Oh Say Can You See

Hey, did you know that the Fourth of July is my favorite holiday? No? Well then you must be new around here. Welcome. 

After spending all night packing every nautical item in my wardrobe, it was finally ready to begin our annual Portland trip. On the way, my friend Alisa and I stopped in Wells to catch up with some family friends and to celebrate my mom's birthday.

These two are just so hard to be around. They're so shy and quiet you can't even stand it:

Just kidding. Mikey is hilarious and my sister is practically famous. Also her name isn't Jennifer. 

My mom's birthday is July 3, so usually a large birthday/seafood dinner is in order. Of course, what kind of birthday would it be if you weren't being humiliated in front of an entire busy restaurant?

Not a very good one, I can tell you that. Because I personally love being sung to in public. I'm serious. I will welcome this level of publicity anytime. However my mom looks less then thrilled at what is happening here, which I imagine will be similar to the emotion she feels seeing that I posted this picture. Love you, Mom! 

It was time for Alisa and I to get going. Partially because it was getting late but also because Mikey kept referring to me as a female Jason Mraz. 

After spending the night at Alisa's brother's house, we were horrified to find out that the weather forecast for the Fourth was not what nautical dreams were made of. This didn't stop us from our usual caravan trip to the grocery store where we stocked up on all of the essentials. 

How many times did you say that day you "wanted a hot dog real bad?" I'm going to guess no less than five for us. 

I personally try to stay away from berries of all kinds, but I appreciated the color palate. 

Speaking of accessorizing, how bummed was I that the horrendous downpour prevented me from sporting so many of my planned outfits? Well I can tell you, not as bummed as the fact that Steve showed up in this:

I only wore ONE outfit that day. It was depressing. Also depressing? Cancelled fireworks. That's right. It was like not having snow on Christmas. Or picking out really cute outfits to ride your bike in and then your husband tells you you have to wear sneakers. But that's a story for another day. 

Despite the elements, we did not let this ruin our annual group photo shoot. 

However, getting there was tricky. There was a lot of this: 

And this:

Honestly, I'm still not even really sure what was going on here: 

Followed by our annual "rap group" photo (note that almost every part of this trip is annual):

Which quickly turned into this:

Of course none of this would be complete with Brent's annual (there it is again) red, white and blue margaritas. Because nothing says patriotism like a Mexican cocktail.

After recovering from the sadness of see NO FIREWORKS AT ALL we ventured out the next day when the weather was of course, finally beautiful and perfect. Alisa and I insisted on at least something of a beach day and the boys relented, despite the fact that Rocky couldn't find his one bathing suit (I think the biggest headscratcher here is HOW COULD SOMEONE ONLY HAVE ONE?!) and Steve hates the beach. 

We went to Scarborough where we were quickly ambushed by an entire camp that happened to be visiting the beach that day with counselors that virtually paid no attention to what they were doing, which was running on top of our blanket and kicking sand all over us on their way to the trash can. Before you say that I'm a horrible person who doesn't like children (which is only partially true, some of the time) even my kid-loving husband (ew, wait...) had enough after he got hit in the side of the head with a Frisbee. 

At this point Steve left us to return to his week of fishing far away from ocean water and nautical costume changes. Alisa and Rocky and I continued on for our annual (get it?!?!?!) quest for lobster rolls. And not only did we find them, we totally trumped last year:

We continued walking around Portland for as long as the meter would have us. I love Portland, Portsmouth, basically anything to do with a port and cities that look like this:

I also appreciated that many of the storefronts were in on the patriotic theme as well: 

All in all, it was another great trip despite the rain and the gross amount of underused outfits. Thanks to everyone who housed us, fed us, and put up with our baggage (I mean literally- there were so.many.bags.). While I was super bummed to wear so few of my patriotic duds, I kept many ensembles in mind for my upcoming post-Portland trips. Here's a brief rundown of what I actually made it out wearing during our three day adventure:

Just to be clear, those are my pajamas in the first pic. Yes, those are red, white and blue too. I don't mess around. 

~L