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.

Acadia, Day 2

AKA the only sunny day.

We hiked Ocean Path, from Sand Beach to Otter Cove.

Thunder Hole is about halfway:

The trail was longer than I thought, but it was still nice to be out exploring on a nice day.  The kids were troopers!

That afternoon, a small group of us went to the pond by our house for some paddle boarding.

Tolson and Colin:

One of our goals for the Airbnb was space for the kids to play outside.  This house delivered.  There's a fire pit back in the trees and a little trail to do some more exploring.

Maya didn't complain about all the space either.

 

That night, we made s'mores and hung out by the fire pit.  Unfortunately, it was our only time to enjoy that perk, as it rained the rest of the week.

Vacation to Acadia National Park, day 1

We left our house at 5am in order to get through NYC with minimal traffic.  It made for a sleepy drive up the coast.  We took the truck to fit all our adventure gear and I realized it's been a long time since I've seen my kids sleep.  I also kind of loved that every single member of my family was within an arms reach.

The timing worked out perfectly and we met the White's at LLBean, a few hours out from Acadia.

There was a farmer's market in the lawn and we picked up some lunch and listened to some tunes.

It's always fun to see the kids pick up right where they left off.

We picked up groceries and settled into our Airbnb.

After dinner, we drove just a few minutes away to a lake to watch the sunset.  It was perfect.

This, right here, was exactly what I needed.  Just peaceful, quiet, stillness.