The Maine Event

For the 4th of July we spent the weekend at my favorite place on earth. Acadia National Park.  It is absolutely gorgeous.  It's like the "mini-Rockies" meets the Atlantic ocean.  I seriously can't say enough about the beauty of this place. But like all good road trips, ours really started at a rest stop off of the 95:

 Nothing says vacation like sunglasses and fast food...right?

The kids were mostly good during the 5 hour drive.  But when things got a little rough I got this cute girl...

and this cute girl as my travel companions

We had a great time hanging out in the town common in Bar Harbor.  They have great little restaurants and shops (hey former Vienna study abroad girls...if you are out there you should hope that you get my Christmas ornament when we do our ornament exchange this year...I found mine in Bar Harbor!)

Can you imagine a better picnic spot for dinner?    
It was at this moment that I realized my camera battery was low and I forgot to pack my charger...so the pictures were used sparingly...but I think we got a few good ones.

This picture above also shows how much our family has changed since the last time we were here.  

We first went up to Acadia when Jack was not quite 2, 
 Marian was not quite born, and Lucy was not quite even thought of yet.

Marian claimed to always be "too tired" to hike. But when it came to scaling cliffs and rocks she was awesome

Couldn't help posting another "now and then" picture

Walking along the carriage trials was my favorite part of the whole trip!  There are hundreds of miles of graveled hiking trails that the Rockefellers built for carriages to drive around the island.  They wind through the forests, over streams, around lakes, and up the mountains.  There are no cars allowed and so the kids had free reign to run, or jump...as you see above.  You'll notice that Jack is wearing flip-flops in every picture.  That's because although I packed 4 pairs of shoes for Marian.  I apparently packed zero for Jack.  He just had the flip flops he wore in the car on the way up.  After two days of hiking, scaling cliffs and rock jumping they literally fell apart.



But is was nothing a little ...

(ok a lot) of Duct Tape couldn't fix!

The other great part about the carriage trials was that if you are like Marian and your "legs don't work" you can ride. 

I love this picture for so many reasons.  I love it because it's of me and Chad. I love it because in the background is the beautiful Jordan Pond (which reminds me of the Jordan Pond house with the outdoor tables where you can eat their amazing pop-overs and sip fresh squeezed lemonade while you look out at the pond and the beauty beyond it. You could also eat their AMAZING lobster bisque and an extra pop-over with fresh butter.  You COULD...but that would be a lot of food and you might feel like you over did it.  I'm just assuming that of course.)  Anyway- back to the picture. The thing I love most about this picture is what you don't see.  If this picture was zoomed out just a little you would see Marian strapped in the stroller flailing her arms and legs.  For one reason or another she had cried through the entire dinner and didn't touch her million dollar chicken nuggets.  You also don't see or hear  Lucy  screaming the way only our Pugh babies can scream.  She was all "funned-out" by this point.  Then there is Jack...who is actually the one taking the picture.  He actually was happy but only for the moment because the chance to take our picture was postponing the time-out he was about to get for disappearing for 10+ minutes while we were finishing dinner.  But this is our favorite spot in the park so Chad and I really wanted our picture taken here and we just laughed and laughed as the picture was being taken because we knew what was captured in the snapshot only told a very small part of the story.  But that is another reason why I love this picture.  It shows that in the midst of the chaos of our life with young kids...Chad and I can still find beauty, stay close to each other, and most importantly laugh!

As in this picture...the Bass Harbor Head lighthouse was really only in the background here.  The craggy rocks, tricky hermit crabs, and the collective gasps from on-lookers every time Marian jumped from rock to rock were really the "Maine" event.

Chad impressed the kids by skipping rocks along the shore after taking the "Wonderland trail".(sorry I don't have a picture of him doing it...it really was impressive.)  Anyone hiking along the trail that morning received wonderful encouragement from Jack letting them know they were "almost there" and to keep their eye out for the single Purple Iris.

The slipperier the rocks the better!

The kids' favorite part of the whole trip was actually swimming in the hotel pool (imagine a great deal of splashing, screams of joy, floaties, and not quite enough sun-tan lotion)  All the swimming and hiking completely wore them out.  AWESOME!


Last time we came, Jack tried to push the giant bolder (glacial erratic if you want to get technical) off of the mountain.  It didn't work



This time he enlisted Chad and Lucy's help.  It still didn't work.

  But luckily the trip was still a huge success.  Hands down my favorite family trip we have ever taken!