Lobsters and Blueberries

Back in the winter, Mike and I started discussing that our 10 year anniversary is coming up in May and we should take a trip. Last time we went away without the kids was to Vegas last September and was only for a weekend so we knew we wanted to go for a couple more days than that. In discussing the timing with work and babysitters, the end of July was the right time to go. We started thinking about lots of different places, tropical and beachy or more adventurous. We both finally decided on Maine. We thought the weather would be perfect (which it was) and it would be somewhere completely different. Now full disclosure, this trip is probably more of Mike's idea of a vacation than mine. I am very happy to go somewhere and sit by the pool or ocean every single day and read and relax whereas Mike likes to be active on his trips. So, this was about 80% Mike and 20% me but I have to say after, it was amazing and he was right, we both had the best time! 

Maine is incredible! The weather was almost perfect most of the time (75 and sunny) with little to no humidity, the food was out of this world. We ate lobster, lobster and more lobster. And something we found out while we were up there was Maine is known for its blueberries. Everything was blueberry from the pancakes, to the beer to the pie. We even picked wild ones in Acadia and ate them and they were so delicious, so much better than anything you can buy from a grocery store. So, we ate tons of lobster and blueberries (hence the title!)

Ok, now onto the trip and the tons of pictures we took!

In Acadia national park

 We flew into Boston Thursday morning and rented a car and hit the road. We drove a little over an hour to Kennebunkport to stop for lunch. Kennebunkport is the cutest town with tons of restaurants and shops. I got a recommendation from a friend to stop at Mable's which was a little off the beaten path for lobster rolls and it did not disappoint. Lobster roll and beer for lunch, yes please!

 We walked around a close beach to check it out and take our first of 50 million selfies on the trip (get ready for selfie overload!)

 Then drove over to check out Walker's Point which also happens to be George Bush Sr "small" compound. This picture doesn't do it justice but it was huge with tennis courts and pools and several different houses. Sadly, they didn't invite us in for a beer so we headed on up to Portland.

 On our way to Portland, we stopped at Portland's Head Light Lighthouse, it is one of the if not the most photographed lighthouse in the US and I can see why. It is so beautiful and the sky that day was picture perfect that it almost looks fake.

 The lighthouse sits above these amazing rocks with the ocean crashing into them.

 After checking out the lighthouse and the park, we went into Portland and walked around. Portland is a cute city but we felt like after walking around for an hour or two, we had seen most of it and decided to head to an outdoor cafe for some cocktails. That is our hotel in the distance, the Portland Regency. It was really nice and a great location.

 Friday morning, we hit the road for Bar Harbor. I personally could not wait to get to Bar Harbor. We did some research on Maine before the trip and Bar Harbor used to be the vacation spot for the rich and famous including the Rockefeller's and so I was excited to check it out. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint. I absolutely LOVED it! We stayed in an amazing hotel right on the water and they upgraded us to a better room with a huge balcony right on the water, score! This was our view from the balcony. 

 After checking into the hotel, we quickly changed and headed for the pool. As I stated earlier, I am all about the pool and this was our day to do nothing but sit by the pool and I wanted to live it up. As a bonus as staying at our hotel, we got a choice between two amazing pools.

 All day Friday, we spent the day here and I loved it. We ordered blueberry mojitos and they were out of this world. 

 So that picture above that was the view from our balcony shows all the water but everyday when the tide goes out, all the water goes away and you can walk across to the island on the other side. It is really the craziest thing to watch happen but we walked across when the tide was down. That is our hotel to the left and the pool to the right.

 We made it across and of course, another selfie.

After hanging by the pool all day, we got ready for dinner and had happy hour in our room because we could see the sunset from our balcony. It was really amazing seeing it set. That water is right where we walked across earlier the day, crazy how fast it went out and then came back.

 A glass of wine and sunset, we took this picture for my dad because he always takes pictures of his wine and sunsets. I think those might be two if his favorites things in life and they were on our trip as well.

