A very relaxing weekend....

Since 1982, My family has vacationed at the Samoset Resort on the coast in Rockland, Maine. It was always fun as a child to be taken out of school for a week, in the middle of winter, to spend time with friends, swim, play, go out to "fancy" restaurants. I always felt like a rich privileged kid for this one week, even though in reality that wasn't the case. As circumstances would have it, my parents were able to buy a tiny one bedroom timeshare unit. Who would have thought that we would still be coming here, as a family, 27 years later.

I am only able to steal away from life's responsibilities for a weekend now, and this year, the trip was cut one day short by Maine's unpredictable winter weather. Nonetheless, we had a great time. Friday night, my sister Kristin cooked us up a beautiful and tasty dinner. After, we staked our claims on living room sleeping space (i.e. who gets the fold-out couch, the cushions, or the LL Bean air mattress...Mom of course gets the bedroom). A DVD movie sent us off to sleep.

Saturday was low-key (par for the course). Kristin and I headed out to shop for mom's birthday gift and rambled upon a small but interesting indoor farmer's market in Camden. We found beautiful handmade cards, jarred preserves, fiddleheads, relishes, organic free-range meats, and spiced goats' cheeses. The "Oyster Creek Mushroom" booth was by far the most interesting. We learned about various wild mushrooms, yummy recipes, and medicinal qualities.

Saturday afternoon the women in our clan indulged in the steam room, swimming pool and hot tub; a very relaxing prelude to our evening out. We ate dinner at Amalfi's, on the waterfront in Rockland. The food was delicious and beautifully presented, and the decor quite appealing from an artist's perspective. We had a great time laughing and celebrating mom's birthday.

Sunday Chris and I decided that it was in our best interest to drive back to Lubec since the weather forecast was calling for sleet, snow, and freezing rain over much of Maine from Sunday evening into Monday night. After a lunch with mom and sis at Cappy's Chowder House in Camden, we hit the road. The drive turned out to be quite messy and slow-going. We arrived home at 8:00 p.m. to a silty snow-covered ice rink of a driveway. Chris managed to get to his spiked-snowshoes to help me to the house. He eventually, after much sanding, was able to get the car to the barn for overnight. Our driveway is always an adventure!

School was canceled today, and I find myself enjoying the slow, lazy pace of sleeping in, blogging, and breakfast, and looking forward to an afternoon of weaving.