Bean: for the rest of our trip . . .

We stayed at a four bedroom, three full bathroom house right on Lake Champlain. The porch, which could convert from a glassed-in to a screened-in effortlessly, was fantastic. It overlooked the lake (looking south down the lake). Having lived in Burlington for two years and in Vermont my entire childhood/adolescence I never realized how massive Lake Champlain is until this trip. It really should be considered a Great Lake. We had a fabulous time swimming (we were in the lake just about every day), boating (we went out in the rowboat once, but baby Doodle LOVED it), relaxing, eating, drinking and visiting Montreal and Burlington.

I hadn't been to Montreal since I was in high school so it was cool to see it again. We stayed in the old city party, but got a good feel for things. We visited Notre Dame, had lunch, and ice cream in BD's case, on the great water front area on the St. Lawrence River. I wondered if Philadelphia officials have been to Montreal to see how Philly could improve our Delaware River area. BD hadn't napped and my hip was annoying me so we left sooner than we would have otherwise (I ran that morning for the first time in a while and re-realized the pain I often have when running on pavement or walking long distances).

Our day in Burlington was fabulous. I went to UVM so it was a little nostalgic for me, but we did some things I'd never done before, like go to the ECHO Center, which was informative and had a lot geared toward kids. Baby Doodle had a great time playing and exploring. We ate our packed lunch looking at the lake and the boats. It was sidewalk sale day on Church Street so there were musicians with open guitar cases on the street. Baby Doodle enjoyed donating to their cause. We went to my brother's house to have a little down time and do laundry. Then we went back to Church Street to have dinner with Uncle Doodle and good old Ben and Jerry's for dessert. Baby Doodle had chocolate ice cream every single day of our vacation.

The time we spent at the lake house was spent eating, drinking, playing badminton and swimming. We played a few games (Oh Hell, Dominoes, Battleship and Mastermind) at night while we inhaling brownies and ice cream. We did manage to have a case of fleas in the house that we suspect came from the mangy cat that was hanging around the house begging for food and to be let in. I think the people who rented before us had let it in the house and were cuddling it and feeding it, and allowing it to spread fleas around. I was only bit a few times, as were BD and Mr. D, but our friend had bites all over her body and had to get a prescription to bathe in to rid them completely from her. That was a bummer.

It was great to have Mr. Doodlebug around for a whole week. I was only solely responsible for baby Doodle about 10% of the time so I had a lot of time to do yoga, prepare meals, read etc. . . All in all it was a great time. More pictures are below.