Massachusetts Part 1

I am horrible at journaling which becomes really frustrating when I have an event such as this that I want to record and remember.  Therefore I will just do my best and hope that I am able to capture my experience with my limited words.

My brother Jo and his new wife Tiana planned a ring ceremony/reception for her friends and family in Massachusetts for the second week in October.  It would have been fun to have my whole family there but we didn't want to take the kids out of school and Andy thought it best that he stay back since there was a lot of work things going on at the time.

All of us original siblings plus Mom and Dad were able to make the trip.

I was super excited...I can't even tell you :)

Monday evening I drove down with Mom and Dad to Jo and T's place in Salt Lake and spent the night in preparation for our early flight out the next morning.

Tuesday was all travel.  First we picked up James who was staying at a friend's house in Salt Lake and then we flew out of Utah into Atlanta Georgia.

This is a pic of one of the cool walkways in the Atlanta airport....it was like a rainforest complete with sounds :)

Then we flew into Hartford Connecticut.  I was not feeling well on this second flight and was disappointed when it lingered with me through the evening.  Angie's flight came in not too long after ours and so then we hopped into our two rentals and drove to Lee Mass. to meet up with T (who had flown out the day before) and her mom who then helped us find our way to Otis where we were staying in a sweet, little farmhouse in the Berkshires which was owned by one of their good friends.  They had done some grocery shopping for us and helped us settle in that night.

...by trying to get myself in the picture I made everyone else blurry :(

On the porch that evening...

It was dark when we arrived so the next morning we toured around and got a good look at things!

The living room...
I was so excited to see a piano!  I had seriously contemplated bringing a duet that Angie and I had played together years ago (The Poet and the Peasant) and had just ordered off of Amazon but I talked myself out of it thinking we would never be around a piano to do it together.  I was kicking myself!

The kitchen...

The bedroom I chose...
in the picture of the kitchen above, this little bedroom is through the open door on the right...it was kind of a screened in porch feel and I fell in love with it!

Isn't it charming!?!?
I loved spending time in it during our stay.
It was kind of magical.
And if the inside isn't beautiful enough, this was right out the back door...

These pink hydrangeas are something I remember from my trip to New Hampshire when I visited Ang and Dan 4 years earlier.

There were absolutely everywhere and I loved it!

To find them here was heaven :)

Another thing I loved about this little house was that there were bees buzzing all around!

I went on a quest to find all the bee things in the house and take pictures of them...

These aren't bees but this was one of the bedrooms upstairs where Ang spent most of her nights.
It had flower fairies in it which are a childhood memory for me.

And then there was this little guy on the fridge who everyone else thought was creepy but I though was rather cute :)

There are two other buildings on the property.
This is The Barn...

It had a big open area downstairs and then a loft on each side with 6-8 beds in each.
Apparently this woman is very good about letting youth groups come and use her facilities so there's a girls' side and a boys' side :)

Lots of whimsy everywhere you went...

And then the building on the left (the one on the right was our farmhouse) was The Cottage...

There were places for wasps to make their homes on each side of the loft upstairs.
There was a sturdy screen to keep them from coming in but I thought it was pretty cool!

I will carry on with our second day activities in the next post.