MAINE!

I have a LOT of catching up to do - but a lot has been going on. First off - our Maine vacation:

I had been looking forward to this Maine trip for a VERY long time. This was the first time in fifteen or so years that the ENTIRE Newton clan has been in Maine at the same time. My older brother Mike and his girlfriend Adrienne flew in from San Francisco to make the Newton family reunion complete. My parents were there for the entire month of August, while the rest of us kids (me, Brett, Will, Woody, Dave, Nomin, Emily, Sean, Mike and Adrienne) were only there from Friday, Aug 10 through Saturday Aug 18.

You can read Brett's blog post from the drive up (disaster), but all was great once we got up there. We arrived around 10:30am on Friday. Brett was exhausted from driving most of the night, so when we got in, Brett cracked open a couple beers and mentally began preparing for a nap. Instead, we all decided to go climb the Precipice trail (awesome trail with rock scrambles, rungs ladders, with stunning views) that is usually closed due to nesting Peregrine falcons. Looking back, maybe not the smartest thing to do: climbing a treacherous trail while you are half asleep with a slight buzz. But we all survived and the hike was awesome.

We were off to a great start to the Maine vacation and over the rest of the week we fulfilled a TON of family traditions and had a fantastic time. Just to highlight a few of my favorites, we....

~Got bottomless blueberry pancake breakfast in Ellsworth
~Did lots of shopping (mostly at Marden's)
~Ate at Giant Sub several times
~Had Popovers, tea, and lobster stew at Jordan Pond House after hiking
~Kayaked on Blunts Pond (we even put Woody in the kayak even though he didn't love it)
~Ate mom's homemade blueberry waffles and blueberry muffins and blueberry pancakes
~Played lots of game nights (a lot of Balderdash, Tribond, Game of Things, Pinnocle, etc)
~Drank too much wine most of the nights
~Had a super yummy lobster feast at Pretty Marsh (it rained - but it was still delish)
~Took a relaxing trip to Schoodic (well, part of it, more on that later)
~Muscled at the point
~Took after dinner trips to get ice cream
~Hiked mountains
~Swam at Echo Lake
~Cooked a ridiculous number of lobsters at our at home lobster boils (with little babies and lobsters priced at $3.99 per pound - this was the WAY TO GO)
~Made yummy lobster mac & cheese and lobster rolls (with the price of lobster, how could you not)
~Watched the Persiades meteor shower in the back yard and at Blunts pond
~Kicked butt at Pirates Cove Putt Putt (Dave and I tied for the win)

So, you can't have all the good without having a little bit of bad. This trip marked the first time we had to take Will to the ER. He started running a 101 to 102 fever for a couple days. So I took him to a doc-in-the-box to get him checked out. They said he had an ear infection and gave us a prescription for an antibiotic and told me to call them if anything got worse. Well, things got worse. Will wasn't eating very well and would only take a few ounces of formula. Then he started vomiting. When the vomit count got up to 7 times in a 24 hour period, I decided to call the doc again. Wet diapers were few and far between and since he wasn't drinking well and puking up close to everything he drank, they were nervous about dehydration. So, it was off to the ER so he could get re-hydrated. The ER gave him an IV, some meds to help him feel better, ran some tests and whatnot. They told me he had a throat infection and that the fever should come down soon. Will really liked the IV - anytime it was running he would relax and go to sleep. The second it would stop he would wake up and start crying. I think it was because the IV fluids were cool and they were cooling down his body. They discharged us after being there for about 5 hours. The fever finally broke towards the end of the week. It was nerve racking though - I was so worried about my little man. But Will LOVED the hikes we took him on and he LOVED all the swimming we did. And for being a sick little dude for the majority of the trip - he held up pretty well and rolled with the punches.

The only other thing that was missing was Aunt Michelle. Maine really started out as her thing - she would go up for the entire summer. She would be happy to know that we kept up with all of the traditions. And she would have been thrilled to know that the entire family was there. We miss you Aunt Michelle

All in all a great trip - I'm already looking forward to the next one :-)