine trees, rocky cliffs, many small water inlets and, of course, lobster buoys everywhere. We even discovered a church that looked a little like Calvary Church. 

One of the best things we did on the trip was visiting the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves nature and beautiful gardens. There are so many different gardens to see that we didn't even get to all of them. They have an incredible children's garden with a design is based on famous children's books like "Peter Rabbit". Clara loved the children's gardens, especially the little fairy hut, where she served us tea and cookies.

On our way home from Maine, we stopped at the L.L. Bean outlets in Freeport. There were a lot of shops, and Clara wanted ice cream from Ben and Jerry's. As a senior in high school, I had attended the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine as a student, and had visited Freeport with friends while I was there. I even had ice cream from the Ben and Jerry's store. It was fun to be back with Joey and Clara. 

Joey and I fell in love with Maine when we honeymooned near Acadia National Park back in 2007. By the time June rolls around, we find we really need some quality time together, just the three of us, and now that we live on the East Coast, Maine is an easy place to visit. Clara is old enough now that she really enjoys the traveling, does well in the car and is fine in the hotel room. During this trip, she had some kind of strange sleep schedule going, and she woke up every morning at 6:00AM. We had an early start to our days, and it was fine, but we were all pretty exhausted when we returned home. It's important for us to spend time together and make memories together, and I am grateful that we were able to have such a fun trip. Clara must have enjoyed it too, because she was not happy when she found out we were heading home. "I want more 'vercation' Mamma and Daddy!" 

Stay tuned for my next post, which will cover the big, two week trip we took to Minnesota during July. We drove from CT to MN with a three year old! Were we crazy? You will just have to wait and see...

Happy August!
Joey, Erin and Clara