May is a very busy month in our family. More specifically Mother’s day weekend is jam-packed! Asher and I were both born on Mother’s day! So, now while our birthdays don’t always fall on the actual day it’s pretty close. This year I wanted to do something different as I was turning a big birthday and while I didn’t want to scream it from the rooftops I knew I had to acknowledge it. A long weekend away was the perfect way to celebrate all of the birthdays and Mother’s day! I keep an ongoing list of my favorite Airbnb’s to stay at and for this trip, we landed at White Doe Farm in Rupert, Vermont. I got to get a little trip away in a stunning house with breathtaking views and Asher got to live out his farmer dreams and see all of the animals and milk a cow! Plus my mom got some days away with her family which is her favorite. Win, win, win. We went from Friday-Tuesday and it was a 4-hour drive from Long Island. While the drive got a little stressful at the 2-hour mark with 15 min intervals in between, “Are we there yet?” Everyone agreed that the drive was worth it. No one wanted to leave on Tuesday and wished we had booked more time.

White Doe Farm is an old farmhouse from 1860 that was renovated in 2019. The charm is all still there, but all of the updates are outstanding. The house has been updated with WIFI, TV’s with Netflix and Hulu, awesome bathrooms and showers, and air conditioning. If you have ever rented older homes on Airbnb then you will know that things are not always a given. I can be a bit of a snob when it comes to the type of places I will stay at. I have extremely high standards and I’m happy to report that White Doe Farms exceeded all of my expectations.

I must admit this beautiful sunroom was one of the main selling points!

The kitchen was also a beauty! We did a lot of cooking and used it for the majority of our meals.

The formal dining room is off of the kitchen, but we used it for puzzling instead!

Off of the other side of the kitchen is the great room full of comfy sofas and chairs, games galore, and a fireplace and TV. We spent our nights lounging in here. The boys played chess, we watched movies on Netflix and many people napped in here! With the moody blue paint job and awesome fireplace, it was a very cozy space!

There was one bedroom on the main floor along with a mudroom. laundry room and full bathroom. We had my parents in this room so that they didn’t have to do the stairs. The stairs to the 2nd floor were stunning! They were in the kitchen, which took some getting used to. We kept expecting to them to be in the main hallway!

View from above!

The design style that got me really interested in interior design was Shabby Chic cottage style so while this house is the complete opposite of my aesthetic now I still love it and it’s so fitting in a true farmhouse. All of the rich wood tones, creamy whites, toile everywhere. It’s so many of my favorite things.

The upstairs has a primary bedroom with a king-sized bed and it’s own en-suite. It was everyone’s favorite shower. We had a lot of guests popping in for showers during our stay.

This was the cutest guest by far!

The boys were down the hallway in the bunk bedroom which also had a bed, which meant Auntie Day had the pleasure of staying with them.

Then next door to them was Steve, Ximena, and Sebastian’s room.

The most amazing part of the house was also the backyard. I mean, look at those views! There was a little pond and then a bunch of additional barns on the farm.

At the house, there is also an additional farm called, Maeflower Farms. They rent land at White Doe Farm and they have cows, chicks, ducks, hens and pigs! We booked a cow milking class which the boys loved! The adults loved as well! Danielle owns the farm with her husband and it’s a labor of love! It was cool to learn all about their story and how a farm works.

On Sunday it was Mother’s Day! We spent the morning showering my momma with gifts! She is the best person to give gifts too! She loves everything and gets so excited over every gift! We also celebrated Asher’s birthday that day, because we were actually going to be traveling back home on his actual birthday! This kid loves his birthday so he enjoyed gift giving as well along with a full day of Asher activities!

We went to North Meadow Farms for even more animals because Asher wants to be a farmer! We had the best tour guide that took us around and taught us all about the animals! Since it is Spring there are many babies being born! The day we went one of the sheep had just had a baby! They also have a big playground area which is great for kids! Plus local Vermont ice cream!

After our farm visit, we went into Manchester, Vermont, and went to Past Time Pinball. It’s a pinball museum where they have pinball games from the 1940s and up! You pay the fee to go into the museum and then you have a set amount of time to play! We all had a lot of fun here! It is pricey, but it’s a unique experience so totally worth it for us.

We ended our outing with a little fishing trip in Dorset, VT. Jon found a pond were kids were having a fishing derby!  Apparently it’s a kid only pond that gets filled with fish so that the little residents of Dorset are able to easily catch fish and get into it!

