Beach Baby

Apparently, the driving age is MUCH younger in Maine. . .

This car is a little more her size! She picked up a few friends along the way, too!

THE BEACH:

Laughing at the waves

Happy Family (notice Hannah trying to pick sand out of her toes?)

No more photos, please. I'm trying to enjoy my time on the beach!

Praise the Lord!

Mommy making a fool out of herself in the COLD waves!

Baywatch audition photos. Something tells me they won't be calling me anytime soon. . .

The dreaded ramp! (That's only half of it)

Perkins Cove




After dinner (we all look tired! But it was a wonderful day)

I had to include at least ONE photo of clam chowder in this blog since we ate it every day!

This one was from the restaurant in Perkins Cove. YUMMY!

(This is a little out of order, but I wanted to do the beach excerpt first)

On Saturday, we rented a minivan and drove to Maine. What a beautiful state! We stopped in Kittery where there is a huge outlet mall that spans a couple of blocks. We only went in a couple of stores, and walked away with some great deals! Hannah's highlights were the Coach store (That's my girl! She's got great taste in purses!) and the Muppets ride outside the Rockport shoe store. We couldn't peel her away from that thing! I kept trying to tell her she was going to like the beach much better, but she had no idea what I was talking about. She was having too much fun with Gonzo and Kermit to care about a place called a beach. . .So we had to be mean and pull her out and put her back in her car seat. She shed a few tears, but a few McD's french fries seemed to heal the wounds pretty quickly. We were on our way to the beach, and Kermit and Gonzo were only distant memories. . .I suppose we may visit them again someday.

Kathy had heard about a little vacation town called Ogunquit from a local, and I remembered reading about it in some of my internet research on Maine, so we decided to head there. We stopped in a tourist info place and asked the guy where a good beach was and where to eat dinner on the ocean. He recommended a place called Perkins Cove (in Ogunquit) that had three restaurants overlooking the cove/ocean, and he told us how to get to the beach. As we entered the town, we noticed it was quite busy, but that's OK. That is to be expected during the summer in a vacation beach town! We found a parking spot and headed to the beach. It was quite windy, but the waves were not too big. The beach was kind of small and crowded, but we were able to find an area towards the end of the beach with less people. There was a LOOOOONG, steep ramp that we had to go down to get to the beach. I think Matt had a couple heart attacks and a few strokes on the way down! But he was in good hands. Glenn guided his chair down the ramp while I paved the way and provided a safety net for a padded fall in case Glenn slipped and let go of the chair. What a wonderful wife I am! We had other people offering to help as well, which proved VERY helpful for the way back up the ramp. There were so many nice people at the beach :)

After we claimed a spot on the beach, we got Hannah out of the stroller and put her piggies in the wet sand. The waves tickled her feet and she squealed in delight! She loved the waves, but HATED the dry sand. She wanted nothing to do with sitting or standing on the dry sand. If she got sand in her toes, she got upset and showed them to us to get it off!!! She was perfectly content being held and watching the waves roll in. She also delighted in watching her mommy jump around in the waves and make a fool of herself while she looked for shells. I started out in my clothes, but eventually gave in and put on my bathing suit since I had soaked my clothes. Not sure why I didn't put on my suit to begin with. . .I guess I'm just stubborn! Good thing I brought an extra set of clothes too!

After a while, we returned to the car to change and get all the sand out of every nook and cranny before dinner. (At least we tried to get all the sand. I kept finding sand in Hannah's belly button for about two days afterwards! Not sure where that kept coming from! I bet I could find a pearl in there if I looked hard enough!)

We decided on a restaurant named Jackie's Too. It had a beautiful view and no wait so long as we sat inside. The food was DELICIOUS! We all ate seafood dishes, and Hannah got mac and cheese. Hannah flirted with the other patrons and babies in the restaurant. (that seemed to be the theme of the trip--Hannah made MANY friends everywhere we went)

After dinner, we took a short walk and checked out the shops. I was in search if some yummy fudge. After I got my fudge, we took a short walk along the cove until it got too dark to see where we were going and we turned back.

It was such a fun day! We all decided next year we are going to stay there for two nights and then spend four or five nights in Boston. We wanted more time to spend at the beach and exporing the adorable town, shops, and restaurants. . .

Stay tuned for our next excerpt where I actually talk about and show you what we did in Boston!