We had big plans for our 3-day-weekend-

visiting my Grandmother in New York.

Unfortunately, she needed a little trip to the hospital instead of a visit from us

(she's doing better)

so we did a smaller trip.

We drove to western Massachusetts to do some family history.

Jon's family settled there in the late 1600s after coming over from England.

We have great little travelers.

 

They were most excited about staying in a hotel.

We got a really great deal on a Marriott in Springfield.

As we walked into the lobby, 

we were greeted by a painting of the Marriotts & 

made us miss Bethesda all over again... 

The kids wanted to go swimming right away, so for the next hour we were all little fish.

Caroline & I preferred the hot tub.

Hultz & Elsie were chased around the other pool by a shark-crazed dad.

When we were all finally so hungry that we couldn't swim any more,

we changed & headed down to the restaurant.

Pizza, burgers and salads.

(Hultz just wanted to play with the game with the hand that gets the stuffed animals...)

 We drove around small towns full of history.

They each had a few very old church buildings

and several even older cemeteries.

It was a lot like a scavenger hunt--

we had a list of names and dates.

I had found most of the family names in cemeteries, but not where in the cemeteries.

We drove to the town Hadley, to the Hockanum Cemetery, looking for Issac Hubbard. 

This cemetery didn't come up on our GPS, but Hockanum Road did.

I figured that since the road and cemetery shared the same name, they must meet eventually.

And they did.

This cemetery was so old that we couldn't read a lot of the names.

He was there somewhere but we never found the exact spot.

The next stop on our trip was a little further north in Sunderland, looking for Jonathan Hubbard 

(a little weird looking for your husband's name on a stone...).

This cemetery was very large, with most of the head stones dating back to the early 1700s.

And there were a lot of Hubbards.

 It was really cold and windy.

Really cold.

And very windy...

I love my warm, warm coat.

 The next stop was Hatfield, just a little north.

This was the stop I was most looking forward to.

John Hubbard came over from England and settled here.

He bought some land and built a house.

The house still stands and Hubbards still live in it.

We met the woman who lives in the house that was built by John Hubbard in about 1700.

She showed us right were to find the Hubbard areas in the cemetery next door.

 The last stop was an hour drive west, to Sheffield.

Hubbards and their Kellogg in-laws lived here for quite awhile.

We found the cemetery where they're buried

but since they all died in the mid-to-late 1700s,

the stones were all very worn and hard to read.

Western Mass is beautiful.

Rolling hills, farms, little towns...

We had a fun little weekend.

The kids loved exploring and running.

Jon & I had hours of driving together, talking.