2026 Family Vacation

The crew is back from our summer vacation! This year we explored the Northeast beaches of Connecticut and Rhode Island. I'm getting very close to my goal of visiting all 50 states, and with these two checked off the list, I only have four left!

My last post was about the Connecticut portion of our trip. After that, we spent the rest of our vacation exploring Rhode Island. My favorite part of the state was probably kayaking at Lincoln Woods State Park and enjoying the swim beach. It was so hot that spending time on the water was the perfect way to cool off. We also spent a day in Providence, where we visited the zoo and the botanical gardens. By the end of the gardens, the kids were so hot that we headed to a trampoline park instead of doing more outside stuff. No regrets!

I think one of the most memorable parts of the trip was something that definitely wasn't planned. Our flight out of LaGuardia was scheduled for 9:00 p.m. on Friday, which would have gotten us home in plenty of time to celebrate the Fourth of July with our friends the next day.

Stormy weather kept delaying our departure, but around 11:30 p.m. our plane finally arrived. Yay! By midnight, everyone was boarded, our seat belts were buckled, and we were ready to go. Then people around us started getting upset. We weren't sure what was happening until we found out that, while we were sitting on the plane, some passengers had received alerts saying our flight had been canceled. Boo!

So we all got off the plane and headed back into the airport to figure out how we were going to get home. The first option the airline offered was a flight on Sunday, which would have meant missing the Fourth of July completely. We asked the gate agent if there were any connecting flights that could get us home sooner. She said everything was booked and then asked if we would be willing to fly out of another airport.

At that point, we were seriously considering renting a van and driving the 19 hours back to Kansas, so absolutely we could go to another airport! 😂

Fortunately, there was a flight out of Long Island about 50 minutes away that could get all seven of us on a 6:00 a.m. flight to Baltimore, with a connection to Kansas City. We jumped on it.

We spent our first night sleeping in an airport, but we still made it home by late morning. We missed the Potwin festivities, but after a three-hour nap we had enough energy to buy some fireworks and put on our own little Fourth of July celebration.

All's well that ends well! Even with a few unexpected travel adventures, we're calling this family vacation a success. Two more states visited, plenty of memories made, and now I'm just four states away from reaching my goal of visiting all 50!

Did I drag the whole family to the zoo to see a Red Panda? 

Yes, yes I did!

The Air Bnb we stayed at in Rhode Island had these paddle boards. The boys only used them once but they got the hang of it!