No internet connection?!? Nooooo. LOL We arrived in Maine at 12:45pm on Tuesday. Though Maine had also been plagued with constant rain we brought sunshine, good old fashion Florida sunshine with us. It was hot and humid when we got here but not raining. The kids jumped out of the van and, after the cursory hellos, they were off! I swear, Lorraine is a nuclear energy plant! She ran, and ran, and ran, and ran, and ran, and ran… well I could go on forever. She sat down long enough for dinner but then got up and ran again! Uncle B has 40 acres on the top of a “small hill” (ie: mountain for us flatland Florida people), across the “field” is his nephew’s and he has an 8 year old girl who had been waiting for us. After some initial running, Lorraine started playing with this girl. They would disappear and return periodically. I being the control freak and liking to always know where my girl was… didn’t care. LOL I was too busy soaking up the beauty of this place and resting like I was on vacation. Finally, after a day and a half we were with my in-laws who love and adore the kids (but then who wouldn’t) and are happy answering their many questions.

Out back of this large house is the rolling back yard. It goes down hill, right into an up hill. This is Lorraine’s favorite running place. Run down hill, run up hill, turn around, run down hill, run up hill. I swear on my mother that she was still doing it at 9:30 pm Tuesday night. Needless to say, after wrapping Meme and Papa around her little finger and sleeping with them, she was the last person up, sleeping until 9 am on Wednesday.

Wednesday dawned a dreary day. It was overcast and had the look of rain. Uncle B, our cousin, Meme, and I went into town. Our poor van needed a vacuum and bath and we needed fixin’s for a lobster boil! Ayuh, I said labstah. The nephew was able to pick up live lobster for a really good price and we got hotdogs, potatoes, onions, sausage, and corn. Now this is my first time with lobster and it was… ok. I love the legs, the body with it guts looked too nasty for me and I got the tail out easily but then I saw (well there’s no nice way of saying this) the poop shoot and couldn’t do it!! I devoured the legs though (being a Maryland girl I can chow on some crab legs and lobster legs were too far from them).

Thursday morning we got up and (after a few things were taken care of) headed off. We went to the coast Wells Beach. Erik took us on a tour of Kennebunk Port. He use to work there every August with the first Bush President when he was stationed at White House Communications Agency. We had lunch on the inlet and I had a lobster roll (had heard about them on the Food Channel) and Erik had fried scallops. Now, I know that I’ll never get another lobster roll but DANG his fried scallops were like candy!

Currently we are at our hotel. If you look out our window and to the right you can see a sliver of the beach. I know this is shocking but I’m freezing cold! The kids want to go to the pool and beach and I just want to snuggle up with a beer or Margarita!

We went to dinner at a very lovely restaurant yesterday called Alfredo’s. It was family owned and operated. My mother in law and I share a pizza that I can’t remember the name of. It was a white pizza that had black olives (oh yeah), artichokes, tomatoes, pesto, and onions. OMG was it yummy. We got the kids one basket of chicken tenders that they shared, Erik had a cheese stake and his dad had a meatball sub. I can’t express how wonderful this restaurant was. If you ever get to Wells Beach you need to eat here it’s on US 1.

We walked the beach. It’s different because of all the rocks. In Florida it’s all sand and flat. Out here there are rocks and little lakes and rivers running on the beach. Hopefully we are heading out there again this morning.

I’ve got no song for you, I’m tapped! LOL Yesterday, Monday, June 26, we left MD only 1 hr late (that’s pretty good for me!). We headed north to what looked to be pretty bad weather. It looked as if we were going to get rain all day. This weekend the weather channel had shown rain all along the East Coast. My in-laws (who are already in Maine) said that they’ve had nothing but rain.

Anyhow, we were just inside PA on 15 when the little guy said that he had to pee. We stopped one place and their bathrooms were for paying customers. So we went across the street to a gas station. This turned out better for us because we (kind of) got to see our first mountains. Kind of because it was still really cloudy and grey. We continued onward until we found Hershey Chocolate Factory.

The first thing we did there was to take the “Factory Tour”. This isn’t a real tour of the factory (which I had been looking forward to), instead it was a mock factory. It showed each section of the process included heat (for when they roast the bean) to the smells (when they pour the finished product). The kids applied for a job in the interactive factory thingy. LOL They got a cog (like a gear cog) and pushed a button to fill it with kisses, then they shook it all up, and sent it on it’s way down the conveyor belt with a kiss. They had fun but Wyatt pushed his button twice and then didn’t want to let his go!

We got a work badge with their picture on it and they got a cog full of candy out of it. Then we decided to break our “not buying food on the road” promise and had lunch at the café there. Two “lunch boxes” for the kids (included a sandwich, jello, and a tiny white chocolate Kit Kat bar), chocolate milk (split between the two kids), two sandwiches (for Mommy and Daddy), two chips, and two cokes cost us $30!!!!!! The thing is Erik and I could have split a sandwich we both ended up with half a sandwich left (I ate mine for dinner last night). Then we REALLY got bad and got desert from the bakery. Each of us got a desert and that came to about $6. Then we each got a candy bar. Did you know that they now have a Reeses with marshmallow fluff! Wyatt and I got that, it was ok. I’ll stick with the original Reeses though, thank you.

