The Frolicers: We land cruise East

It’s been a while since our last blog. In our last blog we had finished our trip West, and now we head East to visit friends and family.

Kathy and our family at Chez Louis

Leslie with the Steckman-Pusitari
family in NJ

Eric, Kelly, and the girls, Tali and Cloe, were also heading to Newport to visit, and met us at our favorite way stop for the trip, the Chez Louis. They stayed a day before continuing on to Newport while we headed to NJ to visit other friends.

Alice with Kelly and the girls

We visit Extreme Brewery in Newport

After a stop in Long Island to visit my father and cousin Cindy, we take a series of ferries to finally arrive at Newport also. We stay at my cousin Alice and John’s house for an all too short stay in Newport to visit friends.

The Hood party

what a night in the hood

We don’t get to see everyone we would have liked to, but Warren and Nancy, neighbors from our old neighborhood, throw a neighborhood party and most of the “hood” attend. It was a great time! Warren went diving and got a bunch of clams which he cooked up and everyone else brought snacks to create an unforgettable night!

Our great neighbors

We visit the Tipsy Sea Gull

We go to dinner with Dave and Janice

The Concert at Newport Beach

The Mulvanys catch up to us from
the Bahamas

While at Newport we got to see a concert on the beach and met up again with old friends of ours who have also started cruising and whom we saw at Georgetown Bahamas during the boat delivery, Greg and Lizanne.

The Monument in Plymouth

The substatue of Morality

The need of Justice

While Leslie was visiting a friend from Mass., I got together with Kelly and the girls and we headed to Plymouth to see history. We saw Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower, and also the Monument. Leslie and I have taken our boys to Plymouth several times while they were growing up and went to all the sites, we thought. However, we had never heard of the Monument. It is the largest free standing granite statue in the world and is about 2 miles from the Rock sitting in a little park in the middle of a residential district. It was built in the 1800s and symbolizes all that is needed to have a free people governed by the people. We had never heard of it before so we went to visit it. It sits by itself in the park. There are no brochures on its history or meaning, no vendors or park buildings, no signs to talk about it, just a bar code sign to scan and I guess go to a web site. It features a central figure, 36 feet tall, representing Faith, with four seated statues surrounding her representing Education, Law, Morality and Freedom. There are a number of smaller figures shown in relief around the base representing various other virtues as well as depictions of the Pilgrims and their journey. It is an impressive monument that is all but unknown. An a relative of Kelly’s is listed on the monument!

Education

The girls at the Rock

The Mayflower

On the way back Kelly introduced me to IKEA

The Fisher Household

Leslie pets the "birds" in Meredith

We also went up to New Hampshire to visit the Fishers and timed it perfectly as their son Eric got married that weekend and the whole family was there. They had about 45 people in the back yard for a picnic and about 30 stayed overnight in the house, we got the blow up bed in the TV room. An absolutely super time!

Eric and I go to an 3 gun shoot

We take the girls to Cabelas

Then it was time to head back to St. Louis and we got to watch the girls for a few days as their school started after Kelly had to go back to work. The big surprise was a live show of Bill Cosby. Kelly and Leslie got us tickets as a father’s day gift but it happened in Aug.

Eric makes Tali a paint shirt for school

Tali's first day of school with friends

Eric and I see Bill Cosby

We visit Lego Land

Madison and Cole love the rides

Once they were back in the groove we headed to Tampa Florida to watch Aron and Katie’s kids, Madison and Cole, as they just moved down there for Aron’s new assignment in the Army and wanted to do some unpacking without the kids underfoot. So we took the kids to Legoland one day and the Tampa museum another day, but were rained out the last day so we helped the kids unpack and set up their rooms.