In honor of it being January in Buffalo and longing for summertime once again, I thought I’d share our visit to Old Forge, NY in the Adirondacks of upstate NY. Dan’s family goes every single year. Since most of my travel posts seem to get a little more love, I thought I would recap our 2017 trip, you can find this post almost every year. Most years we don’t change what we do all that much, but I try to incorporate something new every year we go just to keep my own travel bug fulfilled as well as Ada’s attention span!

This past year, we actually didn’t do much at all. Ada was more then happy to just stay at our cabins paying in the sand, water or the playground. She made some cousin friends this year that she got along really well with and basically wanted to spend every waking minute with so unless they were coming with us, she didn’t want to leave.

We went into the town of Old Forge one afternoon, took her for pizza and shopping to pick out her one souvenir gift of the week. She picked a cute little stuffed, pink pig and a stuffed elephant for the new baby! And she got to pick out some candy from the Candy Cottage. She picked cotton candy! She also took a ride on the carousel horse outside the shop, a highlight every year, it will break my heart when she thinks she too old for that!

We took a family kayak trip out on Fourth Lake, which she really enjoyed this year, so much so that she wanted to go again later in the week, so Daddy took her again. Probably one of my favorite pictures from the week! Love when they spend special time together!

I took her for a hike one of our days with a group of the littler kids. A group of them went earlier in the week and we were supposed to go, but we had a shoe incident and didn’t get out the door on time, thankfully though, because that group did a very long hike. We did a short, flat, 2 mile loop around Mirror Lake and even that you would think I was torturing her by making her walk herself. It wasn’t an ideal hike, but she enjoyed being with the other kids.

She got to do her first, solo (without me or dad) tube ride on the boat, which she absolutely loved, she was a little nervous to go out but I’m pretty sure I was more nervous then she was! Watching from the dock makes you feel pretty useless if anything were to go wrong. She loved it though and of course they went nice and slow, so she did great! Had the biggest smile on her face! She just looks too old for me in this picture!

And lastly we had a family wedding for the first time ever while we were there. It was fun to have something different to do, although the lack of a babysitter made it harder. Fortunately, Dan has a 13 year old cousin who offered to watch her, and I obviously wasn’t drinking or partying very hard, so we took Ada to the ceremony with us, but then left her back at the Cabin with Dan’s cousin for the reception, and I made it back home around 10pm to do bedtime. It was a really beautiful wedding, just a little chillier then we all expected!

And finally I’ll end with a few more favorite pictures from the week. Nothing better then a good, slow paced, family vacation! Ada slept great all week, with the exception of our first night there, which I always expect since its takes a night to get used to our new surroundings. It just always amazes me at how appreciative she is of everything we do, even if it feels likes nothing to me, its so exciting for her. To experience all this through her eyes makes every trip we take, worth every penny! I cannot wait to continue to travel with her and our new little girl! We already have a few trips planned out for 2018!