States Roadtrip: Rhode Island!

The first weekend of June, Aleksy and I headed out for a 10 hour car journey to Rhode Island where we were going to see his Aunt get married on Friday June 5th! We left at the deathly hour of 3am on the Thursday and got to the house that Aleksy's Dad had found for the whole fam to stay around 4pm. There was a lot of driving and my new car held up great... so good on gas (plus gas is half price in the States!).

This was our house for 3 nights in Providence! When we got there on Thursday afternoon, we knew immediately we were in Providence's "hood". You know... a couple abandoned homes across the street, lots of people hanging out looking suspicious in large groups... BUT our place was actually so nice!

The Thursday we arrived, we headed over to Aleksy's Aunt's and her new husband David's house for a dinner before the wedding. It was kind of a meet and greet between friends and family from all over Ontario and the States. The food was delish! stuffed mushroom caps, fruit and cheese platters, fancy pizza, lasagna, eggplant rolls, and garlic bread. Being pregnant has its perks; Aleksy's aunt insisted that I take some of the dessert cookies to go! When you can't have wine... just have extra servings of dessert!

And Friday was the wedding day! It was at 4 in the afternoon and was in a little town just outside of Providence called Bristol, which is right on the water. Aleksy and I went to the wedding with his sister, Alyssa and Jon. Alyssa let us know that day that it was national donut day and if we bought a drink at Dunkin Donuts then we got a free donut! So guess what we hit up on the way to the wedding? This is when I discovered the delish coolatas... and had about 4 more before leaving the States!

This picture was taken before the wedding ceremony. We arrived a little early so we were able to explore the grounds of the mansion where the wedding was located. Right on the water.

And everyone after the ceremony and at the cocktail hour. There were some yummy hors d'oevres served at the cocktail hour, my personal favourite being the clam chowder with clam cakes... yum!

It was a really nice ceremony outside. The cocktail hour was outside too. The reception to follow was inside the mansion with delicious dinner and dessert.

On Saturday, the day after the wedding, we made plans to travel as a group to see Newport, Rhode Island, which was recommended by a few of the people we met from around Providence. On the way to Newport, we stopped for lunch at Evelyn's Drive In: an amazing restaurant that Aleksy's Dad scoped out that was featured on the Diners, Drive Ins, and Dives show. We were up for some good seafood!

And this is the platter of (wholesome, healthy deep fried) seafood that we got! It doesn't look like much in the picture, but it was A LOT of food! There was scallops, shrimp, cod, clams, and calamari. With a little lobster on the side... So good!

After our awesome lunch, we headed into Newport and wandered the harbourfront and the stores.

We bought our first purchase for baby in Newport! A little wooden sailboat for his room :) We also found some other fun shops like a popcorn shop where we got some blue raspberry flavoured popcorn.

And this fun store: fun for Aleksy and barfy for me. It was a store with a bunch of different animal meats. For example, Aleksy got these 2 meat sticks: one made of elk and the other kangaroo. They had all different types of jerky and also bacon soap, which I made the mistake of touching and it really smelled exactly how it sounds... bacon mixed with soap... ew.

Large plates of seafood and exploring Newport on foot can make you pretty tired. So when we got back to our Providence house, we did a bit of relaxing in the form of front porch sitting. Aleksys sister tried to nap, but what made that a challenge was the loud salsa music that was being played across the street. Aleksy and I (and Aleksy's Mom) found it pretty catchy! The front porch of our house was amazing for porch sitting! Perfect space and some good people watching...

When we had driven back into Providence the first night we were there after the "rehearsal" dinner, we saw a bunch of food trucks lined up a few blocks from where we were staying and planned to hit them after the wedding (but we were too full), then we definitely had to hit them the Saturday night since it was our last night in Providence!

This is us with all our food truck food on the Saturday night!

This is the sandwich goodness that we got from the food truck! Our first stop was for empanadas (our discovered gem in Chile!) and it was like a cultural experience right in the States... he made us order in Spanish... thank goodness for that tutoring 2 years ago. Then we stopped at another food truck where everyone got a bite to eat and we had the most delicious cubana sandwiches. Aleksys parents got quesadillas which they said were amazing and Andrew got a big plate of meat and fried plantains!


We left Providence the next morning (Sunday the 7th) around 11am and Aleksy and I headed to Boston for a couple days, which is just about an hour and a bit from Providence!