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 

Friday Favorites with The diary of a real housewife
Friendship Friday
High Five for Friday
Friday Flash Blog
That Friday Blog Hop
Oh hey, Friday
Weekend wind down party

I love a cold and rainy fall day!

I know you all are anxiously awaiting my vacation update post (ha ha) but you're going to have to wait until next week.  Today my mind is on all things fall!  It's a cold, rainy day here in NY and I've spent the afternoon decorating, drinking coffee, crocking chili, and baking cornbread.  Here's a quick glimpse of what I've been up to today.

Coffee in my new mug...
I was recently part of a mug swap and this is the beautiful mug my swap partner gave me.  It's so pretty and I swear my coffee tastes better in it!

DIY fall wreath...
I actually made something! I spent quite a bit of time today roaming around Michaels craft store and decided I would try to make my own wreath.  This is what I came up with.  I'm not really happy with how the F turned out, but other than that I'm fairly pleased.

Fall decorating...
I didn't go too crazy with my inside decorations, due in large part to the fact that an entire tote of fall decorations is lost in the abyss that is my basement.   But I think the items I did put up look pretty festive so I might just leave it as is.  Here are a few pics.  Sorry for the poor picture quality... my phone is acting up again.

Chili and corn muffins..
Great way to end the day!

I'll be honest.  I am loving this weather!  It's so nice to be cozied up under my favorite blanket writing this post.  I hope you all are having a cozy and relaxing weekend,  wherever you are and whatever your weather!

Goodbye summer

Over Labor day weekend, we made what would be our last trip to Hoffman's Playland.  Ever.  After 62 years, Hoffman's is closing their gates for good.   Hoffman's is a small family-run and family-friendly amusement park.  There are 19 rides, all sorts of carnival food (fried dough, Sno-Cones, hot sausages, fries, ice cream etc), and an old time arcade.  It's the perfect place to spend a summer afternoon with your kids.

I find it so sad that this place, which has basically been synonymous with summer fun in this area for so many years, will be no more.  I didn't grow up here so I don't have any of my own childhood memories of Hoffman's,  but my children have definitely had a wonderful time there and I have heard the memories and stories of so many others.   It is truly a loss for our community.

I wanted to share a few pictures with you of our last time at Hoffman's...

Nick held his brother's hand the whole time, just like we asked.  Unfortunately their free hands were in dirty water the whole time!

Nick screamed the entire ride and daddy almost barfed

Enjoying a sno-cone

Earlier in the day we spent some time at the Pine Bush preserve and discovery center.  To learn more about the Albany Pine Bush click HERE.  We had a fun time exploring and playing.

Although we were sad to say goodbye to Hoffman's, we had such a lovely day together as a family.  We even topped it off with dinner at Red Robin and ice cream at our favorite soft serve spot.  It was one of my favorite summer weekends!

What was your favorite summer weekend?

Super quick weekend update

Happy Monday!  It's especially happy for me because we are on vacation!
Finally got my pics to upload so here is a quick picture recap of our weekend  :)

Saturday was all about soccer!  Check out this handsome devil!

Sunday we finally made it to Maine for our long-awaited vacation.  After stopping at our rental house to drop things off and get changed, we hit the beach!   The kids had an absolute blast!  They jumped waves, dug in the sand, looked for seashells and chased seagulls (well, just Alec chased seagulls).

Keeping it short today cuz well, I'm on vacation! :)  
Have a great week!

Not the week I expected

Hello from Ogunquit, ME friends!  After waiting all summer long to go on vacation,  we are finally here.   We almost didn't make it.  This has been a horrible week.  Thursday morning while at work I got a phone call from my aunt. My mom was being rushed to the hospital.  She was having a heart attack.  I jumped in my car and somehow made the hour and a half drive to the hospital she was at.   Let me tell you,  there was a lot of crying and a lot of praying in that hour and a half drive.

When I got to the hospital, mom had just come out of the cath lab.  2 of the arteries were 100% blocked and they had put in 2 stents.  Apparently mom had been having chest pain since 10pm the night before.  I stayed with her at the hospital until about 6:30pm when she basically kicked me out of her room and told me she wanted me to go home to my boys.  She looked pretty good for a woman who just had a heart attack and she was in good spirits so I reluctantly agreed (and also because 2 of aunts were there with her and my dad was on his way).  She came home yesterday and is doing well.  I asked her if I could come out and help...clean, cook, whatever but she said ABSOLUTELY NOT and she would be extremely upset if we cancelled our vacation.

So here we are, on vacation.   I am still scared and nervous for my mom, but I am feeling a little better with each passing day.  I love her so much and I am so greatful she is OK.  It was bad, but it definitely could have been worse.  If you feel so inclined, please say a prayer for my mom for a speedy recovery.

Ok, enough of the sad stuff!  Some good stuff happened too!  Yesterday was Nick's first soccer game and he scored a goal!  He also looked totally adorable in his soccer uniform.

Our first day of vacation has been great!  Both kids did very well on the 4 hour ride.   The house we rented is simply adorable.   We hit the beach today and the kids had a blast!  Filled my heart with such joy!  And we had some delicious mexican food tonight!

Sorry there are no pics...my phone is having issues and I can't get them to upload.   Hopefully tomorrow.   Good night friends.  Wishing you all a wonderful week!