 Heading out for dinner with the paddle boarders in the background

 Saturday was Mike's perfect day! We got up early and rented bikes and headed into Acadia National Park for the morning. One of the main reasons we chose Maine was because of Acadia and Mike's desire to check it out. Acadia has all these carriage trails that are only for bikes and carriage horse rides and some are flat and the ones Mike dragged me on were not! This is our riding action selfie!

 It was actually super sunny that morning but almost hazy so it looked cloudy in most of the pictures but it was really beautiful in the park and the scenery was amazing.

 Quick stop for a picture 

 Eagle Lake

 Jordan Pond

 Then Mike decided to drag me up to the top of Day Mountain. This ride was so hard, straight up and I thought my legs were going to fall off. I think I am in decent shape and work out a lot but this was so hard and I wanted to stop and cry but I kept going and we made it. 

 The view was pretty amazing though and now you can see the beautiful blue sky

 You can't see it in this picture but my legs were shaking from riding all those hills

 The only good thing about going to the top of the mountain is you get to come down and we got to come down and found the most amazing spot by Bubble Pond to have our lunch.

 Mike got obsessed with the panoramic setting on the iphone and he took a ton of them in Acadia.

 Then after riding 25 miles on the bike, we came back and I went back to my happy place, the pool and those mojitos tasted amazing after all those miles.

 That night, we had the most amazing meal that started with blueberry beers

 And then fresh steamed lobster, the whole thing and it was the most amazing lobster we had the entire time and the best lobster of my life.

 Our final morning in Bar Harbor was gorgeous again. We went for a short run, followed by the most amazing blueberry pancakes and then walked around the cute town and did some shopping. 

 We spent one last hour at the pool before Mike convinced me to head back to Acadia to do one more hike. The weather turned crazy because it was sunny all morning and then as we headed to the park, the clouds rolled in so quickly. It was great temperature for hiking though and didn't rain and the hike provided great views of sand beach in Acadia.

 And because we couldn't resist, just one last selfie!

Sunday night we headed back to Portland and stopped in Freeport on the way to check out the LL Bean flagship store which was ok but nothing too exciting. But Freeport was cute with lots of other cute stores and more lobster. Monday morning, we flew home and couldn't wait to get back to our girls. The trip was amazing and just the time we got to spend together without the kids pulling us in tons of different directions was great for us. Maine really was truly beautiful and I highly recommend it. When we left Bar Harbor, I said to Mike "we will definitely be back here" and I know we will because it was the perfect mix for us (but next vacation is sitting by the beach the entire time, right Mike!!)

Beach trip take two

(Fair warning, this post has a lot of pictures)

Last week, we had a fun adventure and trip. Mike's grandparents were kind enough to rent a beach house for his entire family in Virginia Beach. Unfortunately, we were not able to stay for the entire week but we did get some fun filled days down there with everyone. 

On the way, we stopped in Richmond for a night to see our good friends and break up the trip. Lynn and I grew up together, went to college together, joined the same sorority (pretty much did everything together) and now we each have two girls about the same age. We wish we got to see them more often but every time we do see them, it is such a fun time! It took the girls no time at all to find princess dresses to put on and then they enjoyed fudge sicles out on their balcony. (Note: Maddie with a fudge sicle is dangerous so she gets naked.)

(L:R, Maddie, Maddie, Caroline, Ella)

 Big Maddie (Madelynn) and Little Maddie (Madeline) Same name, same wild personalities, they are destined to be best buddies.

 We handed the phones over to the kids to take our picture and this was the best we got, a little dark but hey, we will take it!

 The beautiful sunset view off their balcony

 The next morning, we grabbed some breakfast and played a little more with our friends and then said goodbye and headed down to the beach. The house they rented was great and the best part was the backyard and pool. After vacationing at two houses this summer with pools, it is so nice to have your own pool.

 But of course we still had to check out the beach

 Chicken little still doesn't love the ocean water and prefers to have Daddy close by and swing her through the water

 The house also had this little pool house that the kids loved playing in. It had a fridge inside so we put all of our beverages in there and the kids played bartender. Teach them young we say! It also had a tv so when the world cup was on, the guys could sit outside and watch the game while Ella served them drinks!

