Acadia, day 5

We started the day off at Bass Harbor Lighthouse.  The White's left that morning, so it was just our little family.

Random rock climbing was a theme of our trip. 

I was nervous about Eli climbing in crocs, but he kept assuring me that they were in "sport mode" and crocs are for rocks.  

Then we took Maya for a walk at Pretty Marsh.

Alison found a baby crab.

Maya made sounds we had never heard her make before on this walk.  When Ben pretended to fall into the water, it sounded like she was crying, "Oh, no, no!".

But when we tried it with Alison, her reaction was more, "Um, mom. Are you going to save your kid?"

The best part of the trip was that we could paddle board everyday.  I loved that we could throw the boards in the truck, drive a few minutes away and be on the water whenever we wanted.

This day was an adventure we won't forget.  I'm glad I went out with the boys, because it started to POUR when we got out to the main water.  Ben was comfy in the back of the truck...

Then Ben and I went to hike Beehive Trail.  We waited until the evening so the crowds would be gone and it was a great decision.  We had the place to ourselves!

This is the second hardest hike in the park and I didn't realize until the end how helpful the fog was.  I just followed Ben and had a really fun time.  I didn't realize until we got home that this is what it was supposed to look like:

I could hear the ocean, but I think I would have been nervous if I could see how high up we actually were.

Alison called while we were hiking to let us know that the power went out at the Airbnb.  We picked up some food on the way home, since we wouldn't be able to heat up our planned leftovers.  Another great decision.  We found this food truck by our Airbnb and it was the best food of the entire trip. 

Acadia, Day 4

We started the day "walking around" Jordan Pond.  I put it in quotes, because that's what we told the kids and again, I thought it was really short and it ended up being much longer.  I think that's just the rule of hiking.

My favorite picture of the trip:

Me with all the kids, walking to the trail

We found the visitors center to get our coffee cup and then we explored a sea cave.  I say we, but only Ben (from our family) went down to the cave.  The rest of us climbed on the rocks.

Pretend Ben is between Eli's fingers...he was far away exploring.

We needed a smoothie after all that work, so we went to Bar Harbor.

We may have also found some blueberry ice cream :)

Then we ditched the kids and just the adults went out for lobster!

This is to document that we were so cold, and done being wet, that I wore socks with my sandals out of necessity, but also gave us a good laugh.

Acadia, Day 3

Somehow, Ben and Brian scored passes to drive up Cadilac mountain; the tallest mountain on the island, with spectacular views.  This is what it should look like:

This is what we saw:

We could barely see the car in front of us driving up!  The wind was blowing hard and it was drizzling...we only ventured out simply to say that we did it.  

We went to Bar Harbor after that and a hot cup of coffee was calling my name.  We walked into the first place we saw and I ordered a maple latte.  I'm telling you, this was the best cup of coffee.

We strolled through town and then went out to lunch. 

Ben, Aline, Tolson, Alison:

We bought some souvenirs and relaxed a bit at the house.

Speaking of relaxing, Colin said Tolson was too loud to sleep with and ended up in a puppy pile with Maya on our floor for a few nights.

We all went paddleboarding that afternoon.  The water felt warm the day before, but turned cold this day.  The boys didn't care and had a great time swimming and paddle boarding.