MAINE

We just returned from Mount Desert Island where we enjoyed best friends, best scenery, great food, and peaceful chilly nights. We love it up there! Sorry for the overload of pictures (I'll condense them into a slideshow soon) but for now, here are our favorite memories. We already miss afternoon badminton games and seeing sailboat spinnakers zoom past.

The light during most days was amazingly clear, with sunrise before 5am and sunset after 8pm:






We really enjoyed this time with our friends who always show us and our kids how fun life can be:








Sally, Leonard, Chris, Jed & their boys show us such a great time year after year.

We celebrated Independence Day by attending a small hometown parade that actually had a lot to offer: racing go-carts driven by old men in fez hats, live music on floats, candy flying everywhere, etc:





The BEST part of the holiday this year was seeing the fireworks from the boat right at sunset-- incredible!:




We always try to visit Jordan Pond House while we're up here. It's such a tranquil spot in the middle of a national park-- the boys (our boys and our friends' boys are luckily the same ages) loved exploring everywhere while the adults ate popovers.






The big boys (Drew and Wiley) bonded in the water and in the dirt every chance they got. Tadpoles were caught, and so were bugs, starfish, snakes, crabs...basically no lifeforms were off limits:








(finding a snake off a trail in Acadia)

And the little boys, Evan (14 months) and Witt (10 months) found their own fun too:

(Witt, blueberry picking)

Evan smooching, above, and driving, below)









We explored uninhabited islands:







And we tended to eat very well...

(check out the world's biggest blueberry muffin)


(enjoying a nice lobster roll fest, all together)


(the little boys circling like sharks)



(dinner all together with our family and friends)

We managed a trip to our favorite restaurant that requires a boat ride, and in this case, a really crazy ride home in some incredible fog- we couldn't even see the water below us- where we pretty much woke up all the neighbors as we tried to find our way home without hitting either the shores or multimillion dollar yachts (and we would have done both if not for a worried mother/grandmother holding a light up for us at the end of the dock for hours!):

(leaving civilization far behind)

(our trusty Captain)

The boys proved to be good seaworthy companions on some day trips we took together:

(speed demon)
(this is where Evan's bowleggedness comes in handy)


The big boys even had fun hiding from the stormy weather:





Some of our favorite times were spent just relaxing at our friends' home on the coast:
















Our babysitter extraordinaire is actually from Maine, so we were lucky that she hitched a ride with us and spent a few days on the coast with us before seeing her family:





Now at 15 months, Evan really shows his displeasure whenever his nap/eat routine is challenged. But Drew is at a great age to travel now, and so full of adventure:

(hitting the over 50 lb mark on the fishing scale!)



We also enjoyed some downtime in our favorite condo on the coast in Southwest Harbor:



It took only 9 hours to get there, but we suffered through traffic for 13.5 hours to get back home. Needless to say, the boys slept well that night: