Here’s the third and final part of my New England vacation recap! My family went to Maine in summer 2024 for a week-long getaway. If you haven’t read them yet, here’s PART 1 and PART 2 of the trip.
After two days in Portland, Maine, we were ready for a couple quiet days on the island. We woke on Day 5 and it was pouring rain and COLD! So we just had a cozy morning inside.
I had bought this insaaaaane blueberry coffee cake from Katie Made Bakery the day before when we were in downtown Portland, but I was too full to eat it that day. So, I got to enjoy it with a fresh cup of coffee that I made for myself in our cozy little home. I enjoyed a quiet morning with my book, the boys watched a show together on the couch, and it was just lovely.
It is the BEST DANG COFFEE CAKE in the world. Please don’t go to Portland Maine without trying this!
There was a tiny nook off the kitchen in our house, so I took my coffee and pastry there and watched the rain while I read my book.
The rain let up for just a bit and I told Nate I really wanted to bike around the perimeter of the island once on this trip, so he took the boys to lunch at Jones Landing while I hopped on my bike. I stopped halfway to enjoy the view, but joke was on me because a few minutes later it started absolutely POURING on me!
Ha! I got home completely drenched but very happy!
And I guess those are all the photos I have from this day! It was cold, it was rainy, and we were all just having a “lazy day.” I truly can’t remember what we did for dinner on this night, but I guarantee you the night ended with watching the olympics!
For our final day on Peaks Island, the weather cleared up (yay!) and we were able to enjoy the beach again.
The boys did so great on their bikes for this trip, but the island is a bit too big to ask them to bike around the entire perimeter. So we rented a golf cart for the day and did a loop around the island.
It is SOO pretty! I love the eastern edge where you can look out and see all of the other little Casco Bay islands, and then nothing but ocean, ocean, ocean.
I eyed all the pretty Maine cottages that overlook that view.
That’s Battery Steele ^ in the photo above. I guess you could say it’s Peaks Island’s claim to fame, because it’s the most notable historical thing on the island.
It was built during WWII to protect Casco Bay from potential attacks. It’s now on the National Register of Historic Places. We didn’t get off the golf cart to walk around because I’ve looked at photos, and it seems pretty run down with lots of puddles and mud and places for the boys to get lost/into mischief. So we just eyed it from a distance. 🙂
I’m so thankful for a gorgeous day for our final day on the island! 
We all voted that Centennial Beach was much easier for our family than Sandy Beach, mostly because Sandy Beach’s entry ramp was broken so you had to get down to the beach via a big slippery rock and a rope. (Nope!) Also, Sandy Beach had lots of giant rocks and boulders, which the boys absolutely LOVED climbing, but they were going to give their parents a heart attack from all that barefoot climbing on slippery rocks. So we went back to Centennial Beach for a fun day on the sand.
And beer!
It was pretty warm, so the sand felt amazing and even the cold water felt good!
Dayton is my dog-lover. Every (I mean literally EVERY!) time we saw a dog on this trip he would come to me and say, “mama, can I pet that dog?”
Nate and I both got in the water on this final day! The air was warm enough that the 63-degree water actually felt really good and refreshing.
We stayed at the beach all day, and it was bliss.
We headed home to freshen up and then went out to happy hour at:
Peaks Island Shellfish. It’s just a little cart with a couple of picnic tables and umbrellas. The guy who runs this place has a dad who owns an Oyster company nearby in the bay, so he gets the oysters fresh from his dad and serves them to guests on Peaks Island. It’s BYOB and the oysters were harvested just the day before!
We got a dozen, and they were wonderful!
^ A photo by our eldest son.
I offered the boys an oyster, but they opted for Doritos instead…
One of their favorite things to do on the island was to find hills to bike down. So we ventured out and did a little biking (them) and running and yelling ” WATCH FOR CARS” (me.)
Dinner was at (can you guess??) Island Lobster Co! One final meal here.
There were a few other children playing in the backyard area, so the boys ran around with them while Nate and I ate our lobster rolls and drank beer.
It was a *perfect* evening.
We wandered around on the beach by the restaurant property, all barefoot and messy hair. Lots of happiness on this evening.
We really like you, Peaks Island! I promise we’ll be back!
Sad to say goodbye 🙁
But we were all sleepy and needed to get home, pack up, and prepare for another adventure the next day.
