May has been a busy and exciting month for us so far. Brooke had her Fresh Beat Band themed bowling birthday party followed up a couple days later by another birthday dinner for her on her actual birthday where she got to have her favorite food in the world, Grammy's baked haddock. She's turned into a really amazing little girl, not that she hasn't always been, but now she's learning to read and write and is a great big sister to Emily. It's hard to believe she's already 4 years old. Where does the time go?

On Mothers Day last Sunday Jen had to work but we spent the beautiful day with my mother and father hiking a nice 1.6 mile loop on Mount Agamenticus up in York, getting rock candy for Brooke and ice cream for everyone else, going to the playground and for a walk on the beach. Other than not having Jen there it was a great way to spend the day. Then my birthday was Monday. I'm halfway done with the 30's now, which is also hard to believe. I got to have a lobster dinner with my family and a couple good bottles of wine to celebrate with. Who could ask for more than that?!

In between those things we've hiked Stratham Hill with Chris, Katie & Co., been playing in the yard when the weather's nice and been to the beach for walks and to to hunt for sea glass, which is becoming another little past time for us whenever we have a little free time. It's almost like gold mining and very relaxing to just sift through the rocks looking for it while the waves wash ashore. Each beach has it's own type of glass too, which is pretty neat, and our collection is really growing.

That stuff has kept us pretty busy and next weekend we're going on a camping trip for memorial Day weekend up to Acadia and Bar Harbor, weather permitting of course. We have a new tent this year and it's about as big a tent as you can buy. The next step is probably a pop up camper, which is a ways down the road still I'm afraid. This should last nicely 'til then. Heavy duty and huge. 14 by 10 and has two rooms if you want it to. The sales pitch is you can set it up and take it down in 60 seconds or less, which is about 29 minutes less than the old one took. Hopefully that's true but I haven't tried it yet. We'll see when we get there I guess if I don't try it out before.

That's about it for us, and I'd say that's about enough!! If you'd like to see a bunch of pictures you can click right here. If not, bye for now!

Weekend Getaway

For Christmas last year Jen and I skipped the presents for each other and decided we'd just do a weekend away sometime instead. With the weather warming up but the rates still cheaper for the off season we decided to go to Bar Harbor this past weekend. We stayed at the Bar Harbor Grand, where we had stayed once before and liked it so we went back, and liked it just as much this time too. It's right near downtown so we could walk to dinner one night and had a short drive the next night. 

Saturday was sunny and breezy, a bit cooler than we had hoped for but still nice so went on a big 8 mile hike looping over 6 mountains including the second highest in the park, mostly hiking trails but also using the famous carriage roads for a bit here and there. Along the way we saw a bald eagle, two waterfalls including the tallest waterfall in the park and also 3 of the famous carriage road bridges, including the largest one.

Sunday was also nice and less breezy so we went on a two mile walk or hike (depends on which of us you ask) to stretch our legs before the ride home. We also stopped at a couple good beaches to find sea glass for our collection on the way off the island and finally headed home to see our girls. We had a great weekend away just the two of us but it was only the third time we've left them for the night and the longest we've ever gone without our girls so we missed them a lot too. It was awesome to have Brooke come running to meet us with huge hugs when we walked in the door. A great ending to a great weekend. For pictures of the trip you can click here and if you'd like to join us up there camping Memorial Day weekend let us know. There's still a few sites available if that sounds like fun to you. That's all for now.