My Trip: Day 5

Day 5 of the trip was spectacular.  Not that any of the days were anything less than incredible, but there was just something particularly awesome about this day.

 

A bit of background first.  Once again, just as a reminder, Megan was my roommate when I went to the University of New Hampshire.  Megan's cousin is Jess.  She is a different Jess, not to be confused with Jess my friend who I had lunch with in Maine the previous day.  I first met this Jess during Labor Day weekend, 1999 when Megan, who I had only known for 2 weeks, generously took me to Cape Cod for my 20th birthday weekend.  Jess came along and we bonded during a freezing cold dip in the Atlantic Ocean.  I think Jess and I have only seen each other in person one other time.  That was during my trip in 2005.  But, we are facebook friends and she is a longtime reader of the blog.  In fact, it needs to be publicly noted that Jess reads every post of this blog and she is such a dedicated follower that, because she got a late start as a reader, she went back to the beginning of the blog and read old posts just so she wouldn't have missed anything.  That is damn dedicated!

On Sunday morning Jess met us at Megan's house.  The three of us loaded up in the Prius and headed down the street to pick up Laurie.  Megan, as a side job, provides respite care and as part of that job she takes Laurie on outings.  Megan thought that this would be a perfect outing for Laurie because of the final destination.......we were headed for Deerfield, MA, the home of YANKEE CANDLE.

 

The outside grounds were gorgeous and lush.

We asked Laurie to take our picture in front of the welcome wagon.  She was having a hard time seeing the image in the view window.

 

I just love this progression.

 

Nicely centered, but a little far and a little blurry.

 

 

Distance is good.  A little too far to the right.

 

Nope, now we're way too far to the left.

Fourth time is a charm!

 

(BTW- that is Jess on the left)

So, we entered the wonderland that is the yankee candle village and were immediately met by a woman handing out maps. 

 

I did not save my map, but a quick google search allows me to show you too.

I cannot understate how massive this place is.  I don't feel like we rushed through it, but we certainly weren't pokey and it took us 3 hours to see everything.

 

The first big candle room

Then we entered the Christmas Village, which also had a tiny Halloween Village at the beginning.

 

It snows every 4 minutes in this indoor forest.

If you were in the market for a Christmas ornament they had 17.6 billion (yes, billion with a "b") to pick from.

The Bavarian Village.

 

I did kind of feel like I was back in Germany.

 

That is Laurie on the left.

Next up: Santa's Village.

 

Mrs. Claus was there, but I didn't get a picture of her.

When I got home and showed my family the pictures from the trip this was Spencer and Elliott's favorite.

I was tempted to buy about 14 signs in this sign area, but I was good and bought 0 of them.  My favorite one said "Don't be Gross.  Wash your hands with soap."

 

The car air freshener area

And then, we arrived in candle heaven.  One (huge) room with every scent that Yankee Candle sells.  They also had white, unscented candles.  Seriously, if you go to Yankee Candle and buy white, unscented candles, you have a problem.

I would have bought this scent, but they only had it in the big jars and I didn't want to buy anything in glass.

Once we were done with the factory we headed over to the neighboring restaurant.  Of course I took a bunch of pictures of the beautiful scenery.

The restaurant was really nice but we had to wait a million hours for our food.  It was actually OK because I had no small children crawling on my lap or complaining in my ear.

I was so happy to get my meal.  I ordered the Thanksgiving sandwich.  Turkey, sage dressing and cranberry sauce.

 

Oh, and an individual boat of gravy.

As if that wasn't enough, we headed back into the factory for dessert.  When in New England you can't go wrong with Ben and Jerry's.  Actually, you can't go wrong no matter what state you are in.  Michael has two cousins that work for Ben and Jerry's in Vermont.  I posted this picture to one of their facebook pages.

After a long drive home in which we got stuck in a random Sunday afternoon traffic jam and I fell asleep in the back seat for a few minutes, we arrived home with just enough time to get ready for the yoga class that Megan teaches.

 

We had pre-agreed not to make eye contact with each other during the class because I didn't want to make her laugh.  It was a great class.  It was the only workout I did on the whole trip and my body is still suffering from my week off. 

After yoga we headed back home where we had some yummy burgers and then we were off to bed.  Day 6 was my last day and it was a busy one (of course).

 

Now for the souveniers!

 

I bought all of these at Yankee Candle.

 

A Snoopy ornament for Spencer

A bird wearing a Santa hat ornament for me.  I plan on clipping it on the valance in the kitchen.

A bottle of pumpkin spice syrup for Michael. 

A glow in the dark dinosaur wall sticker for Elliott.  There's no picture because I forgot to take one and he's sleeping right now.

 

A little piggy bowl for myself.

And finally, the candles!

 

I didn't want to buy any glass jars because it's too hard to travel with them.  There was a deal that you saved 50 cents on each votive candle if you bought 12 of them, so that's what I did.  I know that there is not a single person on the planet that cares about the scents, but I am going to list them for you now.  I can't not do it.  I actually can't breathe when I think about leaving this information out of the post.

 

Back row, left to right: Silver Birch, Apple Spice, Summer Scoop (it smells like a strawberry milkshake!) and Mountain Lodge

 

Middle row, left to right: Salted Caramel, Soft Blanket, Whoopie Pie and Cherries on Snow

 

Front row, left to right: Chocolate Layer Cake, Vanilla Lime, Candy Corn and Celebrate Christmas 

I picked up each one and smelled it as I typed its scent.  It was lovely.  They are all my favorites.