Hi! This is part 2 of our New England trip that we took as a family. If you want to read PART 1, I shared a bunch of photos and stories here.
We traveled on Sunday, and then we had 6 full days in Maine. We decided to do 2-2-2 (2 on Peaks Island, 2 in Portland Maine, and then 2 more on Peaks Island.)
For our second full day on the island, we had a slow morning at home and then loaded up and biked to the beach! Yesterday we went to Sandy Beach, which is the public beach on the island. But for day 2, we decided to check out Centennial Beach, which technically isn’t a public beach…but our airbnb owner told us that it’s much more kid-friendly and quiet. So we went to check it out.
Bikes, helmets, ready to go!
He’s just so cute on his little bike!
We played in the sand, we snacked, we drank Maine craft beer…it was a lovely morning.
Every little bit of Maine is so charming! I looked up from the beach and admired this adorable cottage overlooking the water…
…and while I was walking back to our chairs I saw Nate in the distance, blowing bubbles with both of his boys. He’s such a sweet dad to them. 🙂
After the beach, we went home, cleaned up, and went out for an early dinner at Island Lobster Co.
DELISH!! You guys!!! Lobster is made to be eaten by the ocean. (I mean…duh, right?) It’s just so much better in Maine!
I got this INSANE lobster BLT, and when I tell you I’ve been craving it ever since, I’m not kidding. It was one of the best things I ate on the entire vacation.
We found two empty Adirondack chairs overlooking the water, and Nate and I sat down and enjoyed our beers while the boys ran around and played.
I’m so happy there are two of them. 🙂 I love that they love to play with each other. I mean, they’re a hot mess and learning how to raise siblings certainly has its challenges, but I’m just so thankful that I get to be a mom to these two boys.
The boys ran around for a while by themselves until they asked for me to join them down by the beach, and so I happily obliged. They loved running around and exploring!
We went down a long dock and sat at the edge of it for a while, watching the ferry come and go.
And then Nate called the boys back because he had bought a “dinosaur Oreo” for them. Ha! Look at their little faces! Dayton is like, “wait, is this really from a dinosaur?”
We had so many whoopee pies on this trip, but the name dinosaur Oreo is way more fun.
And then a quick stop at Down Under on the way back home for some post-dinner ice cream. ^ Milo had a little flashlight around his neck and was giving his dad a dental checkup..ha.
We shopped a bit for some souvenirs…
…and got some sweet treats to end the night on the island.
Ok, on the next day it was DAY 3 of our trip, and we were ready to head into downtown Portland and do a bit of exploring! We took the ferry across the bay in the morning and rented a car for a couple of days. (We just brought the car back across the ferry with us that night.)
We woke up bright and early and…
…boarded the ferry! It was seriously the prettiest summer weather in Maine!!
Blue skies, bright and sunny, slight breeze…perfection.
First stop? Holy Donut, because those sweet potato donuts are just so dang good.
Next up was Tandem Coffee Roasters, which is based in downtown Maine and happens to be one of Nate’s favorite coffee roasters. We sometimes find their coffee beans around Austin, and we would occasionally get these bags when we did a rotating coffee subscriptions. The space is really cute!
Coffee while the boys played at a nearby park!
Nate and Milo went to Austin Street Brewery to kill a bit of time while Dayton and I had to make an emergency shoe store run (ha! The random little things you end up doing on vacation with young children..) and then on the way back, Dayton fell asleep in the car.
I mean…just totally out!! He hadn’t been sleeping very well on this trip, so we wanted him to nap as long as he needed. So rather than wake him up by getting him out the car, I just parked the car next to an outdoor table at the brewery, opened the car windows, and sat with Nate and Milo while Dayton finished his nap.
They had lots of games and art supplies at Austin Street Brewery! I can’t say it’s necessarily our top choice for best breweries in Portland, but we were trapped there for about 2 hours while Dayton napped in the car, so we ended up getting a few flights of beer!
Milo made up the rules to a lot of games, most of which I didn’t understand. It was honestly the most stressful version of connect four I’ve ever played, haha.
Lunch across the street at Highroller Lobster Co., which I loved from our last trip! I did the lobster flight and ordered a Maine style, a Connecticut style, and a Wasabi roll. Delish.
When our little 2-year-old finally decided to grace us with his presence, we were ready for a little light house tour. I’m so happy we rented a car so we could venture outside of downtown Portland and check out a couple of lighthouses.
Portland Head Light is about as iconic as it gets!
It was seriously postcard pretty. Pics don’t do it justice. It was completed in 1791 (George Washington had it built!) and it’s the oldest lighthouse in Maine.
You can’t go up inside the lighthouse, so we just wandered around the base. There are a bunch of walking and hiking trails nearby, which the boys LOVED. They ran around and I tried to keep up with them, and they would have kept going for hours if I let them.
