Exploring Newport

Saturday (Nov. 6th) we spent exploring Newport.  It is such a wonderfully quaint and beautiful town.  We tried to catch a tour of the city but a large group bought out the trolley so we decided to give it a go on our own.  I am so glad we did!  It was a perfect day.  We began by exploring the downtown area right near the pier.  There were tons of cute shops and places to visit. 

 I mean really...how cute is this place?!?

One of my favorite things to get while on vacation is Christmas ornaments.  We found a store called The Nutcracker Suite and that was all the carried.  It was awesome and we got a super cool blown glass Rhode Island ornament.  You can barely see but behind us is a nutcracker.

The middle of the area seemed to be centered around this church.  It was very beautiful in person and the picture does not do it justice.  There were pumpkins meticulously littered all over and the trees were still beautiful colors.  Idealistic to say the least.

We spent some time playing in the lawn out in front of it.  Charlotte was having a blast cheesing and running around. 

This was maybe the most hilarious thing in the history of the universe.  When we are playing sometimes Charlotte pretends to hide by just laying down and burrying her head.  Needless to say, when Jim was chasing her she all of the sudden just stopped, jumped, and belly flopped right into the grass to "hide" from him.  It was so spontaneous and seriously cracked me up.

It was a very clean town, and who wouldn't be with signs like this.

After peeking through many shops and grabbing a sandwich we drove across the way to catch a closer glimpse of all the sail boats.  It was so picturesque. 

Charlotte had fun playing on the dock.  Although I about had a heart attack that she kept wanting to look at the water.  Seriously she has no fear.

After leaving the pier Charlotte fell asleep in the car so we decided to go for a drive.  Before we knew it we had landed ourselves on Ocean Drive.  Little did we know this would become quite the tradition for us.  Ocean Drive is a 10 mile strip that runs along the coastline.  The views are breathtaking to say the least.  We pulled over the first chance we got.

We each stayed with Charlotte and found our way out on to the rocks.  Hearing the waves crash and seeing them roll in was so cool.

It is hard to explain how big the waves were but here is Jim out by them while I was at the car.  They were taller than he was.

And the rocks were gigantic.  We finally woke Charlotte up to go out and see it all.  I am not sure she cared, but we were excited to show her.

She was still a sleepy girl and spent some time cuddling with Dad.  I love this picture of the two of them.  So sweet.

After we got done and finally came back up we noticed this sign.  Uh oh!

After staring at the ocean for quite some time we decided to get back in the car and continue down Ocean Drive.  We soon ran into another indecribable view.  Newport is surrounded by water as it is essentially an island off of Rhode Island.  Amazing how different the view is from one side to the other.

This is the toll bridge you take to get over to Newport.  It is very cool driving on it even though I know that sounds dumb.  Certainly made for quite the view.

 

When we got there we were near Fort Adams and President Dwight D Eisenhower's summer residence.

 

It was pretty windy, enough for a sailboat, so we didn't spend a ton of time but still enjoyed ourselves.

We finally headed back to the hotel for awhile.  Eventually we went back out to grab some pizza for dinner.  Here was Charlotte waiting for Daddy to finish adjusting her car seat.

 After pizza we decided on some ice cream.  We plugged ice cream into the GPS and wound up at the Newport Creamery.  BEST ICE CREAM EVER!!  So so tasty. 

We all shared a gigantic sundae...as big as Charlotte's head.  Also, some girls in line recognized Charlotte because they had seen us the night before at Fieldstone's.  It was quite ironic.

We came back and finished the evening by cuddling and finishing Toy Story 3.  Wonderful day!