 Morning breakfast (There were 7 little kids, 5 boys and our 2 girls)

 Cuddles with Grandma

 Backyard scene, yes, we had 21 total people at the house. It was a little wild at points but so much fun!

 Our final night, we hired a photographer to come take family photos (all those photos are below) but these are the ones we captured with our phones while we were waiting to be in a shot.

 These two were best buds all week. Our nephews live out in Seattle and we don't get to see them as often as we would like but every time the kids get together, they have the best time.

 5 out of the 7, only missing the twins

 Holding hands

 Our final morning, we walked down to the beach to check it out one more time before heading home.

 Until next time beach

 All the photos below are from the photographer 

 Side note: It was super windy on the beach so our hair was wild

 This little one was seriously the biggest ham during the photos. She fell in love with the photographer and the photographer fell in love with her. There were more pictures of her than anyone else, ha. Future model?? Pose, work it.

It was a fun couple of days and we loved seeing a bunch of family we haven't seen in awhile. Next trip is T-4 days and counting. Mike and I are off to Maine (just the two of us, hooray) for 5 days and we can't wait. Send prayers to Grandma so she can handle our two little monkeys while we are gone. More updates after our trip for sure.

Summer Loving

It's been a couple weeks since I have last updated this, partly because it hard to find time to blog in the summer and partly because our computer is acting up and it takes forever to upload photos. But I know this summer is going so fast and I want to remember all the fun (and not so much fun) we have been having.

As I mentioned before, we joined a new pool and tennis club this summer and we are loving it. We always just went to the Y pools before and they were fine but we are really enjoying the new pool. If we aren't in camp, we are usually at the pool most days. Ella is becoming such a fish and loves it and Maddie loves eating snacks at the pool, oh well!

 One of E's best buddies from preschool, Caroline turned 5 in June and had a huge Frozen bash for all the little girls. It was very elaborate and the girls got their make up and nails done by Elsa and then enjoyed making Olaf ice cream sundaes.

 Manicures and ice cream, this girl was in heaven!

 We had a great Father's Day celebrating Mike. After making him pancakes for breakfast, we went to the pool in the morning and got there early and practically had it to ourselves. 

These two girls sure do love their Daddy

 Ella started off diving off the blocks and loved it so much..

 this happened! No one was more surprised than me and Mike. This is the child who wouldn't go anywhere without her floatie last summer and barely would even jump with that and is now going off the diving board.

 She is doing so great and I love that she has gained so much confidence from her swimming this summer. We owe it all to our amazing instructor!

 All that swimming makes for two tired girls (They aren't really asleep here, just taking a rest but I do love that after swimming, they come home and take great naps!)

 Remember when I mentioned not so fun times earlier, yup, this is it. We were all in for potty training Maddie a couple weekends ago. We stayed home, did the same technique that we did for Ella and thought it would work like a charm. Well, let me tell you, it did not. It is funny how you can have two children of the same sex and they can be SO different. Ella was basically potty trained in 1-2 days and was fine. We tried for almost 5-6 days with Maddie and each day got a little worse, not better. I will spare you all the details but let's just say, she was not ready and I almost lost my mind several times that week so it is back to pull ups and we will try again later when maybe she is more ready to give it a whirl. Oh sweet child how you test me sometimes.

 After literally being house bound for about a week with potty training failure, I told Ella, we could have some special time together since she was such a trooper about the whole thing. No surprise that she picked painting pottery so we went and did that. She picked the most elaborate butterfly to paint but she did great. Check out the concentration on her face!

 Finally, MG's hair was getting rather mullet like so I knew it was time for her second haircut. I got it cut in a little bob for the summer and it looks super cute. Her hair is rather thick so she looks adorable with a short do and E's is much more thin so she needs a longer do. Again, such different children in every sense, even their hair.

Hope to be back to blog again soon about our July 4th weekend and then we are off to the beach for a couple days with Mike's family. This summer sure is flying by!