Vacation 2012

Vacation. You try not to set too many, or any at all, expectations for a trip right? There will be a washer and a dryer, there will be a beach right across the street, there will be two grandma's plus two parents and two kids, there will be perfect weather, there will be seafood. But then a few days before vacation your oldest comes down with a strange sickness that requires stool samples to be brought to the hospital lab and your youngest has a raging sinus infection. You get antibiotics, you pray that the samples are normal and you take off with a wing and a prayer, the Chipmunks movie on DVD in the car and a grandma on deck.

And then you see the ocean for the first time and the stress of everything fades.

Bliss

Um Mama? We need Cartoon Network at home okay?

The Maine Diner!

Butterfly wings from Toys in the Attic in Kennebunkport

If I had a boat...oh, I do!

Paddleboarders at sunset on the Marginal Way was anything but marginal

The Laundromat. Looks familiar eh?

Sunset

Stealing an oceanside kiss

Angry Birds on the deck!

Love this view.

Grandma being industrious.

Finding all sorts of sea creatures

"I need to sortorize them by animal"

Feeling small by the big sea and loving every minute.

Beach baseball

Ellie, following Grandma's lead,  created her own shade.

Sparklers

Pre-bed walk on the beach.

Repurposing the sparkler sticks

Mother and son

Rocking out and tapping his foot to the beat.

Umm yeah. Classic. The dryer never got fixed.

But it did sit in pieces all over our living room.

Hamming it up before our nature walk in the Rachel Carson Preserve

They loved it can you tell?

Luke snapped this nice family shot.

Pretending to ride a train...

and a horse...

and a pig. 

 In the end while the house we rented was a comedy of errors (the outdoor shower was broken, there were nails poking through the carpet on the stairs, the dryer obviously was busted, the light switches made no sense and there were barely any pictures on the walls or cozy creature comforts of home, it was a strange, strange place and you can't tell in the pictures but you need to trust me) the time we spent together was perfect and the weather could not have been better. Our expectations were completely met.