Friday Favorites: All things vacation!

Nubble Light House

I’ll be honest.  Most years when we go on vacation I am ready to come home by day 3.  But this year it was just so nice to escape reality for a little while.  Between daycare stress, work stress and my mom’s heart attack, we really needed a break.  We actually DIDN’T want to come home this year!  We wished we had another week to enjoy the ocean, the good food, and the lack of responsibilities. 

But alas, all good things must come to an end and back to work on Monday we went (and maybe I did quite a bit of outlet shopping while we were there and was just about out of money)!

Today I am sharing with you my top 5 favorites from vacation.  I am also going to pretend I am still on vacation, OK?  OK!

Number 1:
Our vacation cottage

I truly feel there is no other option than renting a house when going on vacation with 2 young kids.  I cannot even imagine dealing with my two boys in a hotel room for a week!  Talk about losing my mind!  I found the house we rented on Homeaway and it was PERFECT.  Why you ask?  Well let me tell you! 
-It was walking distance to the beach. 
-It had a fenced back yard. 
-It was updated, nicely painted and had gorgeous wood floors. 
-It had perfect decorating touches- just what you would hope for in a Maine beach cottage. 

-It had an outdoor shower to get all the beach sand off.

2.  The beach! 

Well duh, right?  The weather wasn’t exactly beach weather (60s, maybe 70 one day) but we still beached it!  The kids had such an amazing time playing in the water and sand and looking for “treasures” (side note- why can I never find an intact sand dollar???  Is that so much to ask??).  I was just happy to have my feet in the sand and stare at the beautiful ocean.

Nick's Baywatch run

My Jackie O look- it was cold that day!

Bury me daddy!

Fun in the sand

Visiting York Beach and looking for treasure!

Seagull on Footbridge Beach

I took a strangely large amount of seagull photos?? 

Hooray we're on vacation!

My boys

3.  The Maine Wildlife Park
We visited the Maine Wildlife Park in Grey for the second year in a row.  Many of the animals at the park were brought there because they were injured or orphaned, or because they were human dependent.  The Park serves as a permanent home for wildlife that cannot survive in the Wild.

My favorite animal at the park is the Moose (actually they have 3 of them).  I LOVE Moose.   I hope one day I can see one in the wild.  They also have bears, deer, a bald eagle, bobcat, lynx, owls, turtles and lots more.  

Cool dude

Can you guess who was having a temper tantrum in this picture???

Love that moose!

Post-tantrum

This guy cracked me up!

4.  The Portland Children’s Museum
This was our first time visiting the Portland Children’s museum.  I would definitely recommend it!  They have a huge firetruck that Nick played in almost the entire time we were there.  They have a space shuttle, play grocery store, car repair shop, lobster boat,  toddler playground, Discovery Woods with its own “river”, bank, tide pool touch tank and more.  It kept the kids busy a good 2 hours and gave mommy and daddy some time to sit and rest!!  We could have stayed even longer but we were getting hungry.  We found this charming Irish Pub for lunch called Bull Feeneys.  Again, I highly recommend!

5.  Time together as a family
It was so nice to be together as a family for the week.  No work, no school, just time to have fun together.   I admit, the kids drove us nuts quite often and there were several tantrums and brotherly fights.  But it was still great.  I want to go back!!!!!

These 3 are my world

What was your favorite part of vacation this summer?  Or do you have any exciting trips planned for the fall?

Linking up today with these wonderful ladies... Andrea, Erika and Narci 

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