Goodnight, Peaks Island!
Oh wait…there’s always time for a quick scoop of ice cream to eat on the walk home! The ice cream at Down Front was really good, y’all!
The boys always went for the crazy flavors (moose tracks, cookie dough, birthday cake) but Nate and I loved the blueberry the best. It wasn’t too sweet with a fake blueberry taste…it was really fresh and natural with jammy swirls of berry mixed in. So good!
Hugs!!
After 7 days on Peaks Island, we packed up and headed out. We originally planned to fly home from Portland Maine on Sunday, but flight prices were astronomically high. So I realized that, for the same price, we could extend our trip by two days and take the train down to Boston, see the Red Sox play at Fenway (a bucket list item for Nate and I!), and fly home from Boston.
So we did that. 🙂 Extra exhausting, but extra fun.
After we got off the ferry, we went to The Porthole Restaurant, which was located right by the ferry station.
Lobster omelettes for both Nate and I! Then we got an uber to the translation and boarded our Amtrak Downeaster from Portland to Boston, which was about 2.5 hours long.
It started out calm…
…and then got a little bit sillier…
…and then like I don’t even know at the end. Haha! Nate is clearly trying to get some work done over there on his laptop while Milo watches a show on his iPad, and I got stuck with this crazy 2-year-old Olympic gymnast wannabe. Ha!
We decided to book a room at the CitizenM Hotel, because it’s literally directly above the train station. It was really easy to walk from the Amtrak to our hotel!
Both boys wanted to take a little rest in the bed before we headed out again. Look at the view!
Snuggles.
The hotel was really clean and modern and convenient. However, I wouldn’t recommend it for a family trip. They only have one size room: studios with king beds. The boys are young enough that we were able to make a big comfy pallet for them on the floor and they slept great, but it was pretty cramped in there! (Kind of felt like a cruise ship-sized room.)
But the location was awesome for coming from the Amtrak.
The boys had done such a great job on this travel day (ferry, Uber, and train!) so we just wanted them to get to run around for a while. So we headed to the Boston City Hall Plaza to explore the epic playground.
Ha, yes. That’s the infamous “Cop Slide.” Google “Boston cop slide” if you don’t know what I’m talking about. 😉
This is how I know my children are from Texas!! See Milo in that picture above? ^ There was a splash feature at the playground, and both and Milo found this tiny little waist-deep pool and decided to treat it as a plunge pool. Next thing I know, he’s shirtless and “swimming” in there.
^ And there’s Dayton in the same spot. Keep in mind that it was evening and pretty chilly outside. I mean, who are these hoodlums and who’s raising them??
We got some dry clothes on and ran over to Sam Adams brewery to meet up with Nate, who had ordered a bunch of food for dinner .
I think this brewery is so beautifully designed! It’s a modern blip in an old city, which actually looks really cool. And FYI it’s not a true “dinner” menu, just a bunch of bar snacks like pretzels and pizza and wings and such. But we were all really tired and it was convenient, so we just called it dinner.
A dance party in the square, a hunt for the T station…
…a quick ride, and we made it back to the hotel.
And there was a fireworks show outside our window! I still don’t know what the occasion was, but it was pretty epic to get showered and in PJs and then see fireworks happening just before bedtime!
For our first full day in Boston we woke up and headed out from the hotel.
We lost our double umbrella stroller somewhere along the way, so we got these two cheapo Minnie Mouse strollers. Ha! Also, Milo was obsessed with this bright red cat at the entrance to the hotel.
We stopped for breakfast at Boston Public Market, a food hall that has a little bit of everything! I was able to get some coffee at George Howell and a delicious protein smoothie at Mother Juice.
And Nate went with a Popover sandwich.
The boys picked sprinkle donuts.
There are a lot of food booths there, like a fish monger, a meat shop, and then there was a little dairy stand. The boys loved the three little cows!
Milo named all of them…
…and Dayton shared his donut with one of them.
For our morning activity, we got tickets to the Boston Duck Tours. There’s one that leaves from the Aquarium.
There’s our car/boat!
It was really cute! I didn’t actually realize that these things originated in Boston (there are similar concepts in a lot of cities now), so that’s kind of cool. Our tour guide was really funny and engaging, and I loved learning all about Boston.
The boys got bored after about 5 minutes, which was to be expected.
