Cousins in Maine

My sister, Laurel, niece, Bella (9), and nephew, Lucas, (5-1/2), came out for a visit earlier this month. We took them up to the center of Maine to Jeff's family's cabins on the lake. It's rural; the nearest grocery store is 30 minutes away and the start of the 100 miles of wilderness of the Appalachian Trail is on the mountain on the other side of the lake.

The kids had a blast swimming, tubing, boating, hiking and just playing in the woods and being together.

All of the kids had fun driving the boat:

On the really rainy day, we went into town and went shopping and had lunch. The kids collected rocks,

and Carter found another mud puddle to play in.

We went on some hikes:

Up to the "bluff" where we could see the whole lake,

And out to the trestle, which is 150 high over a small dam, a bit rickety and thankfully, no trains came by while we were on it.

It was a great visit, too short and we can't wait for them to come back next summer.