Maine

It was so great to have Mom here for the last 2 weeks. The first week she gave Violet (and me) a heavenly break from daycare and the second week we went up to Maine. It was kind of a last minute plan, but it turned out to be a fabulous trip. The weather was fantastic and we had a lot of fun seeing several friends. Our first stop was in Portland Maine at long time friends' Claire and Bill's house. Violet found heaven in their basement toy paradise and played and played while Mom, Claire and I caught up. Bill made fabulous lobster for dinner. Next stop was South Harpswell where we saw our friend Amy and her 8 month old son. We only stayed one night there. Violet was pretty scared of their large yellow lab, but oddly, slept really well there in a strange crib. For our last 3 days, we headed up to Acadia. We stayed in a great cottage right on the water and had a lot of fun just hanging out in the grass and watching the boats. We tried to be strategic about nap time and drives around the park and for the most part it worked well. Violet enjoyed her second mountain summit on Cadillac mountain. On our last day Mom convinced me to go on a horse drawn carriage ride. I was a bit nervous about the fact that it was 2 hours long smack in the middle of morning nap, but we went for it anyway. I was worried that it might be a little like being on an airplane in that you can't really get up....and it was, but V just played and played on the floor of the carriage. After about and hour and a half she stopped moving, and I looked down to find her face planted in her lap, snoozing. I picked her up and she slept the last half hour on my lap - so sweet! The carriage ride must have been some kind of magic because after we went to lunch and let her crawl around in LL Beam for a bit, she slept almost the entire drive home from Acadia - 4.5 hours! We were so amazed and happy that we just kept driving and driving and soon we were home! She must have been tired from the trip as she didn't sleep very well while we were away - often waking up in the night. Consequently, I was very very tired by the end of the trip and returned home with a 101.5 fever. No other real symptoms though and after a few more rough nights, it went away. We're both back to sleeping much better now that we've been home a couple days. Travelling is so fun, but it's definitely tough on sleep issues - apparently even when you don't change time zones.

Here are mom's photos. She's so good about always taking them.