A New Look Thompson Family Vacation

This morning Stacie and I boarded a plane to head off on a week long vacation. It's something we've done several times in the past - probably not enough - but this time there was a twist. The newest Thompson joined us for our trip. At six and a half months old, Vaughn was headed out on her first break from the real world.

Granted her real world looks pretty sweet most of the time - eat, sleep, play, repeat - but it's all about perspective.

As I write this we are in Manchester, New Hampshire. We flew into Boston today, rented a car and drove north. We decided to take the first day and a half of our trip and take in the New England fall. Though we landed in Boston around 4.30 local time, it was pretty dark by the time we got the rental car, pulled off to feed Vaughn and buy some needed supplies and got on the highway. What we have seen of New England so far seems pretty, though.

This is our third trip taking Vaughn on airplane. The first was to Stacie's dad's 60th surprise birthday party. The second was to Austin and ultimately Brady to meet, almost literally, my entire family.

Traveling is very different from what it was 7 months ago, but it's different even from what it was 2 months ago and 4 months ago, too. Vaughn is so active now. She spent half of the flight trying to get the attention of the old woman reading behind us by smiling and squawking. She spent about 30 minutes napping and the rest being entertained by us. She also requires a lot of gear. Before you have a baby, you always see people lugging baby stuff with them and you assume they're just crazy and that they surely don't need all of that stuff. Now, we're lugging all that stuff, but I have yet to determine if we really need it all or if we're just crazy and are over-lugging.

She's such a great traveler, though, and it warms my heart to think of all the people that she makes smile throughout the day. At the airport while we're waiting to board, she's kicking, waving and smiling at everyone who so much as gives her a passing glance. And I see them smile back or literally walk over to talk to her which is her favorite. She always makes time for compliments.

I promise this travel blog of sorts won't turn into a documentary of Vaughn's every move, but since today was basically a travel day not much occurred that's very relevant to speak of. We'll have plenty of pictures to share also as we do actual interesting things, and I'll try to post them here. There are two things to note, though. First, I was amazed at the kindness of people today. I hate that I'm surprised by that, but I was. I wasn't expecting folks in Boston to be rude or anything like that. I really wasn't expecting anything at all to be honest. Maybe it's because we do have a baby with us, but people were exceptionally kind as we were traveling today, enough so that I felt compelled to give them a shout out here.

Secondly, after we got settled in our hotel near downtown Manchester, we decided to head out to grab dinner. It was already 8PM here, but we were hungry and wanted to check out the quaint Manchester downtown. There are a ton of local restaurants and shops, but somehow we wound up in a Mexican restaurant.

Mexican.

In New Hampshire.

The risk we were taking was not lost on us, but after walking the slight incline that felt like a major hill to get to the downtown I was nearing pass-out hungry. After peeking into several places and finding waits, I finally had to eat and I knew that tortilla chips and salsa would be quickly delivered to the table. So, in we went. And it was fine. Not great, not horrible, but once again the people in the restaurant, both staff and fellow diners, could not have been nicer. So, we'll call it a win.

Now we're nice and warm in the hotel. Vaughn's asleep in the hotel crib just a few feet away. Stacie is asleep next to me. Somehow, even vacationing in New Hampshire can feel like home.