vermont must be beautiful this time of year...

Well, I have finally been to all six New England states! (Which makes my total states visited 37! Exciting!) We took a trip up to Vermont to tour Ben and Jerry's factory and to take a few hikes! 

Ben and Jerry's is such an impressive company! They are fair trade, and only use the best and healthiest milk from local, Vermont farms. They are super involved in the community and make sure their employees are all serving as well. Everyone who worked there seemed so happy! Also, did you know that each Ben and Jerry's employee gets to go home with 3 pints of ice cream each day they work! I'm not really sure what I would do with that much ice cream, but Ben and Jerry's definitely makes employee satisfaction a priority. 

After Ben and Jerry's, we ate lunch at a tiny pub. It wasn't your average pub food... they only sold tacos and burritos! But man, was it delicious! Apparently, Vermont is really into their own version of BBQ, and we had some pretty tasty carnitas tacos and burritos. 

After lunch, we drove to Smuggler's Notch, Vermont, to go hiking. Now... Just so you can picture it, while we were in Ben and Jerry's, it began to snow. While we were eating lunch, it continued to snow rather hard. By the time we made it to Smuggler's Notch, the woods looked like a winter wonderland! We didn't make it very far on our hike, but it was definitely a gorgeous walk! 

After our walk, we drove around some of the ski resorts in the area. Vermont has some awesome resorts, and we were bummed that we live too far away to go snowboarding there often. 

Then, we made our way back to Rhode Island. I ended up falling asleep at 9, which was lovely. The end.

the time dan and hope visited.

Greetings!
On Friday, our friends Dan and Hope drove from Indianapolis to visit! We have loved having them here! They both went to school in Rolla with Nick, and we also worked at Pine Cove with Dan. Nick and Dan were also groomsmen in our weddings.

On Saturday, we drove north toward Maine, stopping in Peabody, Salem, and Portsmouth on the way!

Peabody:
Peabody has one of the rare Chick-fil-as in Massachusetts (there isn't one in Rhode Island). We enjoyed spicy chicken sandwiches, waffle fries, and Arnold Palmers. Don't take Chick-fil-a for granted, folks. Especially those chicken biscuits. Mmmmm.

Salem:
I hadn't been to Salem yet, but was really interested in the history, so we made it a stop in our day trip. We walked around, went to the National Park Service Visitor Center and the Salem Witch Trials memorial, and then walked to the Friendship of Salem. It's crazy how an event that was so anti-witchcraft has evolved a town into a place that is all about witches and witchcraft. Apparently there are a lot of museums that we should have gone to, but we had places to be! Especially since the sun sets at 4:30 now.

 

Portsmouth, New Hampshire:
This is another town we had been itching to visit, but hadn't made it up there yet. Portsmouth pretty much reminded me of every other coastal New England town. :) It's super cute and has tons of shopping/eating opportunities. I don't think I would want to live there, but it was fun to visit!

Nubble Lighthouse- York, Maine:
New England has a ton of lighthouses. It's definitely a perk. This one was so lovely, and really looked exactly like what you expect a lighthouse to resemble. We got there right before sunset, which meant the lighting was just gorgeous. We got to watch the sun set over Maine, and Dan and Hope got to stick their hands in the freezing Atlantic. :)




 

We had dinner at the Shore Road Market and Restaurant, and tiny little place that was family owned and operated. The owner showed Hope and Dan how to crack open their lobsters, the wife was our waitress, and the daughter was our cashier. They were SO friendly and the food was good and reasonably priced! It was also Dan's first lobster experience... Where is a better place to have it than Maine?



On Sunday, we traveled around Rhode Island after taking Dan and Hope to church with us and introducing them to Northpointe goers. We had lunch at Fellini Pizzeria and then drove down to Newport to show them the Cliff Walk. We ended up watching the sun set at Brenton Point State Park, which was amazing! We had never spent time on that side of the island. We had a lofty goal of making it to Westerly as well, but again, since the sun sets at 4:30, we didn't make it. We traveled back to Providence and watched The Crucible, in honor of our trip to Salem the day before.

 

That's been their visit thus far! They are traveling to Boston on their own tomorrow. Jealous!

Happy Tuesday, friends!