Be Mine in Maine (Eighteen Years!)

Oh, the joy of early morning flights!

From the title it’s easy to guess--Lyana and Robert went to Maine! We try to celebrate our wedding anniversary by getting away, even for a super quick time. This time, we chose to go to Bangor, Maine--the place close to the famous Acadia National Park. Our friends, the Whites, helped us with watching the kids, and so we were off for an adventure on Saturday morning!

Once we got to Bangor, it felt like we landed in a different country because of how cold it felt!! We had to stand in line outside in the wind to get our shuttle to the car rental place. It turned out that the office was like 10 min drive from the airport which is not what it said when I booked it. Apparently, a lot of people were just as confused as we were, the lines were loong but finally we got our tiny sparkly red  car--Chevy Spark! It turned out to be one of Robert’s favorite cars to drive:) It looks sunny on the picture below, but it was not taken on the first day of our stay there.

We drove from Bangor all the way to Tremont on the edge of Mt Desert Island. 

Here is our little two story house we had all to ourselves, overlooking the harbor in a very quiet village of Tremont. 

That evening was September 14th, our actually anniversary! So we drove to Bar Harbor to celebrate. 

Our fancy dinner on this freezing windy night was at Galyn’s. We had lots of seafood and a beautiful atmosphere:) EIGHTEEN Years!! WOOHOO!!

In the morning, we lazily got up, ate whatever we had picked up at the grocery store and drove to the Acadia National Park. The park is drivable around the perimeter, in many places it’s only a one direction flow. First of all, we drove to Cadillac Mt. for the most glorious views!

Then we followed the road pass the Sand Beach, to the Thunder Hole parking lot for some sea view and relaxing by the water. 

I love this man!!

We continued our drive and stopped for a very late lunch at the famous Jordan Pond House for some popovers and sandwiches. We walked along the trail by the Jordan Pond. 

And then we hiked along a 4 mile trail to see the carriage roads (they used horses on those trails) and cobblestone Rockefeller bridges. 

Then we rushed back towards the house where we were staying to see the the sunset at the Bass Harbor Lighthouse nearby, but we practically missed it...although as you can tell, the cloud was covering the sun anyway... 

Then we drove to Beale’s Lobster place for some lobster rolls! 

Man, oh man....this is my new favorite thing to eat. I just LOVED it!! Every garlicky ounce of it! 

Robert had an actual lobster this first night (yes, I say the first night because we went back to this place again our last evening here:)).

On Monday morning, we set out on a short easy walk at the Wonderland Trail. It was an easy out and back trail to the beach. Good warm up for our longer wooded trail later that morning.

We drove a bit further north of the island towards Pretty Marsh, then found the beginning of the Deep Woods trail at the Blagden Preserve. It was tricky to find but it turned out to be a beautiful place for a secluded hike!

  

The prize for the hike was this! 

Yes, a set of red Adirondack chairs for a relaxing break by the ocean to watch the seals and birds...and kiss. 

For lunch we drove to another famous lobster place called Thurston’s Lobster Pound in Barnard. 

But guess what!!! It was only our second favorite:) Still delicious though!! YUM!

In the afternoon, we came back to our house area as we were taking a lobster boat tour that afternoon and the boat was leaving practically across the street from our house. 

It was a very windy and cold outing, so we were glad we had our layers! 

We learned SO MUCH about the history of the area and the little islands and families who “discovered” this place as well as about the culture of this area of Maine and lots of information about lobster fishing! 

We saw A LOT of seals too! And the views were marvelous! I just don’t know if we can see any seals in this picture:) 

Maybe this one? Well, I see one head:)

And our boat caught some lobsters. 

Is this one a keeper? legally?:) 

I definitely recommend taking a lobster boat tour like this, Island Cruises, especially away from a very touristy area in Bar Harbor (we were in a much quieter area here). I am not paid to advertise, just liked the tour.