The next day our Mother’s Day celebration continued and all of the momma’s were treated to massages! It was heaven! My sister had Kat Lillith from The Healing Heart come to the house! She bought the massage table and switched linens after each massage. We also all wore masks. It felt totally safe and was amazing!

That evening we celebrated my birthday! I’m not a big birthday person. I hate attention on myself so birthdays can be stressful for me. Being able to get away and just having it be my core family made things a bit easier on me. I did know that they had some surprises brewing so that still made me a bit anxious, but Jon promised it was all good surprises and nothing crazy.

Surprise number 1 was that they had a chef come from the Dorset Inn. Chef Jon was awesome. They got to pick the menu and he came with all of the supplies, cooked, served, and then cleaned the kitchen before he left. It was amazing!

Surprise number 2 was the theme! I had casually mentioned that I wanted the weekend away to have Mamma Mia vibes. I wasn’t even sure exactly what I meant. Mamma Mia 1 and 2 just make me so happy. I love the ABBA songs, I love the storylines, the scenery the Andy Garcia of it all in Mamma Mia 2. I just love it! My family took my hint and went with it! ABBA played throughout the meal and they had a flower crown for me and so many pretty little details!

They even had a Chiquitita cake topper made for me! It’s an ABBA song and means little one. The cake was made by Blackbird Cake Design and the flower centerpieces and table runner were designed by Tiffany, the house manager who also has a landscaping business and just added floral design!

After dinner I changed outfits! I bought so many outfits and literally spent our stay in sweatpants so I took advantage to do an outfit change and get something that worked better with the flower crown I was given!

Then we went outside to enjoy dessert, the twinkle lights and s’mores around the firepit!

I’m typically the party planner in the family. Since this was for me, Daniela took over as party planner. I know she was so stressed before hand and wanted everything to go perfectly. The rest of the family helped her with tasks they were assigned but I know the main load of work was on her. It was truly perfection and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Thank you, Daniela!  I felt very loved!  Siblings are just the best. Truly! Built in best friends that you get to share your life with through all of the ups and downs. They help and support you when you are down, cheer you on when you need a hype girl, remind you constantly that you will always be older than them and love you unconditionally! I swear she said 40 about a hundred times that weekend.

Then when your sibling gets married it’s an additional treasure! Now you get to see your sibling as a partner and if you are lucky and they want it as a parent. Seeing my sister as a mother is amazing. She is an awesome human being who loves her family fiercy. Not only do I get a delicious Sebastian to love on, but I’m lucky enough to be an Auntie once again and baby #2 is arriving in late Fall. I also get the brother I never had with Steve. If you have been around this blog long enough you know that Jon and I orchestrated them getting together, because the second I met Steve I was smitten. I knew I had to get him into my family! Ah! Siblings truly a blessing!

I know my family is very close. Too close for some people. They are my favorite people and I’m not sure how I could live my life without them. My parents wrote the sweetest thing in my birthday card. It was all about how I helped them grow up when they had me. We tend to forget that our parents were ever young. But when your parents become parents for the first time you really are both growing and learning this whole parenting thing together. This hit Jon and I when we had kids. All of a sudden we realized, ” Oh my god, our parents really really love us. ” I mean we always knew we were loved, but when you have a child and realize how obsessed you are with their every move you realize just how much your parents truly love you. You also realize how young you truly were when you had them and how much growing up you did together.

After dinner I had surprise 3! Remember my Mamma Mia theme? Well, Donna and the Dynamos came to my party and serenated me with two songs! Truly amazing! Daniela choreographed both songs and they had been practicing for weeks! I mean! Look at this! I will cherish this memory forever.

The night ended with a game! 40 questions about Camila! Normally this would stress me out, but I was intrigued to see who knew me best. It was funny to see Jon answer questions, because he would sometimes have two answers like this is what she is going to say for the game, but this really what it is and you know what? He was always right.

We had two teams and me! Everyone had to put answers on their whiteboard and whoever matched with me got a point! I laughed so hard during this game! So much so that surprise number 4…. I peed my pants…like literally died laughing that I couldn’t stop! Damn kids that ruined me, but it was worth it.

The next day we had to check out and it was so sad. Everyone wished we had booked more days. It was truly a special getaway!