Matthew's Big New England Adventure

I have been wanting to blog about Matthew's first flight and visit with relatives, but the 300+ photos that Tony took of the trip was a little more daunting to look through than I anticipated. So here is the Executive Summary (Can you tell that Matthew's Mom is a Proposal Manager?)

• New States Visited: 5, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island (a brief stop to get Tony some Dunkin Donuts coffee), and New York. We drove about 750 miles. The longest drive was a 7 hour trip from Cape Cod to Maplewood, New Jersey (it should have been 5 1/2 hours but we made frequent stops).
• Relatives Visited: Matthew met 40 relatives for the first time. They were all family on my father's side. We enjoyed wonderful hospitality from all and had some delicious meals.
• Cannolis eaten by Varesics: 11 in all... My Uncle Michael and Cousin Doreen were kind enough to get some from the Italian bakeries, knowing that we cannot get good Cannolis in Houston? What is a cannoli you may ask?
• Number of photos of leaves that Tony took: 304
• Matthew's new nickname: Smiley. His cousin Stephen gave him that nickname because he enjoyed every new experience so much he had a huge smile on his face.
• How did Matthew do on his flight to and from Newark (3 hours each way): Matthew did fantastic. His fussing was kept to a minimum, even when we were on the tarmac waiting to take off for over an hour for the flight home. Matthew's Daddy did most of the fussing.