I LOVE SUMMER

You've probably heard me mention how much I love summer, especially New England summers a million times. Well, you're about to hear about how much I love summer even more.

The last few weeks have been filled with so much outdoor time, beach time, family time, fun time that I can hardly keep up with myself. The girls have been dead tired by the end of the days, but each day, wake up ready for more fun. I guess it's the fact that we are about to leave Maine in a few weeks that has me on overdrive trying to enjoy Maine as much as we possibly can while we are here.

The 4th of July weekend was no different. The weather was beautiful. On Friday night, we grilled pizzas and had a fire with S'Mores with some good friends of ours. The kids were up until 1030pm and having a blast together. Saturday we spent the day at Scarborough beach playing in the sand and catching up with some friends. We had a nice dinner outside as a family and enjoyed the evening together! Sunday was a bit cloudy with some showers, so we headed to LL Bean for some shopping and fun. The girls got their faces painted and we did some shopping! Monday was the 4th, my friend from high school and her family came for a visit. She has three girls pretty much the same ages as our girls, so it was an instant hit. We headed to the beach, along with my parents, for a beautiful start to the 4th of July. The kids had so much fun and the ocean was a HOT 63 degrees! Unheard of in July! Mairead body surfed, rode the waves with me and had a blast! It was awesome catching up with my girlfriend and getting to know her husband and family. We all grilled out and headed downtown Portland for the fireworks. All the kids (there were 11 kids in all - a few friends of ours joined us) had a blast, running around, eating, waving sparklers all around and eventually watching the fireworks. It was a perfect end to the perfect weekend!

Me & Molly with our 7 beautiful children! Times sure have changed :)

Today, we were invited to a friends camp for the day. They were spending the week on Long Lake here in Maine for the week. So, I thought it would be fun to take everyone there for the day. I got everything ready last night in preparation to leave here by 9am. I couldn't believe we were actually out of the house, on our way, at 910am! It took us over an hour to get there, but, it was totally worth it. The girls had an absolute blast! They swam. They fished. We went for a few boat rides. They went on a canoe. Jumped off the dock. And absolutely wore themselves out! It was so much fun for everyone, including myself. The ride home was great, too. Clara passed out in minutes, so me and the big girls stopped for an ice cream treat. It really was one of the best days yet this summer, except Kevin wasn't there with us. I wish he could have been there to see how much fun the girls had on the boat. It makes me so excited for the future when we can do things like this all the time!

I have so many things I still want to do with the girls before we leave Maine that I am not so sure we will be able to fit it all in! And these aren't new things, just all the things we love to do together in the summer.