Vacation number one

Sunset Farm, Mount Desert Island, Maine

(For the record, it's pronounced more like a treat after dinner rather than a hot place with a lot of sand. As in French for bare mountains. Apparently the locals just call it MDI.)

September was a busy travel month, so I'll try to get all of the adventures in before the end of October! The first week of the month, we went to Maine for a week at a house near Acadia National Park with Andy's family. The house was actually a duplex of sorts that was an old farm house on 100 acres with access to Long Pond and a canoe and kayaks. A mile up the road was a lesser-traveled section of the national park with lovely hiking trails. And there were blueberries - lots and lots of late-season blueberries! (And mosquitoes, but that wasn't so bad with a big house with new windows and screens to hide behind when needed.)

Hannah had a great time hanging out with her cousins, Elliot (4 1/2) and Juliet (2), and getting out to enjoy the mountains and coast. Okay, they're pretty small mountains, but there's also an ocean, so it's all good. We hiked, with and without Hannah in the carrier, ate popovers at Jordan Pond, canoed and kayaked, swam in not-too-frigid Long Pond, and spent some time exploring the shore.

I'll leave the rest to the photos from Karen's (Andy's mom) awesome camera!

The family at the shore - Grandma Karen, Cousin Elliot, Aunt Anna, Cousin Juliet, Grandpa Jack, Aunt Claire (Andy's sister), and you know the rest. (Missing was Andy's brother Nick, who just started a new job, which meant a move to Denver where Claire is - yay, but he couldn't get away for vacation yet - bummer!)

Brave kids with cold toes.

At Jordan Pond - very excited about a Dog

Using Daddy's Princeton hat to make Hokie colors. Very clever!

Forever to be known as the ice cream cone photos. Amazingly, Hannah didn't seem to notice that she was the only one without one. One of the many benefits of thumb sucking!