Maine (july 7-24)

Our trip to Maine was simply wonderful.

I did not bring my camera, shocker, i know,  so i've pretty much depended on everyone else to document our visit.  there are a mass of photos, however, to actually complete this post, i'm only using a few.

We took the red eye out of Santa Barbara Airport at 9pm and landed in Maine the following day at 10am.  The boys only slept during the 2nd flights which was about 4 1/2 hours, however, they were great travelers and completely immersed themselves in movie watching.  Maslyn slept for majority of the flight...i spent no time crying in a bathroom stall alongside a crying infant.

We stayed at Gramma and Grampy Franklin's for the first week.   The boys only came out of their pool to eat meals.  We tried to spend a day out exploring a brand new giant playground, but the boys were uninterested, grumpy and wanted to go back to Grampy's to continue swimming (however they did enjoy the ice cream portion of the day).  Needless to say, we hardly left the house the rest of the week!



















I had a goal to run EVERY SINGLE DAY of the trip.  I started out strong, but once we got to the lake house...i was too busy vacationing!






















While at grampy's, we enjoyed a welcome home potluck with all my extended family that we haven't seen in three years.  we celebrated Shaun's dad's birthday at a lobster shack with eric/stacy and lucy.  and we visited my uncle's house (who also has a pool) and rode around on his tractor.

Found our Wedding cake in my mom's freezer...so we defrosted it and took a 9 year celebratory bite.  It tasted MUCH better back in 2003!












The second week was spent at a Lake House with the Grammy Russell and the rest of the Russell clan.   All the aunts/uncles, cousins, second cousins stopped by and it was fantastic to catch up with everyone.  We had a boat for the week that my uncle generously gave us, so we spent much of the week swimming, boating, eating, and talking.  Pretty fantastic if you ask me :)

Maslyn is a little fish, she LOVES kicking her legs in the water.

Got to meet and visit with cousin Lucy!

Shaun was playing basketball but didn't have a ball...

Boat ride!

hanging with Grammy Russell

Wait...something's missing...














Back at the Franklin house, my brother wayne was flying in with his family.  It's been 6 years since all of my siblings have been in one location at the same time, of course we had to mark the occasion with another feast.  We also rented a bounce house so all the kids could crazily go back and forth between the bounce house and pool.























my siblings in birth order top to bottom.

bouncing with cousins Sophia and Owen (in their bathing suits)

some fun pool action!

We spent our second day together exploring the run down forts on the coast. Pops (shaun's dad) joined us as well.

hiking our way to discover the old fort ruins

this is the infamous Portland Headlight at Fort Williams.

building moats with Uncle Matt

found an AWESOME geocashe while exploring the forts















This is only a TINY glimps of our week.  we had so much fun reconnecting with family and friends.  The kids all did great and it's given us hope that our next trip will be just as great.