On Tuesday morning, we had to check out from our house and drive to Bar Harbor. We walked around for quite a bit, observing all the cruise passengers from the cruise ships docked at Bar Harbor that day and patting ourselves on the back about choosing to stay further away from the crowds. We had a wonderful lunch and then drove to the airport. 

Our plane was a bit delayed, so we missed our connection in LaGuardia (apparently it’s our thing now) but we still made it to the later flight to Raleigh, yay! We were happy to see our kids (Katya could drive now so she took everyone home and they put themselves to bed)! 

And here is to another year of adventures! 

Lyana. 

Getaway to Beaufort, NC

We celebrate our wedding anniversary on September 14th. There is no way to forget that date because it's two days after my birthday...always 😆.

We take turns with Robert in terms of coming up with a way to celebrate it. Odd years are his years and mine are even. This year we celebrated sixteen years! So I surprised him with a weekend getaway to Beaufort, NC (not to be confused with Beaufort, SC, which is a completely different place and is pronounced differently).

Our great friends, the Martins, were able to take care of our kids which was so kind of them. We drove 2.5 hours east towards the coast and stayed at a B&B at this charming coastal (sleepy off-season) town. 

Should we call this a trip of many selfies? We hardly spoke to anyone else but each other this weekend, which was quite unusual and good.

At first we visited Old Burial Grounds right in downtown--it's a small cemetery of some well-known people from Beaufort. A lot of really-really old graves (for the US) and lots of bits and pieces of history of the South. I love anything connected with that whole era of the Civil War so this place was interesting to me.

We went out to eat at the place that was supposed to be amazing. And it was amazing although at first we were a little put off by the fact that every single menu item that we wanted to order was not available. I wanted scallops but they were out. I guess they don't keep their complete menu in stock after Labor Day or something. Anyway! We still managed to get great food, it just wasn't scallops.




After dinner we took a long walk on the boardwalk enjoying the sunset and the views of the boats. It's a serene little town with a lot of history in it but I am sure it is very busy and noisy during summer months. There are a lot of shops and restaurants to enjoy but no beach right in downtown.

The following morning we drove to Emerald Isle, about 30-40 minutes away and spent a few hours blissfully doing nothing but reading books, swimming, reading more books, eating and talking. After that we headed home stopping by Lidl in Kinston to pick up some pastries for the kids.

We need these getaways even if they happen infrequently. It's fun to be just us for longer than a couple of hours at dinner date. I am already looking forward to our 17th wedding anniversary as it will be Robert's turn to plan the celebration!:)

Lyana. 

Thirteen Years

Thirteen years ago I married the love of my life.

When I think back to that day when we spoke to each other for the first time, I realize how random our running into each other was. I was only eighteen, and he was twenty one…so young. But how could I have resisted this gorgeous guy??? 

Someday I’ll have to tell you in detail our proposal story (a marriage proposal executed in a typical Robert’s style).

And of course, I said “Yes”- one of the most important “Yes”s I ever said in my life.

We were having a discussion with our kids a couple of weeks ago about how decisions that they will make between ages of 15-25, will be incredibly important in their life. They will have to determine how well they do in high school, what college they will go to, what profession they will choose and whom they will marry. I can tell them confidently that marrying the right person is one of the most significant things they will have to do in life.

Thanks to marrying Robert, my life is what it is right now. I know that a lot of decisions that I, personally, have made have carried me through so far, but it’s even more decisions that we as a couple have made in the last thirteen years is what turned our life into this big adventure (and it’s not always easy).

The most obvious outcome of our marriage are these three fantastic kids who try every day to make the right choices. Under Katya’s business-like leadership, they cooked us our anniversary dinner—tacos and root beer floats. They were so proud of themselves! Katya even cooked the meet all by herself and we didn’t die.

I know we have changed through all these years. We have learnt how to do a lot of great things and have developed a few bad habits, we have gone through the sad and happy moments together always holding each other close, we have travelled the world and tested our marriage with a number of stressful moves. But most importantly, we have grown to love each other at least ten times more now than on our wedding day.

Happy Wedding Anniversary to us!