Thursday, May 7, 2015

Throwback Thursday

Here's my photo for this rendition of Throwback Thursday.
It was taken in Lincoln, New Hampshire in August of 1996.
I was 37 years old.


Obviously it's one of those "old timey" photo place's photos.
I'm the "Big Chief Frizzy Hair" standing in back.
Hubs is the cowpoke holding our papoose, College Boy, and my oldest son is a cowboy and my daughter is a drumming Native American.

I remember that my oldest son had just turned 5 years old that Summer and absolutely thrilled he got to hold a gun!
My daughter also wanted to hold a gun so she wasn't so happy but she put on a big smile anyway(that is so NOT like her, to feign happy when she is not, even at 3 years old. 8-)
College Boy was almost 6 months old when this photo was done.

That was quite the eventful Summer vacation.  I had developed very bad post partum depression after College Boy was born and I was not provided the "help" I needed to get past it so it was a long slog back to life.  My mother came to help just before College Boy was born and stayed about a month.  I didn't bounce back from this birth and when she left I fell apart.  I guess having had a C-section(my first one)with this pregnancy and not recovering very well or fast, then having 3 children to care for all at or under the age of 5(and none of them in school fulltime(Oldest went to Pre-K for 3 hours 3 x a week), it just was too much for me to handle.  Hubs worked very long hours and had a 1.5 hour commute to New Jersey.  The hospital was 1 hour away so it's not like I could get there to see a doctor by myself.

Anyway, I've got a glazed look in my eyes in the photo still 6 months out from giving birth.  I don't think I was sleeping much still.  I slap-dashed put together this vacation which included a few nights in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and a couple of nights in Brunswick, ,Maine(the town I had done 2 seasons of Summer stock theater in back in 1980 and 1981).

The day this photo was taken we were sightseeing at Clark's Trading Post.  When I was about 4 years old my family had gone to Clark's while on a family vacation.  I remembered their live bear show fondly.  I thought my kids would enjoy it to, especially since my daughter was very much into animals. 
We saw the bear show, rode a few rides, rode the old fashioned "real" train(oldest was into trains), viewed their collection of vintage Americana and the awesome MOXIE collection......and then we made the mistake of eating lunch there.
And the chicken sandwich I had gave me a raging case of food poisoning.

There is a tradition in our family of me getting sick eating food on vacation.  And this trip was no exception. ;-)
1993?  The year mom got food poisoning at Wendy's going down to see Grandma in VA.
1996?  The year mom got food poisoning at Clark's in NH.
1991?  The year mom got food poisoning at The Boat House in Beach Haven, NJ.
You get the idea......

I spent the end of the day sick as a dog, throwing up back at the hotel room.  Hubs took the older two kids to a Burger King with a playland for 3 hours(bless him!)while College Boy napped and I rolled around in bed sweating profusely and tried to sleep.
How fun....ha!

The next day we had plans to go to nearby Loon Mountain.  Being Summer the plans were to ride the ski lift(enclosed gondolas)to the summit and walk around, have lunch at their cafĂ© on the mountain.  They had mountain bike rentals at that time but the kids were too little to do any of that.  Afterwards we were going to walk around one of the little touristy towns and let the kids buy a souvenir.

Well by the next morning after the Clark's incident I really wasn't feeling the love of going up a mountain on ski lift or coming back down.  But Hubs forced me to go since he couldn't handle the 3 kids alone. College Boy wasn't walking yet and had to be carried in a Snugli but at almost 30 lbs. and me still feeling dizzy and queasy I wasn't up to carrying him around all day so we had to take the double stroller into a gondola and up the mountain.  I still don't know how Hubs got that thing in the gondola with him! lolz  I rode up and down that mountain with the 3 kids and I got more queasy on each ride up and down. 
On the summit they had a Lumberjack Show that day but it took place in an amphitheater they had built into the side of the mountain so it was a steep incline down to the show and back up again.  By the time the show happened I was able to drag the stroller behind me and go about 10 rows down to the show while Hubs took the older two kids right up front to good seats.  I just remember closing my eyes and praying that this day would end and I could collapse into my bed back at the hotel.

Obviously I survived the day and that trip though I can't find any other pictures of me on that vacation in the photo album and maybe that's a good thing! ;-)

Sluggy


 

4 comments:

  1. oh know that wasn't a good thing to happen to you. I have a photo of our kids with my mam and step-father in that type of costume somewhere.

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  2. Everyone looks cute as a button in this photo. I like it. Sorry it had sweating and food poisoning, etc. associated with it, though.

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  3. Oh...food poisoning on vacation. That happened to hubby and I on a road trip with my parents back in 1982. We flew to CA and drove from San Fran down the coast to LA. We stopped at A McD's in St Luis Obispo and had a quarter pounder with cheese. So sick were we that I will never forget it. When we made it to Disneyland, hubby and I took a raft to Tom Sawyer Island, found a couple of benches and just crashed on them while my parents went around the park. We didn't have McD's for years after that experience.

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  4. Vacation food poisoning memories. Not the best memories at all. Sorry you had to go through that. But clearly it has not put you off of road tripping.

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