We’ve had the summer of our lives. We went to beaches, ponds, pools, and sprinklers. We did a backpack adventure in the Arboretum and gave backpacks to homeless people. We bonded with Grammy, Oma and Opa. We went to the zoo. A lot. We visited friends. We invented a game. Hazy learned to swim! We went bowling, went to the library, went to Legoland, went to one and a half museums, and went to the circus. Sometimes we did nothing, but we did it together.

It’s hard to top that, but I think we did it with our Labor Day weekend family vacation.

Somehow, in three and a half days, we packed in all the things that make summer great. On the drive up to our vacation place, on a whim, we went to Canobie Lake Park, the old school amusement park that Matty and I went to when we were kids.

They still have the same old Caterpillar ride, the antique cars that kids can drive, and my all-time favorite, the log flume. I am totally psyched that it’s now Hazy’s favorite too.

I’d been talking about going to Canobie for a while, so Matty had gotten a big stack of $4 off coupons from McDonald’s weeks ago, which I happened to have in my backpack. It was a total A-Team I-love-it-when-a-plan-comes-together moment. Since we had so many extra coupons, I gave them out outside the ticket booths to random people, like some sort of ghetto Oprah. You get a coupon! You get a coupon!

There are like a kajillion rides for kids and we must have rode them all: trucks, horses, rocket ships, boats, swings, horse carts, helicopters, antique cars, bumper cars, dune buggies, and a fighter jet (not pictured). Fun fact: you can click on any photo to view it larger.

Throwback to the day before, when George was thrilled to be on this boat.

But it wasn’t just rides. We got another souvenir 51¢ penny!

There were prizes!

There were fortunes!

There was Super Premium Italian Ice!

There were photo ops!

There were also…

Also, I happened to snap this selfie of Hazy and I on the Caterpillar, and I will cherish it forever.

Then there was a ferris wheel ride at magic hour, which was indeed kind of magical.

After this jam-packed day at Canobie, we headed up to the Naswa Resort on Lake Winnepesauke.

I have a soft spot in my heart for Lake Winnepesauke, as does Matty, since we both went there a lot growing up. It was such a treat to stay in a little pistachio-colored cabin on the lake, which was unexpected, since we don’t have the best track record with the whole family sleeping in one room (I’m having flashbacks to the time we left the Cape at 6 am because the kids basically didn’t sleep all night), but this time it went great. Thank God.

To be continued…