There was little gelato truck parked near the lighthouse, and we all got scoops of chocolate.
Dayton found a pretty cool spot to sit.
More running through the paths! I asked them to pause for a picture (Dayton doing his signature tongue-out silly face) and they’re both staring at something on the ground…I wonder what it was? Anyway, Portland Head Light was a FANTASTIC place to spend the afternoon with little kids!
After that, we drove to Bug Light Park, which was much smaller and quieter. The boys had lots of fun climbing on rocks all the way to the lighthouse.
They climbed on rocks aaaaall the way to the light!
For the record, these binoculars did not work…
But Bug Light was really cute!
For dinner we drove to one of our favorite spots from the last time we were in Portland: Oxbow Brewery.
They mostly do farmhouse ales (think: Jester King if you’re local here in Austin), so the beers are a bit funkier than what we had been drinking earlier in the day. It was really fun to taste a few.
Horrible photo, delicious dinner. Duckfat is one of the most popular restaurants in Portland Maine, and it’s SO delish! It’s small and dark and cozy, and we knew we wouldn’t want to dine there this time with the boys, but there’s a second location at Oxbow Brewery called Duckfat Frites Shack. We ordered some fries and poutine ahead of time so it would be ready when we arrived. (Note: if you order it ahead they put it in these ugly cardboard containers. Typically it’s served in really cool wire serving containers with paper liners and it looks much prettier – I was just trying to snap a pic while dealing with a toddler meltdown!)
Ok, truth be told…we kind of had a crash landing at the end of the night. I won’t share details, but it was a pretty rough night of parenting. I’m proud of how Nate and I handled everything, but we were wiped out by the time we got the car back to the ferry station! We arrived about 45 minutes before departure time, and…we were shocked by how many cars were already in line!! And that’s when we learned that tif you’re taking a car on the ferry to Peaks Island, you have to show up really really early. They don’t take reservations, so you just have to get there early.
They told us our car wouldn’t make it on the next ferry, so I did the pedestrian boarding with those two tired and fussy boys on our original ferry departure time, and Nate had to wait nearly 2 hours to get the car on the next boat. Phew! Lesson learned.
It was late, but Dayton is always ready to explore! 
Got some smiles. 🙂
Exhale. We made it back home!
Milo wanted to push Dayton home in the stroller, to which I happily agreed!
The next morning we made sure to get in line for the ferry plenty early!! Ha.We drove on the ferry with our car and then immediately went to get some coffee and breakfast.
It was another absolutely perfect day in Portland. I couldn’t have asked for better weather! We stopped by Eighty-8 Donut Cafe, which makes these mini donuts fresh to order. The Boston cream pie donuts were sooooo tasty.
Back to Tandem Coffee Roasters because we loved it so much!
Nate went inside to order coffee while I watched the boys run around. They can find something to climb/jump off of pretty much anywhere.
Bike rack, or jungle gym?
It was such a nice break from the Texas heat! Something as simple as ordering coffee and drinking it outside felt like a huge treat.
Next up we went to the Narrow Gauge Railroad, which had tickets available throughout the day. It was pretty empty (only us and about 10 other guests on the entire train) and the short train ride was really pretty!
It’s an out-and-back ride, so at the halfway point they let all the passengers get off the train, walk around, and talk to the conductor and the train engineer.
This child RARELY falls asleep back home (he doesn’t take naps, he doesn’t fall asleep in the car, and he never sleeps on me) but there was something about the rocking of the train and the sunshine that just made him conk out! I love my baby.
And then Milo, too?! Something about vacation…
We drove out to Maine Beer Co. for a late lunch. Both boys fell asleep in the car on the way there and napped for a bit after I transferred them to the stroller. Not gonna lie…that moment of Nate and I enjoying a beer and pizza while the boys napped was probably the most relaxing part of the whole trip. 😉
And then this kid woke up and joined us at the table, and he got to color this EPIC coloring sheet!
Happy!! We tasted a bunch of delicious beers at Maine Beer Co.! This brewery was pretty epic.
And the pizza was phenomenal.
The space is seriously so cool, with a big interior fountain and two-story seating. There was an awesome covered patio outside (which is where we sat, since we wanted space for the boys to run around), but there was plenty of seating indoors, too.
We stayed there for a long time! Dayton just kept napping, so we let him sleep while we sipped on our beers and enjoyed the pretty afternoon weather. Milo colored, we all noshed on the pizza, and it was truly a wonderful afternoon.
We decided to end the day on a high note instead of pushing the boys too far past their limit (lesson learned from the day before! We’re still learning how to vacation with kids!) and returned our rental car and boarded the ferry as pedestrians this time.
Back home!
One child fell asleep immediately, and the other one did headstands for an hour. Can you guess? 😉
Ok, that was PART 2. Don’t forget to go back and read PART 1! I’ll be back soon with the rest of the trip…which includes a little encore to a bonus city!