But once we got on the water, the guide let Milo drive the boat! He loved that.
And my seat mate did headstands the entire time which kept him entertained!
Ok, back to the hotel to rest and freshen up, and then in the evening we had tickets to see the Red Sox play at Fenway!!
Haha…the boys in these silly little Minnie Mouse strollers. Ugh.
I mean, they were WAY to big for these tiny umbrella strollers, but they were the only ones we could find! Milo is 4 now, which is too big to carry but also too young to expect him to walk long distances late at night when he’s really tired. So this is how we managed!
We stopped at Time Out Market for dinner, which has so many excellent food booths, a big outdoor field where the boys could run around, and a brewery.
We got these yummy nori sushi tacos from gogo ya back in 2022, and they were still just as delicious this time around!
Cheers and (hazy) beers!
Reality: we took that beer pic, and then went back to tag-teaming. Nate finished his beer while I ran around with the boys, and then we switched places so I could have a few bites of food. It’s the season of life!
Time Out Market was the perfect place to eat with our family before the Red Sox game. It was a pretty quick walk to Fenway from there.
We toured Fenway in 2022, but this was my first time seeing a game. Yay!!!
Amazing seats, perfect weather…just bliss!
There’s something so cool about this park. I love the history and the size (it’s tiny!), but there’s also just this really good energy there! It doesn’t feel complicated or glitzy or commercialized. There aren’t a lot of screens or speakers. It’s just good ol’ baseball and cracker jacks and summer nights.
I was so excited to buy the boys their ice cream in these little baseball cap ice cream bowls. 🙂
We enjoyed about 3 absolutely PERFECT innings at the ball park! And then, yet again, we kind of had a crash landing at the end of the night and had to head back to the hotel early. I’m just telling you this so I can be honest about our family vacation…
It’s really easy to get frustrated on family trips with little ones when you start to compare your trip to the “insta-worthy moments” that someone else might post. We truly had sooo many of those perfect moments! But we also had some very real parenting moments with a 2-year-old and 4-year-old and their very real emotions. It wasn’t easy! So, just know that if you’re in the midst of family trips with littles right now and it’s kinda fun but also really hard…you’re normal. You’re fine. It happens to all of us, and you’re doing a great job.
We woke up for our final day of vacation and packed up our bags and checked out of the hotel.
Haha, more board games with Milo’s arbitrary rules. Dear lord, make it make sense.
And a final photo with his beloved red cat at the hotel!
Woohoo and then we got to go to the New England Aquarium!
It was beautiful, it was well-designed, it was clearly a place that cares a lot about the oceans and the well-being of the animals in them…and it was also REALLY crowded! I was kind of shocked at how packed it was in there!
My true thoughts on this place? It wasn’t my favorite for this age. I think in hindsight we should have just gone back to the big City Hall Plaza Playground. I heard SO much hype around this place, so I was kind of disappointed by the size! It was pretty much just one giant 4-story aquarium with a spiral ramp, with an outdoor exhibit that featured seals and an indoor petting tank where you could pet the stingrays.
We walked up the spiral ramp, petted the stingrays, and then the boys were kind of over it. If they were a little older and could have handled the noise and the crowds a bit better, I think we could have stayed longer. But all in all it was a pretty quick visit for us.
But we did have some sweet moments! Milo loved seeing which shark was his size.
And the petting pool was fun!
Maybe we’re not aquarium people? I don’t know! It just didn’t wow me..
But it was time to head to the airport and get back to Austin anyway, so we go there early, grabbed some dinner, and boarded our flight back home.
I had this cute and sleepy guy on the flight next to me. 🙂
And that was our trip! I’m sure you can tell from reading between the lines (or from me blatantly telling you, ha!) but this certainly wasn’t a flawless trip. We had lots of fun, and we also had so many hard moments. We got back home, and as I was putting Milo (age 4) to bed, he said, “mama, why did we go on that vacation?” and I had to kind of stop and think…haha! It certainly wasn’t to relax, because it wasn’t any easier than parenting at home in our big child-proofed house and our SUV and our neighborhood pool.
But I had to be quick to answer him and say, “so we could make lots of family memories.” He seemed to be satisfied with that answer and snuggled into his pillow and fell asleep. And the next day he woke up and said, “mama, when can we go back to Peaks Island?”
