Dad Allen’s site should have even more pictures up from this visit.

We have video of every wiener dog race heat – they were super cute and funny – but here is just one and also some of the barrel and stein races too.

After our awesome day at the park, we headed over to Daniel’s folks house and had a great family dinner in their garden, before heading back to Boston. What a day!

We finished our Newburyport trip with a surprise Farmers’ Market find.  When we woke up in the morning, we checked out of the hotel and left our bag at the front desk so we could do a little more exploring.  We returned our bikes to the rental shop and found a Farmers’ Market had sprung up right next door!  We had a great local coffees and breakfast burritos and enjoyed looking at everything.  The highlight was most definitely cider mill donuts – just like fall in Michigan.  After heading back to the center of town, we took care of some people watching and some gelato before heading back to the train station to get home.  We had a great weekend.  Thank you again so much, Thadd and Shannon, for a fabulous graduation gift!

After getting cleaned up back at the Inn, we out for some shopping and had cappuccinos and a cannoli at Caffe di Siena. We had drinks and dessert at The Grog before heading back to the Inn where we had a bottle of wine from Groot Constantia on ice. We brought the bottle back with us from our trip to South Africa. One year ago today, we were celebrating our 5 year anniversary with brunch on the Groot Constantia winery estate and dinner on Cape Town’s waterfront.

The last 6 years have been awesome. Here’s to another 60!

• We stayed in Marigny
• We walked around the French Quarter and Jackson Square
• We had biegnets and cafe au lait at Cafe Du Monde
• We visited the St. Louis Cathedral where Melissa’s grandparents got married (and its second claim to fame: oldest continuously operating cathedral in the US)
• We had the original Hurricanes at Pat O’Briens
• It didn’t take very long to enjoy the perks of New Orleans “to go” cups for adult beverages
• Josh had an alligator burger
• We walked along the Mississippi and watched the hipsters and the ships
• We saw Kermit Ruffins and the Barbeque Swingers play at Vaughan’s
• We ate sandwiches on the street there
• We went to bars on Frenchmen Street
• Josh outwitted a street scammer and impressed a doorman, which reduced our cover charge
• We had a nice brunch at a local diner with yummy homemade pies
• We patronized a fun New Orleans hat shop, Meyer the Hatter
• We took the trolley out to the Garden District and walked around to see pretty mansions
• We ate dinner on the outdoor patio of a tavern, Bulldog
• We cabbed it back to the Hornets game
• We watched the Grizzlies beat the Hornets on a Noche Latina
• We had drinks at a bar that let us have pizza delivered from the shop next door
• We had breakfast at Cafe Amelie which was super pretty
• We made a second trolley visit to the Garden District to check out the cemetery and then rode the trolley back
• Josh was able to put a name to the music he loves, Zydeco (Don’t mess with my Toot Toot!)
• We went to an oyster bar
• We had dinner at Brennan’s where Bananas Foster was invented (and had Bananas Foster made tableside)
• We did a lot of hanging out and talking and catching up and had a super great time!
• Melissa was a champion for carrying a baby everywhere we went, putting up with all of her friends while not being able to enjoy the adult beverages, and for maintaining all of her usual charm, grace and hilarious wit to boot!

One surprise was a lovely hotel connected to the Hartford airport, that let us use their business center and print for free without being guests. Without them, we wouldn’t have been able to use the bus tickets we had bought and would have had to buy new ones at the station, for a much later bus! Thank you Sheraton, you rock our world!