Ok, I have totally been a blog slacker of late, but since this is truly a journal for the boys and us, I will cut myself some slack. Memorial Day we set off on a 9 hour journey to Newry, Maine to celebrate our good friends finally tying the knot.
Alek met Xander at LL when they were 2 1/2 and they have been best buddies ever since. As our luck would have it, Xander has an awesome Mom, Brandy and now step dad, Steve, who we got along with right away and what started as a few play dates with the kids has progressed to a great friendship filled with lots of fun and laughter. So we eagerly said yes, no problem when they said they wanted to have their wedding the week of Memorial Day up in Maine. We gave the kiddos an extended holiday vacation, packed the car, brought Tayler along (poor thing was squished in between Alek and Maks for the whole ride) and off we went.
The drive was not as bad as I thought it would be since we did leave on Memorial Day. Once we got through NYC and Hartford area, it was a breeze and it was a beautiful drive. On another awesome note, Maks slept a majority of the way, so we were spared the "are we almost there yet" questions as much as we normally would get them. We arrived after dinner and the house was as amazing as the pictures. Truly unbelievable!! We were going to be living the high life for a week. We were staying a place called The Glen House. It sits in town of Newry, Maine right by the Sunday River Ski area and it overlooks the Sunday River Golf Club. The area is a happening place in the winter, but more quiet and gorgeous in the summer. It was an very interesting area in terms of the people/locals we met. Surrounded by mountains and forests it would be a true nature lovers dream. Thankfully for me, I was viewing nature from the deck of a multi million dollar home--thats my kind of nature! Anyway, the locals were an ecclectic bunch of people, I truly felt like I landed on the set of Northern Exposure. Such a gorgeous area, and we would look out over the other mountains and only see a house or cabin scattered about, far away from each other. It makes you feel so small and vulnerable, surrounded by those forests.
The views from the decks and the windows of the house were incredible, I felt like I couldn't take enough pictures. The house was the perfect combination for adults and kids. It had 2 indoor gourmet kitchens, slept like 28 people, it had 2 steam rooms (which would awesome, Taylor definitely got addicted to those rooms). It had a huge media room, which 20 seat theatre to view movies, play Wii or Playstation, it had an old school sitdown video game table with games like Ms PacMan, etc.. If you couldn't find one of the dad's this is where they usually were! It had an upstairs bar, pool table and hot tub which was on deck that overlook yard and mountains.
Outback, was an awesome pool with hot tub, another bar area with full kitchen and built in grill. The playset was crazy! It was built into an old oak tree. We were told that alone was 35K to build!! It truly was the most amazing house I had ever seen. It was going to be an incredible week.
The guys took advantage of the golf course being right there and we could watch them on the first tee and the 8th one from our deck. Tuesday evening, Kevin and I were hosting/cooking for the guests. As our bad luck would have it, it was raining by evening, so we were running out to the grills keeping an eye on the chicken and steaks. I had planned ahead and had a caterer deliver some amazing apps (mini crab cakes and scallops wrapped in bacon), so we didn't have work too hard. Despite the rain, the food turned out great and it was an awesome pre-party to the wedding the next day.
The wedding took place on Wednesday. We were all a bit worried in the morning as the sky was looking ominous. A traveling spa came to the house, so a bunch of us relaxed with some massages and pedicures and then it was time for Brandy to get her hair done.
Right before the ceremony was to start, the sun came out and it was gorgeous, it turned into a perfect day.
The ceremony was beautiful. I was honored to have read. The priest was great and the setting was perfect. They were finally Mr and Mrs. Alek and Maks both did great during the ceremony. Alek was fascinated, he was enthralled with each part. Maks sat quietly, but you could tell he didn't see what the fuss was about!
I love this picture of Alek, he was all smiles when they were kissing, it was so cute. Maks at this point had already asked if he could get his suit on and go in the pool.
After the ceremony we went to this old covered bridge to get some pictures. It was the perfect place for wedding shots and there were so many gorgeous ones of the bride and groom.
The best part was the food! A good old Maine lobster bake!! These were truly the biggest lobsters I have seen and OMG, were they good!! The chef and caterer's were awesome and they gave everyone a lesson on the best way to eat a whole lobster. Alek was in heaven as it is one of his favorites. Maks originally didn't want lobster, but then had a change of mine as he watched everyone else having fun. I think he made T do all the work though.
My little men, nice and clean and on their best behavior-pre wedding!
Some family shots post ceremony.
I can't get enough of that view!
The perfect spot to tie the knot!
After we all enjoyed that amazing meal and the fabulous pies for dessert, we had a killer wiffle ball game on the back yard. It was comical, with people falling since the grass was wet, kids hitting better than grown men. Lots of laughs. After that we headed inside for some dancing, well some of us and the kids dancing around the great room. Kevin and I managed to have a dance when our wedding song started playing (Hard to believe it will 15 years ago we were dancing to Van Morrison at our reception)!
Yum-champagne, my fave!!
The boys with their TT--they LOVE her!!
As the sun set, we got the fire going and the marshmellows roasting. Maks of course incinerated his. He loves to burn marshmellows (or smarshsmellows as they call them). It was the perfect way to end the perfect day!! Cheers to Brandy and Steve!!
The next day, T and I took the boys and headed into town. Town is one main street, a bunch of stores and restaurants, but the comical thing, in May, not much is open. There was a general type store, which was pretty cool, had lots of gift type things, jewelry, wood carvings, and a toy section which is all the boys needed to see.
After shopping I took them to the covered bridge and we explored the paths next to the creek. We so weren't dressed for hiking in our flip flops and chucks, but we made the best of it.
They explored the rocks and the creek, the water was pretty chilly.
Of course they made me take pictures of their newly acquired sock monkeys.
I love the tree reflection in the water, so clear and perfect.
Then we walked back up to the bridge to check it out and take some obligatory photos.
The rest of the day we hung at the pool and relaxed. The weather was staying gorgeous and sunny, so we were very thankful for that.
Friday we headed out in a caravan in search of some water falls and we found one really amazing one in a State Park a little to our north. Sadly as I write this I cannot remember the name of the park or the waterfall and give I am on a roll with this post, I don't want to take the time to look it up! But in any event, it was very pretty. At the top of the falls was this large stream area we explored. The kids found lots of tadpoles and amazingly Maks didn't fall in completely. We usually place bets around water if Maks will wind up in it.
This was a small waterfall at the top of the stream area right before the really large falls.
It made for some great family photos!
This was the main falls, which doesn't seem that impressive in the pic, but I will tell you it was steep drop from where we were viewing it.
After we explored here, we drove up the road looking for another water fall, which turned out to be pretty lame, but we explored the woods nearby and the drop into the canyon was pretty steep, so we ushered the kiddos away from that quickly.
It was a fun day and made me want to have more time to spend up here exploring. Not that I would want to head off on some long hike, but an easy nature walk or driving through some of these mountain towns.
The western part of Maine is gorgeous and I would love to go back again. Driving through Vermont and New Hampshire is so beautiful, you just want to soak in the scenery and remember it all.
Saturday it was time to say good bye to the Glen House, we were all sad. Thankfully it was raining, so it made leaving a little easier. The drive back was not bad, though it didn't stop raining until we hit NY. We made it home late afternoon. We walked into our house and though, geez our kitchen looks small and boy would I love to sit in a steam room. We were truly spoiled for a week and it was a good reminder to me, why I keep playing the lottery each week!
We had a fun week, celebrating and laughing with good friends. We were all grateful to Tayler for coming along and helping out with the kiddos, they all loved having her too.
So back to reality and back to school, thankfully only 2 weeks left and then its SUMMER!!!
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