Another VT Outing

In the middle of our stay in Vermont, Monkey headed off with Nonni and Poppi so the other big kid cousins and I headed out for a day of adventure.

We started with the Norman Rockwell Museum, which the children kindly let me peruse for 20 minutes or so. I could have wandered there for over an hour, reading about the real life people who posed for Norman Rockwell. One story that stuck with me was a woman remembering being a 5 y.o., going to pose for him. Her mother had dressed her in her best dress, and fancied up her hair. When she got to the Rockwell house, he had her switch to a simple dress, dumped a bucket of water over her head (or dumped her in a bucket, I can’t remember which), and said, “Now you look like a refugee who needs help,” which what he needed her to pose as. It just struck me as so funny and true-to-life.

After we finished there, we headed to the “Chocolate Museum,” which was a lovely chocolate store, with a huge bear made out of chocolate. The big hit there was everyone getting a chance to pick their sweetie. That was a fascinating process to watch. You want to understand a person? Tell her she gets to spend $5 in a candy store.

The kids noticed the beautiful stream by the chocolate shop, so we stopped to toss stones for awhile.

Then we went out for lunch:

It was still to early to head back after lunch, so we made one final stop at the amazing bookstore in Manchester. Many more hours could have been spent here by all of us.

It was another delightful day out.