Aldridge Family in Maine!

This weekend my family made the 12 hour drive to Maine for a mini Vacation!!!  Andee and I were so excited to see them, and had a lot of fun things planned for us to do!  To begin, lets backtrack a week or so to the events leading up to their trip!!

A week before my family's arrival, Andee took his exit exam for the Kaplan review course - and passed with flying colours!  We decided to celebrate with some arcade games and a walk in the sunshine!  Now that Andee has passed 5th semester, the next step is the dreaded USMLE!  A couple more months of studying, and he will take the first step of his licensing exam, followed by lots more moves around Canada and the United States!  There was lots of reason to celebrate!!

On Friday, my family was expected to arrive around dinner time!  They surprised us by somehow sneaking into our building and meeting us at our door!  We were so excited to see them after 4 months of skype and facebook!!  We started off the vacation by making a trip to Clambake, a typical Maine-esque restaurant close to Old Orchard Beach!  Dad and I got the Lazy Lobster, Cassie and Mom got Fish and Chips, and Andee had Clam Chowder!  It was delicious!!  We also entertained ourselves by feeding the seagulls our leftovers from the window!  A great start to the weekend!!

The next morning, we started out the day right with a trip to a breakfast buffet in South Portland!  It was very delicious and really fun to hit up the buffet with the Fam Jam!

After our meal, we headed to Cape Elizabeth in Portland for a much needed photo shoot with Portland's famous lighthouses and rocky coastlines!!  It was absolutely beautiful, and really fun to explore the rocky trails and tide pools all around us!  It was also a beautiful sunny day without a cloud in sight, and significantly less wind than is typical so close to the ocean!  A perfect start to the afternoon!!

After returning home to Old Orchard, we stopped in at the arcade positioned directly beside our apartment at Palace Playland to play some claw machines and skee ball!  After returning many times throughout the weekend, Cassie was victorious as not only the highest scorer of the family, but also winning the jackpot of over 700 tickets during one of our competitions!  It was so much fun enjoying the arcade with my favourite people in the world!!

After the arcade, we snacked at some of the yummy tourist places on Old Orchard Street, including fried dough, ice cream sundaes, and milkshakes!!  It was delicious!!  For dinner, we walked down Old Orchard Street to a wonderful little restaurant called Bell Buoy!  Authentic and homemade Maine specialties were all over the menu, and so we enjoyed seafood pasta, lobster bisque, fried shrimp and haddock, chicken tenders (Cassie food), and brownie sundaes for dessert!  It was fantastic, and very reasonably priced too!  Perfect!  Andee and I will definitely be back before we leave!!

On Sunday morning, we all attended The Rock Church for the morning service!  It was a special service for the church, as we had the pleasure of hearing a speaker from Love 146, an organization passionate about abolishing child trafficking and sex slavery.  It was really great to contribute to such an amazing organization, and my family loved the church!  I also got to sing that week, which was really wonderful!  The Rock Church is so incredibly amazing, we really need to come back to Maine to attend again!!  

On the way home we stopped in at Len Libby to snap a photo with the World's largest Chocolate Moose!  Reminds me of Canada, eh!?

We grabbed a quick and delicious lunch at The Strike Zone, a sports bar and grill on Old Orchard Street!  On the menu for us was pizza, mac and cheese, queso sticks, and a burger too large for even my Dad to conquer!  We then walked along the beach and engaged in yet another much needed beach photo shoot!  The jumping shot took quite a few tries, but we eventually got one where we are all in the air!  It was well worth it! 

That evening, we went out to a dinner buffet, played the Wal-Mart claw machine, and hung out at the apartment for a little while before heading to bed!  Another great day in Maine!!

The following morning, we all headed to IHOP for our last meal in Maine!  Andee had a delicious creation called red velvet pancakes with cream cheese frosting and whipped cream!  They were fantastic!  The breakfast was even more delicious since some of us stayed up until 4am talking, and needed a good meal to keep them going!!

Overall, the mini Aldridge Vacation to Maine was fantastic!!  Not only did we get to experience so many of the fun things Maine has to offer, but we were able to spend lots of quality Family time together!  Andee and I are getting really excited to spend the summer back home in Canada, but at the same time are very excited for the month of May in Maine, as some visitors from the Islands are arriving in Maine as I write this blog!  And with the warmer weather starting, it will be a wonderful last month in Maine!  And who knows, maybe God will bring us back!!  We hope so!! 

And just for good measure, the Oscar Mayer Weiner Mobile came to Wal-Mart just as Andee and I were post-vacation grocery shopping!  Of course we 10-second timer-ed it!!

Aldridge Family Out!!