Easter vacation in collage

Easter "vacation" is a stretch; it was more like "Easter let's-visit-every-one-of-our-relatives road trip."  Like I said, I took way too many photos, so here comes super collage show.

On our way from here to Connecticut we stopped at dunkin donuts for a treat.  We went from living in a place with half a dozen DD's in town to a place with none in a 20 mile radius, so on road trips we like to indulge in bacon and cheese croissants and coffees.

Bob is currently 98% obsessed with "steering" every vehicle he sees.  Every time we get in or out of the car he begs, "Steer?  Pease?  Two min!"  ("Two min" = "two minutes" = "just let me do it for two minutes!")

Hard to believe, but Bobby is even more in love with my Jeep than I am.

At Grandma Arpie's, Bob had fun exploring a new yard.

One night Grandma made spaghetti and meatballs, one of Bob's favorite meals.  I say, "That's a spicy," and he shouts, "meat ball!"

Bob called Grandma's pups "new dogs."

We went to the Mystic Aquarium which was pretty cool.

The jellyfish were the coolest.

We hit up a school playground so that Bob could try some new slides.

We went to play disc golf in the woods with one of Ben's friends.

And we hung around the house.

Then Saturday we moved on to spend a night at Tiny Gram's.  Here's Grandma pretending she doesn't know I'm taking her picture and Grandpa looking handsome and pensive as always.

My Aunt Tricia and two of my little cousins, Joe and Sam, were there to greet us.  Bob now loves Aunt Tricia because she kept sneaking him treats for the two days in a row he saw her.  When she left he said, "Bye, Trisha," and we all laughed because it doesn't seem that such a tiny person should be able to say as much as he does.

Growing up I was super lucky to have one grandparent living on a farm and another living on a lake.  Tubing and waterskiing behind Grampa Sonny's boat during the summer was my absolute favorite thing.

Ben and I disagreed about the whole Easter basket thing.  Growing up I always got a basket of candy and little presents on Easter morning.  The first year I remember, I woke up and noticed some candies on my floor.  Immediately I thought that my little brother James had spilled them and I ran into my mom's room to tell her.  "Maybe you should pick them all up," she said.  So I went back in, and I had a little Fisher Price kitchen in there, so I grabbed my miniature juice pitcher (the orange one with the white top with the orange knob) and collected the candies, eventually realizing that I was following a little trail around my room and under my bed.  And when I crouched down to reach under the bed for more candy, there it was, a basket of goodies!  It was so exciting!  Every year after that she did the same thing, until we were too old and all the fun died.  So I wanted to do the same thing for Bob.  Ben wasn't a huge fan because he doesn't see what it has to do with the real meaning of Easter, but he wasn't going to stop me of course, so I did it anyway.  

Bob got up early and I was too tired and it was too dark for me to get good pictures, but here's a blurry look.  He spotted the Reeses pieces carrot right away and recognized the contents as "nuts" and brought it to me to open, and since I gave the candy to him first thing in the morning, I couldn't stop him from eating it first thing.  (But let's be clear: I bought all this candy for me.  Bob ate about ten Reeses pieces and five bites of the dark chocolate bunny a few days later, and that was it.  Ben and I ate all the rest.)

My cousin Simone also brought Bobby a little Easter basket containing a fireman dalmatian and some fruit snacks.  Dog he loved, fruit snacks not so much.

The newest baby in the family, my cousin Mary Jo's four month old daughter Isabella, is a little cutie.

While everyone does their thing, I walk around snapping pictures of it all.  They all like to make fun of my blogging and camera-toting, but let's be honest, family: you keep coming back for more.

Tiny Gram's house is the cutest house ever.  And since she took up quilting five or ten (?) years ago, it's slowly been filling with beautiful quilts.

I bought this tower of bunnies game at Walgreens or someplace and I wanted to play it so bad but the little kids kept bumping into the wobbly table and ruining everything.

Bob sat eating Easter dinner yumminess continuously for pretty much a whole hour.

Everyone loves Grandma's swing.

My youngest first cousin Simone is a little sweetheart.  And she loves having her picture taken.

Mary Jo's son Damien is just a few weeks older than Bob.

Cutie sisters Isabella and Savannah...

Mary Jo and all three kiddos...

I call this one, "Simone likes to be in every picture."

Finally we hit the road to head back home.  But I can't drive through the Berkshires without stopping at Gram's, so we did.  The look on Gram's face when I pay her a surprise visit is priceless to me.

And so are hugs from my Mason and Chloe.

Dave was looking super handsome on Easter so I had to steal a couple quick pics.

Sadly, we didn't fit in any egg painting or hunts this year, but that's okay.  We did enough I think.