OUR MAINE ADVENTURE: DAY 3 / MONDAY

Sierra decided letting us sleep in one day on our vacation was enough and we were the first ones awake, showered and dressed on Monday morning. Unfortunately Uncle Brian had to go back to work but the rest of us decided to head out to Hallowell & Portland. If you live in Maine or vacation there you NEED to visit this little town. Hallowell is a hidden gem full of independently owned book stores, record stores, antique stores, coffee shops, bars and restaurants all lined by brick sidewalks. We are sure to visit every time we go through Maine.


FAVS:


Hallowell Antique Mall - Awesome finds from jewelry to furniture and everything in between and best of all it's all priced very affordably. This place is HUGE, do not miss it.


Francesca's - My favorite italian place I have ever eaten, and I live in Boston home to "The North End" (look it up). Delicious food, affordable, fancy but not so fancy you can't bring your toddler and the cooks are more than happy to adjust the menu to suit your (vegan) needs.

Timmy & Sierra getting some kisses in while we loaded up the car.

Left: A super cool antique shop on Water St. / Right: The main 'strip'

As you may know, we love owls, including this huge wooden one we found out side of a shop. Here is my father and (most of) his grand children.

Sierra and Cora waiting patiently while all the adults fueled up on some coffee at Slate's Restaurant & Bakery

Mama and Sierra outside the Hallowell Antique mall.

Some awesome hand planers & a vintage pram stroller.

Tim & Papa looking at the 'pricier' objects.

Braid Twins walking down Water Street.

Sierra showing Papa here pretty 'flower' she got at the Chinese restaurant.

Papa giving Sierra a little kiss. LOVE THIS PHOTO!

After we hit up just about every shop and filled our bellies on some Chinese food we rat packed my sister's Jeep once again and headed for Portland. My (generous) sister wanted to buy Sierra a Build-A-Bear and let her choose any outfits/accessories she wanted as a 2nd birthday gift. So back on the highway we went headed for the Maine Mall. Once at the Mall it was what you'd expect - a Mall. Nothing too exciting BUT the Build-A-Bear store was really neat. I had never been to one and it was fun watching Sierra pick an animal, get it stuffed, put a heart in it and choose clothes and accessories. The staff was super friendly and had this whole spiel about rubbing the heart on your cheek and kissing it so your animal would have love, sort of cheesy but super cute for Sierra. Awesome gift!

Some of the bears (and other animals) you can choose from! / Sierra picked a cat which she named "Kitty". Even though Kitty was brand new he needed a shower and a scrub of course!

Sierra searching for accessories + typing in Kitty's info for his birth certificate.

After the mall we headed to downtown Portland and explored some shops. I had only been to Portland once before and it was just to grab a quick bite so it was exciting to walk around and check it out a bit more slowly with some "Mainer" tour guides (a.k.a. my sister). 

Sierra and Mama cruising around Portland.

Love this shot of my newphew and Dad in Portland!

Everyone was getting pretty pooped / hungry for dinner at this point so we stopped to relax (and inspect the grass).

Once back at my sister's house it was time to chase the chickens around a bit more.

A little blurry but i LOVE this photo that Mama took right before we left.

So thats about it for our Maine 3-day vacation. The best part EASILY was watching Sierra play with her cousins. She's a whole year older than the last time we visited so she was able to play, keep up and talk to them (sort of). It was fun watching my nieces follow her around and want to help Lauren get her dressed and comb her hair, sort of like a big doll. The next time we visit can't come soon enough.

OUR MAINE ADVENTURE: DAY 2 / SUNDAY

Sunday morning we got to sleep in! Sierra didn't wake us up until 9AM! After everyone woke up, got dressed and ate some breakfast we loaded up the truck, hitched the boat and headed to the lake. Last year we went out on the lake with Sierra when she was about 10 months old and she was less than enthused. This year was a whole new ball game. She begged to put her life vest on instead of fighting against it tooth and nail. Once we were on the lake she loved it and Uncle Brian even let her honk the horn and drive the boat. Once in the middle of the lake we killed the engine made some sandwiches and swam a little. Check out this cute 30 second video of our boat ride :-)



After a few hours on the lake everyone was very tired so we headed back to the house to cook up some dinner on the grill. We really wanted to have a fire in the yard with some drinks but it was POURING so we hit up a Red Box and had 'family movie night' after Sierra went to sleep. It was a wonderful day and night full of outdoors fun, good food and quality time spent with family.

OUR MAINE ADVENTURE: DAY 1 / SATURDAY

It's nearing the end of the Summer and soon Lauren will have to go back to work and Sierra back to daycare so we figured it was time to escape the city for a bit since soon enough we won't be able to. My Father, or as Sierra likes to call him "Papa" had some vacation time saved up so we planned a little road trip to visit my sister in Maine.


All morning we told Sierra how we were going to see Aunty Sherrie, Uncle Brian, Timmy, Lexi and Cora. She was so excited and running around the house screaming "CORRRA" "CORRRA". This was a mistake on our part - we've learned to not tell her anything about future plans until they happen as it's hard to explain to a toddler that plans have changed. Well, the plan was for my father to pick us up in Boston at noon on Saturday and for us to drive the three hours from Boston to Augusta, ME. That was the plan anyway.


The day started well enough, Papa arrived at noon as scheduled but let us know the car was acting up. The wheel was very difficult to turn but he was sure that it just needed some power steering fluid. I got behind the wheel and gave Papa a rest and we drove to a nearby Valvoline and got some fluid. It worked perfectly... for about 30 seconds until all the fluid came gushing out and we were right back where we started. After a trip to an AutoZone and a local mechanic we found out the car was in rough shape. In the mechanic's exact words it was a "Horribly Expensive Shitty Situation". It wasn't just the power steering, and it was actually dangerous to drive, "It could possibly catch fire" said the mechanic and with that Papa dropped us off back at home and made his dangerous one hour trek home. Once home safely he called every car rental business in the city and everywhere was either closed or had a "don't leave the state" rule. We were feeling rather defeated until Papa decided to call HIS Papa and we were back in business in Sierra's great grandfather's sedan. By the time Papa got back to Boston and we repacked the car we were on the road at about 6PM. 6 hours later than we had planned but at least the vacation was still on! 


In my infinite wisdom I told Papa "We don't need the G.P.S! I know how to get to Maine, we just take 93N the whole way!". Well a couple hours later and no signs for Maine Lauren says "Weren't we supposed to get off 93N at some point? Maybe we should turn the GPS on?". Once we turned it on we realized we had driven two hours already and still had 3 and a half to go. Whoops. Our 3 hour drive had quickly turned into a 6 hour drive (Thanks to me). Sorry everyone. Sierra was very well behaved for being in the car so long and eventually we made it. We arrived at about 11:30PM a little later than planned but at least we made it! We gave hugs and hellos and hit the sack. Hopefully our vacation gets better than our first day!

Even though our trip was longer than expected it was fun spending time with my family on an adventurous road trip. Somewhere in New Hampshire we saw this heart shaped cloud.