Thursday July 12
Topic: Vacation 2006

Wednesday we went to one of my favorite places to visit in Massachusetts.  It's a country store in Mansfield Mass, I've been going there since I was about 13 or so. A friend of my Grandmother's told her about it & my Mother , Grandmother & I set off to explore it & just kept going back, they have beautiful home furnishings, little  decorations, placemats, clocks, knick knacks, kitchen wares etc. The kids love the place too, which might seem a little odd but the first time we went there it was just the 4 of us, we were on our way home to VA & I wanted to do something more, the trip had been fun but didn't feel finished, at that point, while I had enough money to go on vacation I did not have much else, we were living in our ancient trailer & had very little which was nice or fun, (this was 2002 & we have come an amazingly long way since then)  The kids got a big kick out of pretending that different rooms in the place were their houses & really enjoyed the place, this time I was able to get some stuff for my new house, mostly little things like a new sign for my kitchen & new canisters since my old canisters gaskets were wearing out!  One big draw for the kids is the player pianos....

 There are toys too, mr 7 got a pirates hook & a rubber fish which when you squeezed it the eyes bulged out with tiny fish inside. Miss 16 didn't get much here but likes to check things out & dream about her future - or something! they also all seem to enjoy the candy counter (took this picture off their website- hope it's ok to do so....) We walked around there for quite awhile. Then we hung around at my mother's house for awhile. When it was time to go out to dinner, on the way we checked out an upscale shopping area which was built where one of my first jobs was{building #19 as a casheir} We checked out Kohls which I was dissapointed in since they were way too expensive- worse yet they were acting as if the prices were actualy great! after driving around debating where to eat we had dinner out- both my mother & my grandmother prefer to go out to dinner than to worry about cooking & cleaning up afterwards! The country store & the day before in Plymouth are the only things we did with my mother, but she's low energy & we wear her out, I sometimes wonder if I should be insulted by her comment that she's happy to see us come & happier to see us go! 

We ended up going to the Ground Round I had french onion soup which I'd been craving lately. After dinner we went back to my mothers & hung out with her until bedtime. This included serious discussion of what to do about the air bed which was leaking air badly. We haven't been able to find the second {& probably the third, fourth & fifth} hole in the air mattress, which we have to locate in order to patch.So night 2 I took the fold out couch & Miss 16 got the mattress! She wasn't too happy about it. But when I made the deal we agreed that we'd swap back the next day & she was ok with that. While checking my email I found that Ann wasn't going to be available for as many days as expected -leaving us with 2 days which are unplanned. Jen though, my cousin, emailed & said she would be available so we could get together & see each others kids! {I hadn't seen her oldest since she was a couple of weeks old & have never seen her younger child!} I was really looking forward to seeing her again!

 

This is a picture of my cannisters & my pathetic (2) sign collection, in my kitchen after we got home. I still haven't done anything with the walls in this place, just don't have the money for paint or paper yet...sigh...