We’ve timed our trips to Maine for the 4th of July much better now – no more 7-hr trips that were supposed to only be 3.5 hours. We left around 6:30am on Sunday to go to Sebago, Maine, to visit Elliott’s best friend Ethan and his family at Camp Micah, an overnight Jewish camp. This place was top-of-the-line! My personal fav – they spray for bugs and ticks, so we left unscathed. The kids loved playing at the waterfront, which basically had an inflatable obstacle course in the water. The super kind campers would help our smaller kids when needed. Jordan and the kids also tried a Ninja Warrior obstacle course (on land) – led by someone who has legitimately been on the show. Elliott’s fav, of course, though was just seeing his bestie – which I appreciated b/c they could discuss and perform Transformers (Elliott’s favorite show), which gave me a break from doing the same. Then, 3 out of 4 Linville’s wanted to camp, so we spent two nights in a borrowed a deluxe tent, including cots for the adults. I still think camping is an every-other-year excursion for me, preferably 1 night and no more than 2, assuming that in either case, the cooking is extremely limited. The kids are heavily swayed by the s’mores (somehow, s’mores for breakfast has gotten to be a “tradition”) – and the mosquitoes (which unf, love Elliott – he has my sweet blood) aren’t deterrent enough.
Then, we headed to the Portland area to meet up with 3 of my college roomies – Daniele (CT), Dina (CO), and Tricia (NC) and their families. Kids ages were: 7, two 5’s, 3, 1 and 9 months. It wasn’t nearly as relaxing as our last girls getaway (in NYC two Novembers ago) but there was a lot more cuteness. Natalie loves holding Cormac (age 1 – Daniele’s son) and Caroline (age 3 – Tricia’s youngest) somehow took a liking to Elliott by the end of the week. Tricia’s parents always host a 4th of July party at Higgins Beach, but the best way to beat the heat (90’s!) was to be in the ocean. On subsequent days, we went to Old Orchard (think: the Jersey Shore of Maine) and Ogonquit (think: the Cape Code of Maine – it was very crowded but quaint). We toyed with the idea of going another 3.5 hours north to Acadia (we went 2 years ago – an extreme favorite), but decided against it. My prego self doesn’t like long car trips – and we were afraid to run into terrible traffic on the way back.
No pics right now – Jordan downloaded them all off my phone, so here’s a public plea to him to really sweeten the blog post with cute pics.
Happy Independence Day/Week!
