Just The Two Of Us - A Weekend In Acadia

 

 

Time for another quick post. This past weekend Jen and I finally felt the girls were all at a point where we could leave them for a couple nights and have things go smoothly, so Friday afternoon for the first time in two years just the two of us headed off for a weekend together. We took advantage of a spring special package up in Bar Harbor and left the girls with Grammy and Grumpet. We got to town around 7:30 and checked into our hotel before heading up Cadillac Mountain for some star gazing. The next morning we got up at 4;15 to go watch the sunrise from the summit and go for a sunrise hike. Then we had breakfast and headed of for another hike. Back in time for a quick nap, shower and a nice dinner at the Bar Harbor Inn that was included in our package. The next morning we slept in a bit, had breakfast and headed out for the Schoodic Peninsula, a very seldom visited part of Acadia that is on the mainland about 30 minutes north of Ellsworth. It's always quiet there but we only saw a few other cars and no other people when we went for our third and final hike before heading home. We got back to town to find all three girls had had a great weekend and didn't seem to have missed us one bit. Maybe since things went so well we'll do it again in the fall for our anniversary!! :-) For now however he had a great weekend and 48 hours away seemed like just the right amount of time. We couldn't have done it without Grammy and Grumpet so thank you to them again! If you'd like to see some of the many many pictures we took (yes Jen was clicking away with her phone too) you can get to them right here.

Easter & April Vacation

 

Well for once it hasn't been a long time since I posted. We've had a busy week so there's plenty to share. Last weekend was Easter so there's plenty of pictures from that, and this week was Brooke's April Vacation. I was lucky enough to get a couple days off so we tried to squeeze in a little fun and fortunately got two nice days for that. Monday we all went up to the Maine Wildlife Park in Gray to see the, what else, wildlife. They have quite a few animals there, and while not quite as nice as the Squam Lakes one, they do have three moose!! After that we visited the kids favorite store, LL Bean, and then headed up the coast to Rockland so Ashley could nap before a quick dinner and a sunset hike in the Beech Hill Preserve. Today I had another day off and Brooke wanted to go to Boston, so we all headed down there to climb the Bunker Hill Tower and visit the USS Constitution and another WWII battleship that is now part of the park there. It was a windy but beautiful spring day and the kids had lots of fun with that. They both breezed up the 294 spiral steps of the monument, so all the hiking was finally put to some good use. There's a few other pictures in there from a hike Brooke and I went on up in South Berwick last Saturday afternoon too. Other than that not much is going on. The kids are all getting over the latest rounds of colds and bugs and seem to all be on the mend and in great shape just in time for Jen and I to go away for the weekend. Our Christmas present this year was a spring getaway to Bar Harbor to get the pre-season rates on a nice hotel and dinner. The weather looks so-so but I'm sure we'll make the best of it and and should have some pictures to share when we get back. We haven't been away without the kids in a couple years so we're sad to be leaving them for the weekend but have had a great week with them and are both (but especially Jen I think) looking forward to a couple days with just the two of us.

So that's all for now. To see the latest large batch of pictures you can click right here.

Spring Has Arrived!

Well it sure didn't take long for the bluebirds of spring to arrive. 78 degrees and sunny this afternoon! It was a long winter so we're really happy to be able to get outside and get some fresh air and exercise with the kids finally. Since the last update we've had Grammy's Birthday party here, gone on a 3 mile hike in the Blue Hills with Buppy, Dew, Danny, Kim and Hailey and had a visit and pre-Easter egg hunt at Brett and Carey's with all the little cousins on the Kukesh side. Ashley just started crawling on all fours tonight out of nowhere, instead of the army crawl she had been doing, and loves to pull herself up on anything she can. Emily is still working on her letter and writing and Brooke is still enjoying school. The only bad thing is they all seem to have a cold, or allergies, kicking in the last few days. Hopefully that goes away soon and we can get back to enjoying the nice weather. Easter and Brooke's April vacation is coming up so it would be nice to have everyone feeling good by then. Not sure what we'll be up to at the moment, but hopefully at least a day of something fun, so check back in a little while for more. Until then, to see the latest pictures from all that plus a couple from some little hikes I've been on you can click here.

And there's also a little video of Ashley starting to crawl and fooling around with a toy. She's getting big fast and here's her latest tricks if you're interested.



Finally, if you'd like to see the sunrise from Mt. Agamenticus over a foggy ocean in fast forward you can watch that below, in low def however because I set the camera wrong. :-(