Hey everyone! Who else is feeling a little bit of a let down after the long weekend? I was so happy the sun finally decided to come out yesterday, but where was it the rest of the weekend?! Thankfully, we had loads of fun inside and really didn’t notice the gross weather too much. Since my weekend in Maine was filled with so many fun things, let’s get right to recapping them!

Saturday

Danielle and I met mom in Springvale for lunch at the Springvale Publick House (clearly, we love that place). Dad dropped mom off and took Chuck home so he didn’t have to sit around in the crate for any longer than necessary. After lunch, we grabbed Dairy Queen and puttered around Ocean State Job lot and the Dollar Tree and decided to grab margarita’s at Fresco Mexican Grill. Holy Yum! I had the Pineapple Mango Sage infused margarita with dry ice- such a fun afternoon treat!

After drinks, we came home and got going on our homemade pizza on the grill night! Dad made his homemade dough and we split it into 6 pieces so that we could have lots of mini pizzas. I made a caramalized onion, zucchini and fresh mozzarella cheese and I think it was the best out of all of them!

 

We had such a fun night filled with lots of laughs, good food and wine (duh!).

Sunday

Since we were going to 11am mass, we had plenty of time to hang around and relax when we got up on Sunday. And, with rainy/gross weather, being lazy was totally ok. After church, we all went to Lowe’s and Wal-Mart to get plants and whatnot. By the time we got home, I was STARVING and couldn’t wait to dig into the left-over pizza! Late afternoon, before our BBQ, mom, Danielle and I went for a 1/2 hour walk which felt great!

Sunday night, we hosted a Memorial Day BBQ for our close family friends. There ended up being 15 adults and 2 babies! So fun!

My mom obviously has lots of friends, but she has 2 best friends that she is always with: Jean and Jeanne, aka “The Jeans”. One cannot do something without the other two, so it is no surprise that when the Jean’s went shopping earlier in the weekend, they had to get mom a matching shirt!

It was an extra special party because Matt and Courtney came and brought their new baby boy, Alexander! What’s really neat, is that they are letting people choose their own nickname for him: Alex, Xander, Al (although, I wouldn’t call him Al since that’s what my dad’s name is and that would be weird).

 

And no Maine post is complete without a picture of one of our favorite babies… Emma Jean! She is getting SO big and is so much fun.

Sara, as you remember, is so very pregnant at this time! She is due on Wednesday and could give at any moment. It was fun to see her with the babies and know that she will have her own so soon! Come on out, Zeke, we want to play!!

As always, the food was delicious! Asian salad, broccoli-cauliflower salad, pasta salad, hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, steak, pork, and so many desserts!

It was really so fun to see everyone, and even more fun that everyone was referencing Burpees to Bubbly! I love to hear people say “let’s get a pic for Burpees to Bubbly”. Music to my ears:) This pic seemed only fitting since we were most definitely drinking bubbly!

We are so blessed to have so many wonderful friends around all the time! Never a dull moment at the Gagnon’s 😉

Memorial Day

I woke up to a bright, sunny sky and immediately decided that it would be awesome to go for a run! As I was running, I realized how quiet it was compared to the city running that I usually do. No sidewalks, no cars, no people, just my music, the pavement and a sunny sky. I really focused on being present and enjoying the moment, something I should probably do more often!

I made my run more fun by adding in strength exercises after every mile- I’ll post it later this week!

Here are some pictures of “Shapleigh Corner”… I am from a very small town and this is the “center” of town. A whopping blinking light!

Yup, you’d call this Maine, small town living!

The rest of the day was filled with LOTS of planting and gardening with dad and visiting with our cousin, Karen, who is visiting from Michigan. Always nice to visit with family!

And now we are back to the grind! This week got a little busier when I agreed to sub back-to-back classes tonight (Kickboxing followed by SHRED at the South Station BSC).

Questions for you: Best part of your weekend? Did you have or go to a BBQ for Memorial Day? Are you from a big city or small town?