Pemaquid River & Pemaquid Beach

While we were in Maine, my parents offered to babysit Owen so Sean and I could go on the occasional excursion without him.  We went canoeing in the Damariscotta River and it was as lovely as always.  We saw herons, turtles, and fish, and were escorted the whole way by dragonflies who often decided to rest a bit on our boat or on our heads.  Since I have problems steering a canoe, Sean sat in the back and did the steering, and was a natural at it.  Here's a few pictures my father took of us canoeing back to the banks:

That's us way in the distance!  If you listen closely, you can probably hear Sean telling me to "dig deep!":

Owen is not a big fan of the stroller at the moment, which is a bit of a pain--having just become really mobile via crawling and standing, he prefers to move on his own accord, thank you very much.  Who needs wheels?  Not Owen.  We did go on a few very short excursions though--here is a picture of part of New Harbor (I think).  We crossed a little bridge under which the tide was coming in, and Owen stuck his toes into the Atlantic for the first time.  Consensus:  too cold!

I don't get a chance to swim much anymore, so I was determined to do my annual ocean swim, even if it was just for a few minutes.  We weren't able to go the first week, but my mother and I took Owen the second and I was able to dive in and paddle for five minutes, before the freezing cold water and slight antsiness of Owen on the shore caused me to end the swim.

My cousin, Lynne, and her family were visiting Maine from Idaho on their way to bring their daughter, Brooke, to Wellesley for her freshman year.  I hadn't seen them since Brooke was three, so it was fun to have a reunion of sorts in Maine.  They brought Owen a cute Sun Valley t-shirt, which he decided to model for us at the beach.  It went well with his hat and whale swimming trunks!

My mother took a few pictures of me dipping Owen into the water.  The water was very cold for Owen, but he spent a few minutes standing in the sand while the water swirled about, and he was very interested in what was going on down by his toes.  I think he will really like it next year when he can toddle about.