A Weekend in Maine

Last weekend we took a little trip to Mt Desert Island, Maine. We had a great trip! On Thursday, we left as soon as Tim was done with work, and made an overnight stop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire . . . a wonderfully quaint town that just screams "New England"! Sarah insisted we take a picture of her outside our hotel . . .

We also made a quick stop in Freeport, Maine for some LL Bean shopping and a bite of lunch. It turned out to be a wonderful stop, due to the fact that an Italian family sat at the table next to us during lunch. We heard them speaking italian, so we asked where they were from. It turns out they are from Parma - one of my favorite Italian cities, and a place where Tim lived for 5 months on his mission. We talked with them for about a half an hour (well, Tim talked mostly, and I listened a lot). It was great, and made the stop well worth it. Here we are in the fish tank bubble at the LL Bean store . . . it was a tight fit for our little family.

We finally made it to Bar Harbor, Maine just in time for dinner. Then we took a walk down to the harbor and then cashed in for the night. The next day, we found our friend Agnes at "The Bagel Factory". She makes the best bagels in the world! We couldn't find her when we were there last year, because her shop is back behind some other buildings, and she keeps strange hours, but when we walked in, she remembered us right away, even though we hadn't seen her for eleven years. We were amazed. She even remembered that we hadn't stayed and worked through the whole summer, but had left a few weeks early to get back to school (and real life).

We left her shop, bagels in hand and went to rent our bicycles for the day. Then we took off into the National Park, and the Carnegie Carriage Trails . . .

A stop to take in the view over Jordan Pond . . .

Lunch at the Jordan Pond House . . . Sarah had the biggest potato chip we had ever seen!

Munching on popovers . . . Yummy!!!

It was a lot harder to get back on the bikes with a belly full of popovers, but we managed it.

Sarah was the lucky one, and got in a little nap.

Another stop, this time at Bubble Pond.

Unfortunately, all of the ponds and lakes in the park are 'swimming prohibited', but when we got back to our hotel, they had the sprinkler running, so Sarah took a much needed and refreshing run through the water . . .

The next day, we drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the North Atlantic Seaboard. It is the first place to get sunlight in the whole Eastern US from May to October.

Luckily, there is one lake on the island where swimming is allowed . . . Echo Lake. We stopped at a small swimming area called 'the Ledges' or 'the Bluffs'. It was a very hot day, and the swim was needed and very refreshing! Tim actually swam all the way across the lake and back!

Playing Catch Up . . .

So, this is a nutshell post about our Summer up to this point. Unfortunately, some details must be left out, but it can not be helped. I don't know why but it seems like this is my first ever super busy Summer. It started back in June with a wonderful visit from Tim's parents. We had such a great time, but somehow only ended up with one photo of them while they were here. They took photos of us competing in the triathlon (see previous post), but I guess we were just enjoying their company too much to stop and take pictures . . . all I know is that Sarah had a wonderful time with Grandmom and Grandpa.

A few days after our visit with G'mom and G'pa, my sister Kelli came for a visit. It was so fun to have her here. This slideshow documents our time together . . .

The day after Kelli left, our friends Andy and Caty came for an overnight visit with their son Alex and the next morning we left for a one night camping trip to the Berkshires for the 4th of July. . .

The fun wasn't over yet, because a few days later, my parents came for a wonderful visit. I guess we learned our lesson, because we got plenty of photos this time around. We spent a few days on Block Island having a great time, and then came back to CT for some more fun . . .

Sarah has been having so much fun participating in a Summer Camp Co-op that some of my friends organized . . . it is called Camp Liberty . . . here is the group in our T-shirts . . .

Tim went Lobstering with friend of his and the next day, we had to have a 'Lobster Party' in the back yard. Both boys ate three lobster rolls each, and we girls each had a bite . . . which was plenty for us. The kids had hot dogs roasted on the fire . . . and, of course, ice cream!

Aaahhhh . . . the sweet taste of Wineberries

Have you ever heard of Wineberries? Neither had I, but we discovered that these beauties grow all over New England. This is what they look like before they ripen.

We have some friends who have these lovely bushes growing all around their yard, and they were so obliging and let us come and harvest as many as we wanted . . . Thanks Friends!!!

This is just a small sampling of the abundance that was available to us, and this is after we already filled our bucket (these are the ones we couldn't reach - due to the close growing, thorn laden stems).

Our full bucket . . .

Oh man! I can't wait to dive into these beauties!