Summer's Last Hurrah!

Recently we spent a few days down in Southern Maine enjoying one last summer get away before school and all the craziness that it comes with was upon us!  To be honest it would have just been easier to stay home and I wasn't sure how the baby would do on his first overnight away from home (and all the activity during the days) but we had been a bit cooped up and it was beginning to show in the kids and I just knew that Lily and Eli needed to get out and do something special.  So we went.

And the first day we spent at Reid State Park with Joe's mom and our sister-in-law, Mary, and her four girls. It was just half an hour from Joe's parent's house and the beach was WONDERFUL!  The ocean is pretty cold, but the waves were just the perfect size for the kids and they had a BLAST!  We will be back to this beach for sure many more times!  And though I had to hang out in the van a few times while I was feeding the baby I still was able to enjoy the beach some and the waves and salt air even lulled out little guy to sleep!

And if that weren't enough Joe's mom ordered Chinese food for dinner, Joe's dad made my very favorite pumpkin whoopie pies with cream cheese frosting, and Liam had his best night of sleep to date (and thus so did I)!  What a wonderful day!

We had a little adventure the next day too going to "Fairy Friday" at the Midcoast Botanical Gardens. Lily had been looking forward to this for some time and while the place was beautiful it was also rather hot and incredibly crowded (apparently Fairy Friday really draws a crowd)! I spent half of the time feeding the baby so poor Joe was forced to deal with hoards of tourists while Lily enjoyed the fairy activities (like making a fairy wand, fairy dancing, the bubble machine, and making a fairy house in their magical fairy woods)! We managed to stroll around the gardens a little too where there weren't so many people. The kids really enjoyed it, Joe hated it, and I enjoyed parts of it. Joe perked up though once we left the crowds and got some food! The gardens really were beautiful and their children's area was very cool so I think we'll go back sometime in the fall or winter when we can enjoy it with less people and cooler weather!