NEW ENGLAND PART 2

Fun fact: Blogging is way easier to do when you don't have 5 hours of homework everyday.

But, it's all worth it, right? Right?! Let's hope.

Rexburg has been treating us well this semester. We love our apartment. Love being back in the same town as our friends. Love the fall weather coming in. Love FINALLY being able to use all of our wedding presents. Also, loving trying to get our thank you cards out before we hit 7 months. Oops.

In order to catch up to where we are at, I need to get a move on real fast. Until then, here is the second part to our New England Trip!!

Maine: We spent the majority of our trip in the gorgeous state of Maine. We started off in Portland, where we walked around the cutest, cutest lighthouse I have ever seen and lazied around by the small beach near by for a while. After that, we drove up to Bar Harbor, Maine which is right by Acadia National Park, which we went to the next day. So we set up our camp and then made our way to Bar Harbor. Which is also super cute. We did a loop around the edge of the town and then went right through and shopped a little and it was just loads of fun. 

       After our night around town, we went back to the campsite and on the way picked up some wood someone was selling in front of their house. We got back to our site and started up a fire.. which took us a lot longer then is expected and then once the fire was up, died within minutes. So we tried again, and again, and again..... and again. Until FINALLY we had just enough heat to cook our dinner and s'mores. We put out our pathetic fire after realizing the wood we bought was bad, and laughed really hard at ourselves for how sad we looked compared to our camp neighbors.

      The next morning we headed to Acadia National Park and stopped at all sorts of lakes, look outs, mountains, and nature-y things. It was so so pretty and one of our best days just going from stop to stop and relaxing and enjoying all the gorgeous views. Also, Sam and I matched a little that day, so that's cute.

      Maine (cont.): After Acadia, we headed up to my boss' lake house in Harrison, Maine. My boss is the funniest, kindest, and smartest person you will meet but we love him. He took us to this movie theater called The Magic Lantern which was completely the most gorgeous movie theater I have ever been to. There was balcony seating and gorgeous paintings of old movie stars all on the walls and vintage decorations all over the place. We all loved it. Side note: we saw Guardians of the Galaxy, not usually my type of movie, but I loved it for two reasons: 1.) Chris Pratt is hilarious and Parks and Rec is my fav show and 2.) The soundtrack was just AMAZING. One of the best. 

      The next day we went out on the boat and all had turns driving along Long Lake in it. We then went tubing. Henry (my boss) has only taken out his grandkids tubing so for our first time on, we basically just went straight the whole time. So the next time we asked for more snaking and circling and man oh man did we get it. Sam and Jess went and to me, it looked like fun, until they got back in the boat and Jess had a huge huge bump on her knuckles from where Sam had hit it over and over while hanging on for deal life. Then it was my turn to go with Sam and I can safely say, I have never been more scared for my life. We were being whipped around at 45 mph while Henry was doing ONLY snakes and circles and it was terrifying. I'll put one of my favorite (and most embarrassing) pictures of that on here. We ended up flying off and having our body's skim across the lake which was extremely painful, and I came up out of the water not being able to feel my  right leg and having my right arm feel like it was broken. It was so bad that I just screamed for Sam and had to be swam over to the boat by him. It was such terrible pain I can't even describe it. But, by the time we made it back to the house, the pain had dulled some but Sam and I both felt like we were recovering from getting in a car crash the next week or so. But, it was TOTALLY worth it. I loved every terrifying and painful moment. 

      After that we took it easy and went to eat at a place called Rick's which was delicious and then headed to the Deer Tree Theater to listen to a band that had the cutest little old grandpa playing bass and he was the best entertainment I had had in a while. Grandpas just get me.

That guy right there with the red guitar, he just was so into every song. He loves his music.

Vermont: Then we headed....west? Anways, we went to Vermont next.We went to the Rock of Ages granite factory that the church actually gets some of the granite for the temples from. It was way interesting to see how it is all made and we played a little bowling in the back. Then we made it to the Ben + Jerry's factory and took a tour and it was the coolest thing to watch and see. We shared the yummiest ice cream, laughed at the "flavor graveyard" they had, felt like little kids as we put our noses up against the glass to watch the ice cream be made, and had a blast.  After that we made a pit stop at the world's longest candy counter called Chutters, but didn't actually get any candy. But, we still loved it. After that we made our last stop in Vermont at the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial. It was amazing and there was a sweet spirit there and the grounds were absolutely gorgeous.  

Connecticut: We made our last stop at Sam's Aunt Sue's home in Bristol. We had been there before a few months prior to see Sam's sweet little cousin Denylah who was diagnosed with Lukemia earlier this year. She is the sassiest and funniest little girl I have ever met and she didn't leave our side the whole time we were there. She's a trooper and I feel lucky to know her. We went on a hike up to the old castle that day and spent the night playing games and eating yummy food.

Props to whoever made it through this whole post. I apologize. But, it was such a fun vacation and we want to remember all of the fun memories we had together.