New England Vacay … day 4 – Hello Maine!

(I’m blogging about our New England Vacation.  You can use these links to catch up on Day 1 , Day 2, and Day 3)

We arrived at our destination in Portland Tuesday evening.   My friend Jo was kind enough to put up with us up.   When Wednesday dawned bright and sunny, we knew we were beach bound.

We spent our morning at Pine Point, part of Old Orchard Beach.  It was hot, sunny, and crowded.  Surprisingly, the kids weren’t as into the water as I thought they would be.

Daddy & Adam check out the surf.

Wendy loves the beach, but this day she was more into making sandcastles.

It seems the ocean’s only purpose for these three was to provide moisture for the castle making.

Mama Myles got her cardio workout in, giving boogie board rides to the kids.

Adam wasn’t too thrilled to be wet or near the water.

Contrast that to Dani, who takes great delight in splashing and playing. She was fearless and full of life and kept her mama on her toes 🙂

My stud and muffin

Daddy gave Adam some “mandatory fun” in the ocean. He ended up having a ball!

Daddy pitches in on the sand castle making project.

This was our best attempt at a group shot – it turned out decent considering the number of unwilling participants involved.

After the beach, we stopped at Salty Bay for some takeout seafood (the kids pronounced it stinky), then we went on to get ice cream at Len Libby’s. Len Libby’s is famous for the handmade candies, delicious ice cream, and their 1700lb, life size chocolate moose (the link has an interesting video of how it was made).

When we stopped for ice cream, we had a dilemma.   Adam was asleep in his seat and I was loathe to wake him since he’d been missing his nap while on vacation. We agreed that I would go in with the kids while Mike hung out in the car with sleeping baby. Sam came in with me, but Wendy was taking forever to find her flip flops so I told her to join us when she found it. I went in with Sam and scoped out the menu. Wendy was taking forever, so I left Sam with Jo and went back to see what was going on. I gave Mike my order and sent him to keep an eye on Sam while I helped Wendy find her shoe. It did not want to be found and I could tell she was nearing tears.

Exasperated, I gave her one of my shoes – which was a terrible solution. I had my Cleo sandals which were, of course, huge on her and had nothing for her to grip on with.  She hobbled in with my over-sized shoe while I proceeded to hunt for her missing flip flop.   I found it a minute later but now had my own dilemma.  I had no shoe to wear to get inside to give her the flip flop.    So I stuck her little preschool-sized shoe on my size 8 foot and hobbled in as quick as I could to exchange shoes.

It was an amusing little exercise (in hindsight) – and  I wish I had taken a picture of our feet.

We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and taking it easy. Larry got home at a reasonable hour from his work (he’s a medical resident), so he and Mike held down the fort in the evening, while Jo & I went out and caught Julie & Julia at the movies (two thumbs up!)

All in all, it was a great way to spend a day in Maine.