Vacation to NH! Part 1

A few weeks ago we headed up to the White Mountains in New Hampshire for a long weekend.  It happened that we drove back on Toby’s birthday but this trip wasn’t specifically meant to celebrate, it just worked out well timing wise!  We rented a privately owned condo in Intervale through Homeaway.com and were so happy with our accommodations.  3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms and a big living space gave us lots of room to spread out.  It was a great deal after all the research I had done with finding smaller two bedroom condos that were much more expensive. 

I was nervous about the 3 hour drive up to NH and how Toby would handle it so we stopped in Dover, which was almost the half-way point.  There was a great children’s museum we spent almost two hours in and since we’re members of a local museum close to our house, our admission was free!  We are thinking about heading back up to Dover for a day trip again this summer because Toby had such a great time exploring the exhibits.  He did end up falling asleep for about 45 minutes in the car afterwards so it worked out well. 

The weather was very rainy the Friday we left, and we didn’t end up getting to our condo until 3:30 anyway, so we headed to an early dinner at the Muddy Moose (great family restaurant, definitely recommend) and then stopped by the L.L. Bean outlet after.  Toby thinks it’s hilarious running all around the stores now and playing hide and seek - we’ve become those parents that I was always judging pre-baby with not keeping their kids in line.  So much for trying to get any bargain shopping done.

We started Saturday morning with breakfast at Peaches in North Conway.  Food was decent and the wait was short.  After we headed down the street to the local park and also walked by the adjacent historic train station.  Toby’s new favorite thing at the park is to go over to the top of the slide and instead of sitting down to get ready to slide, he hangs on the bar at the top and says “monkey bar”.  I packed an extra mini first aid kit in my diaper bag just for this trip because of the daredevil stunts he pulls now.

Even the fire trucks were outside of the fire station next to the park, so of course we had to walk by those, as well.  After we were tired of the park, we headed a little way down the street to the Mount Washington Weather Discovery Center.  It’s free, though they suggest a small donation.  It wasn’t as big as I thought it was going to be and they were having a members breakfast but still allowed the public to come in so it was kind of awkward.  Toby just wanted to run around but we didn’t let him so we left before a meltdown ensued.  We walked through downtown a little more but didn’t stop to shop.  I love all the small local stores in North Conway, though, hopefully I get to explore them next year if we come back! 

We drove back to the condo for an early lunch and then everyone promptly took a two hour nap.  Yep, we all needed it!  We woke up to Toby stirring around 1:40ish and decided to quickly get everything ready so we could head to Story Land.  If you come in 3 hours before closing time, they will give you tickets to come back any day of the season so we wanted to make the most of the rest of the afternoon there. 

I barely remembered any of the rides from our trips to Story Land when I was a kid, so we started out in the nursery rhyme section and worked our way through the other areas.  Toby saw the Grandfather Tree play area and could have stayed there until closing if we let him.  He went up the stairs in the tree all by himself even though I had a small heart attack each time until his little head would poke out at the top and then he would look for us and smile SO big.  He would run over to the slide and then want to climb up all over again. 

We managed to snag him and go over to the Little Dreamers Play area, which was perfect for his age.  He went up and over the bridge probably thirty times in a row, played the big piano keys, and shut doors to a play house over and over and over again.  This section was definitely made for kids who love repetition!

We skipped Alice’s Tea Cups as I wasn’t sure how he would like that as his first ride.  He did like playing under the card tunnels, though.  Next we moved onto the Storybook animals.  He was more interested in pressing the button to hear the nursery rhyme and putting his hand on the speaker than looking at the actual animals.  I tried to get his picture with the wolf statue but he was not interested in standing still at this point.

We walked through some more of the park to get a feel for some of the rides so we knew what to try first thing when we came back the next morning.  There’s a new digger exploration by the roller coaster, so he loved doing that with Daddy. 

Then we went on the Tractors ride – Toby loved every second of it and didn’t want to get off so we got back in line to do it again.  He unfortunately is still too young to get the concept of waiting in line…so that was interesting as I tried to explain how he couldn’t just cut in front of other people.  I think he was also pretty tired at this point but luckily we only had to wait 5 minutes or so.  He loved being up front by himself while we sat in the back.  He would pretend to drive, look back at us and grin and say “Drive”, then press the buttons to honk the horn, and repeat the process.

After the second go-around on the tractors, we decided it was time to make our way to the exit as it was almost closing time anyways.  Toby threw a fit once he realized we were leaving, so it must have meant he had a good time.  I think this is when we asked if he had fun and he replied with “too much fun” and then started whining about being carried to the car. 

We went out to eat for dinner again, but Toby just wasn’t in the mood to sit still so it wasn’t enjoyable to say the least.  We knew we should have just eaten back at the condo but the thought of making something ourselves seemed exhausting at that point.  After we went over to Pirate’s Cove for mini golf since Toby’s free and we figured we could try it out.  He was interested in holding his mini putter for about two holes and then got bored of that.  He loved taking our balls and putting them in and out and basically messing up our scores :)  We were about four holes from being finished when he became obsessed with a water pail fountain and kept dunking his hands in it.  I was grossed out by the water inside and didn’t really want him touching it but he kept insisting and of course this ended in the meltdown of all meltdowns so we were forced to leave before finishing.  Hubby was pissed to say the least but I think Toby did better than what I was expecting of him.  Maybe next year he will be interested in learning to putt. 

We ended the night with ice cream at a place called Lick’s which was expensive for what they offered.  Positive side was they had a good-sized playscape for the kids to burn off all the sugar so Toby would play for a few minutes, run over to steal some of our ice cream, and then run back onto the playscape.  All in all, it was a great first full day and we explored a lot of the area!