A Day in Maine

Friday morning Jay and I headed up to the Bridgton Lake region in Maine and spent a lovely day (yes, only a day) with my dear friends. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures. Jay took a couple of pictures from the car but deleted them to make room for this video.

I think what's happening here is pretty classic. Jay and I treated ourselves to candy bars because I was falling asleep somewhere on the back roads of New Hampshire when I stopped to get gas. Chewy took a nap on the plastic bag and melted his Hershey bar into a type of matter that I won't bother to describe. My Baby Ruth went unharmed. Well, kind of.

I usually take Route 1 to I-95 N but decided to avoid the heavy weekend traffic and opted for I-93 N through New Hampshire and we had a nice long road trip through the White Mountains. Spectacular.

But I'll back up because our morning out was a little rough. I had to finish a load of laundry which already had me behind schedule. So imagine my frustration when I hop out of the shower ready to go when Jay reveals that he has yet again stepped in dog poop while taking Chewy for a walk. Since I wasn't waiting at the door like last time, I wasn't able to stop him dead in his tracks and prevent him from tracking the mess all over our living room and kitchen. Needless to say, I was livid. And it took me a while to understand that he didn't really mean any ill harm and it wasn't that he wasn't thinking -- just that he was thinking only about cleaning his shoes so that I wouldn't be angry. It obviously backfired because he cleaned the mess in the kitchen sink!

GROSS!

He's such a wonderful child. He played so well with my friend's four daughters and was really sad to go. I hated to only spend one night and day with the Reed's but Jay has his duathlon tomorrow morning and I reasoned that it made more sense for us to drive back Saturday night than early Sunday morning.

I think we maximized our time there as much as anyone could. Friday evening we had dinner, played old school Nintendo and then I stayed up late having a really interesting discussion with my friend's brother. Saturday morning we had a yummy breakfast, the kids played outside, drew pictures for me and then we all headed out to a nearby lake for some fun swimming. I had to coerce Jay into jumping into the lake from the docks and it took about twenty minutes. I knew after his first jump he'd be hooked and he totally was. We went to a Mongolian BBQ for lunch with their church family, then went to a carnival in a neighboring town.

[I didn't take a single picture in Maine. Honestly, I've been a little slack on the pictures for the past two weeks. It feels good to just watch the moments unfold and not spend the time behind the eye of a camera. But now I regret that decision. The little Reed girls are so darned cute and our trip to the lake was picture worthy! I guess we'll just have to hold those memories in our hearts and double up on the photos next summer!]

Jay's pooped. So am I. But he still stayed up for the first two hours of the ride back to talk with me and it was the best part of the trip in my opinion.

I'm trying not to freak out about the fact that he's leaving in less than a week. 5 whole days left. He leaves Friday afternoon with his mother who's flying up Thursday night.

He said today in the car that he'd like to spend another month :) and that warmed my insides because I know he's incredibly homesick. He even saved his generic brand Axe spray because my mom bought it for him a while ago and it said it reminds him of home. I know he's ready to get home to see his brothers and parents but he's already talking about having his Uncle E drive him up for his spring break.

He's a keeper.