Swan Lake Maine Family Vacation

We just got home from an amazing week on Swan Lake in Swanville Maine. It was so peaceful and so beautiful and just so serene to be out in nature as a family for a whole week! We all loved it so much!

We did so many things… We hiked out across the Jetty to the Breakwater Lighthouse in Rockland Maine. We hiked all along Deer Isle and across the magical sand bridge (only there at low tide) out to Barred Island. Once there we hiked all the way around Barred Island in Stonington Maine. Stopping to enjoy the solitude and the gulls and the lapping waves before walking back through the enchanted forest carpeted with the softest green green moss we ever did see! We hiked (climbed-gasp!) up Mount Battie in Camden Maine. We walked across the Belfast Pedestrian Bridge in Belfast Maine at the windiest most blustery time in the pouring rain…. We also hung out on the dock at the cabin and saw the loons, and listened to the loons, and watched the bald eagle soar over head and the little humming birds flutter about and watched the sun rise, and the sun set and the amazing Harvest Moon Rise….. Oh and we spent two super fun days at The Common Ground Country Fair in Unity Maine. A fair not to be missed if you can at all get there!

But one thing I tried so hard to do was to just be present. For me that meant putting down my big camera for most of the week. All of the above was documented with my IPhone and most (all!) is up on my Instagram Feed (phyllisarts2). But I tried to limit my big camera use to just sunrise and sunset golden hour times. I didn’t take my big camera on any hike other than Deer Isle, I didn’t take it to the fair….So what I have mostly is a large collection of simple, small moments on the dock. I also have a ton, ton! of photographs of Meadow in the water since she was the only one of us to go in every day, rain or shine, freezing morning or not. I will post those images on my next blog post. But for now, here are some of my favorite family moments from Maine 2013.