When we got out of Hershey it was actually sunny! We had a pretty good driving day. When we were in the mountains (OMG I had forgotten what mountains looked like since we live in Florida) going down hills and around curves at the same time is a tad freaky! However, since we didn’t have any rain at the time I was ok and it was a rather beautiful drive. I did get a bit freaked out when I looked out my window to a valley WAY below us! We hit some rain and some traffic but arrived at our hotel around 6:50 pm. This allowed us to relax and eat dinner in our room. They have a spa/whirlpool which we went to and spend 15 luxurious minutes in with the jets hitting my poor sore neck. Did I mention that I was a control freak and wont allow anyone else to drive me? My right hand was so cramped I couldn’t use it anymore. I would have to drive with my left hand and being a righty makes that a bit difficult.

Today we are of to Maine to Erik’s uncle’s house, where his parents are waiting for us. I’m really hoping they are having the sunny day we are right now since they are only 4 hours away from where we are right now.

I don’t think I’ll able to post for a few days. I don’t know about the next few places we are staying and if they have internet access. However, I’ll still keep a journal and post when I can. TTFN (and my Mommy likes to say).

Rain, rain go away, my kids are killing me today! LOL Ok so this was suppose to be for yesterday but it rained all day and we were busy keeping the kids busy. Poor things, they had spent all day Saturday in the van and couldn’t run around like they need to, then we wake up and it is pouring rain. In fact, when we returned home from dinner last night my dad emptied the rain gauge. This was about 6:30 pm. Before going to bed there were 3 inches at I believe that was around 10pm. This morning there was a total of 4 inches.

So, mom and Erik took the kids to the mall where they have a play area. Of course it was PACKED. I stayed home to edit (no really!) and got one and a half submissions read (no editing). The group came home with a Lightening McQueen car with buttons and lots of noise and a mountain race track thing that makes (yep you guessed it) lots of noise! LOL

However, they have kept the kids busy. Right now we were suppose to be have been on the road about a half hour ago. Our plans are to go north, hit the Hershey chocolate plant and then drive on up to Auburn, MA where our next hotel is located. I wanted to take a detour to Deerfield, MA where they have the main Yankee Candle store but I’m not feeling that right now. LOL We’ll have to see later.

On the road again, I just can't wait to get on the road again. So yesterday, after working all day, we finally left for our huge two week vacation. We left Daytona Beach area around 8pm (only 1 hour later than I had planned!) and arrived at our hotel in Savannah, GA at midnight.

Let me explain a big thing about me, I am a HUGE control freak! I can't stand to let others drive me, even poor hubby. This means that I drove four hours last night and then the 10 hours (the last 2 through rain) today to Rockville, MD. We're here for a day then Monday we head towards Auburn, MA.

In South Carolina, I saw a bill board for a country store, Carolina Cider Company, selling cherry and peach cider. I pointed it out to Erik and we decided what the heck we are on vacation. We stopped and found this little open air-like store. They gave us samples of their cherry, peach and grape ciders. They also had a table with hot sauces, jams, and a sweet potato butter spread. We ended up with Cherry Cider and Sweet Potato Butter. I asked my dad to make his (world famous) biscuits in the morning. I can’t wait to have my butter on that!

We had planned to stop at South of the Border for a picnic and play on the play ground. You know what? They don’t have picnic tables or a play ground! Erik said it, those don’t make any money for South of the Border. So we headed to the North Carolina visitor center. You know of the four states we went through today, North Carolina was the most beautiful!! They have these BEAUTIFUL yellow flowers all over the median on 95. Their Welcome Center is beautiful as well. We had a lovely picnic there and then tossed the Frisbee for a while. This is actually not as fun as it sounds. The kiddies are just learning how to toss the Frisbee. Then we went to their lake to toss bread to the duckies… they don’t have any. Then the kiddies rolled down the hills until my eyes started to sweat! Then headed out to Virginia.

The interchange of 95/395/495 in Springfield, VA has always been my freakiest driving moment. It’s a fight to get off onto 495 because you have to slow down to get off the road when others are speeding off to get onto395/495. However, now it’s nice and easy piesie. The worst part was the rain and accidents.

We are here now and I hope to do nothing but sleep tomorrow. The kids are asleep and I’m hoping they will stay that way for 12 hours. Doubt it. LOL Will post more later.

It's been a while since I've posted, busy, busy, busy! Last Saturday, we took the little monsters to see Over the Hedge. Of course we all loved it. Raine will tell you that Hammy was the best character, Wyatt liked RJ and Mommy and Daddy were a bit partial toward Ozzie (we’re Trekies). It’s a funny movie with a lot of jokes just for Mom and Dad and action for the babies.

We went on Sunday to see X3 and weren’t so excited. I didn’t exactly enjoy the movie. I like it because I like X-Men, but there was something missing. People died who shouldn’t die and the relationships seemed fake. I don’t know, I just would have preferred something … else.

Yesterday, we watched Cars. OMG - LOVED IT!!! Raine liked Mater, Wyatt liked Lightening McQueen, Erik liked Luigi and I liked Doc. I have to say that I am a NASCAR fan and enjoyed all the nuances added to this movie. Darrell Waltrip’s “Boogidy, boogidy, boogidy” was in there as well as the infield and even on awesome flipping wreck. The funniest like (by far) was when Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) said “I’m happier than a tornado in a trailer park.” I know it’s not right but that was funny as heck! We all enjoyed the movie and already have plans to buy the movie when it comes out.

From the previews that we’ve seen, this summer looks to be a GREAT summer for family movies and movies just for Mommy and Daddy. Hopefully, we can afford to go. The theater we went to last night charged $9 for adults!! We didn’t even try for popcorn, we’d’ve had to taken out a second mortgage just to pay for popcorn and soda!