More photos because Maine is beautiful

 Here is the cottage we stayed at in Maine. It was a super-old house, built before plumbing was a thing. Two bathrooms were added in more recent years, but you have to sit on the toilet sideways to fit in the bathroom. Awesome. It was great though: it's nice to have a backyard for even just a few days.

We did lots of hiking. The kids did great and we had our best family hiking experience since Oliver was born.

He always had a stick in his hand, often using it as a lightsaber or pointing it like a gun and telling people to put their hands up. It's a little disturbing coming from a three-year-old.

 He does cute things too though: he picked up these leaves and wanted to carry them back for his preschool teachers.

 This is the lake behind the cottage. It was small and shallow, so perfect for the kids.

 Look - there is photographic evidence that I exist!

 Scott took Phoebe out...

...and Oliver too. He seems to have forgotten that last kayaking incident. He was pretty happy.

 We brought the kids' bikes. They love getting a little more freedom than they get on city streets.

 We hiked a place called Step Falls.

 We enjoyed the view from the top, slid down some slick rocks, and headed down.

 On the way down, Oliver tripped and fell. He was running downhill with a stick in his hand and didn't let go of the stick to brace his fall, so face-planted in the dirt and rocks and roots.

We made a few more stops for side-of-the-road waterfalls and such.

Phoebe was pretty stoked that she photo-bombed the boys.

Maine Event

We drove about five hours up to Gouldsboro, Maine after the marathon. My legs were tight and sore especially after a long drive, but I was ready for vacation! Our vacation doubled as a reunion; Scott's parents and three of his siblings and their spouses met us in Maine. Only his youngest brother, Mark, was not there (he is serving a mission in California right now!). We booked a house that could fit all of us and was right on the water. The house was beautiful and the view was even better...

This is the view from the back deck: pink granite shores of the Schoodic Peninsula. There was a small pebble beach suitable for putting in kayaks (pictured below, with Oliver chucking rocks into the ocean), so we rented kayaks for the week and put them to good use.

 So many rocks to throw.

 This is Lana and her husband, also named Scott.

 This is my Scott, who went out in a kayak every single morning - even when Hurricane Joaquin sent some big waves all the way to Maine.

 Phoebe kept begging to go, so Scott took her out once. After this, Oliver also begged so much that Scott took him out too. It didn't last long though: a big wave came in just as they were paddling out from the beach, the kayak flipped, and Oliver decided he didn't want to do that again. Of all the things that happened on vacation, he cites this the most. He has told several people, "Boat, drop, wet," which is his way of saying, "I fell off the boat and got wet!"

 This is the view of the house from the pebble beach.

 We did our share of relaxing.

 But we didn't overdo the relaxation: here we are hiking the Precipice Trail in Acadia National Park. There are a bunch of metal ladders and rungs to cling to, but still lots of climbing over boulders which my tired legs didn't appreciate.

 It was worth the climb though.

 We made it to the top of Champlain Mountain...

 ...so we celebrated... (this would be Leslie and Marc)

 ...and snapped sibling photos. Scott with his three sisters: Leslie, Nancy, and Lana.

 We hiked from the mountaintop to Sand Beach, where Scott's parents were watching the kids. It was chilly, but not enough to keep Bruce from swimming or Oliver from taking his pants off.

 He loved inching toward the water, then running away when the waves came in. He did this for hours.

 We have been to Acadia National Park before, but we had not been to the portion of it on the Schoodic Peninsula. It was closer to where we stayed, so we went to Schoodic Point in the national park a few times. The waves were huge here!

 And there were plenty of cool tide pools for the kids to explore.

 OK, the adults too.

 We hiked onto Little Moose Island, which is only an island when the tide is in.

 When the tide is out, you can cross this sloppy tide pool. It was full of really cool creatures though; Bruce found a few crabs and sea urchins.

 One day we rented bikes and biked from Northeast Harbor to the Jordan Pond House, mostly on carriage trails. Nancy's husband, Jared, pulled a trailer with their baby Ethan and Oliver inside. At first, they tried to poke each other's eyes out. By the end, they were buddies.

 Phoebe biked with Grandma the whole time and went pretty slow, but was so proud that she had biked about five miles. It was a hilly five miles too!

 We returned the bikes to the rental place in Northeast Harbor (side note: the bike rental place was also a laundromat owned by a super-nice guy named Steve who drove me and the babies up to the carriage trailhead so we didn't have to pull the trailer up a big hill!), and entertained the babies at a playful storefront while everyone else finished the ride and loaded up on fish and chips. We ate so much amazing food: we got lobsters, clam chowder, and my new favorite - fried pickles.

 On our final full day, we hiked Mount Dorr and Mount Cadillac - the tallest mountain on the eastern seaboard - before hiking down to Bubble Pond. We really lucked out with the weather this week. It only rained one day and it wasn't that bad. The rest of the week was sunny and in the 50s. Awesome.

 This is Scott checking out the view of Eagle Lake.

We hiked down to Bubble Pond, where you can see the foliage. It was beautiful, but I think it may have gotten even better when we left.

All in all, our vacation was amazing. The only bummer was on the last night of the trip: Baby Ethan put his hands on the hot glass of a fireplace and burned his hands very badly. Ethan, Nancy and Jared, and a support crew spent a few hours at the hospital that night getting him bandaged up. It was a small hospital in Ellsworth, so they didn't have the right doctors needed for the job. They flew back to Philadelphia the next morning and checked into a burn center there; Ethan is now home from the hospital after more than a week there, but will have bandages and surgeries over the next few months. Poor little guy!

Maine Event

This week was Scott's vacation, so we took full advantage by packing the week with fun activities (after a little work on Monday). We went to a 10-mile race on Tuesday night. Scott took the kids to a McDonald's Play Place while I ran up and down hills along the shores of Newburyport. My goal was to run under 7-minute pace, and I made it with a 6:48 pace. I felt awful afterward (lost my dinner, got a big blister...), but it felt good to push the pace harder than I have been.
After the race, we drove north to a cabin in Maine. Friends of ours invited us to come to the cabin with them; we happily obliged.
Phoebe was happy to be outdoors, crawling around in the dirt at least half of every day.
Here's the cute A-frame cabin we stayed in. It had plenty of space, a fully stocked kitchen, and even a bathroom. This was the view when we woke up in the morning. We were right on a lake, surrounded by trees. We did a lot of relaxing. We discovered that Phoebe has a thing for rocking chairs.Daddy's girl?The cabin was next to a set of train tracks. A diesel engine and a few passenger cars went by four times a day. The kids were in heaven. Bruce loved swimming in the lake with noodles.He and Scott and I swam out to a floating dock a few times. Bruce loved goofing off, especially when he had his audience of friends around.We explored the neighborhood with a short hike down the road. We picked blackberries and raspberries along the way. We went kayaking to an island on the lake, and picked lots more blueberries there. Phoebe played hard, and slept well too. She's growing up: she slept all through the night last night. 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Glorious! Like me, she is much happier when she gets her sleep. Phoebe has two teeth on the bottom now, and chews on her tongue constantly (along with anything else she can get to her mouth). When we came home from Maine, we continued the fun. Bruce and I went to an outdoor movie on Friday night - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - and we all went to a beach on Saturday.

Now that we've had our R&R, let the surgery rotation begin.