Where fantasy Lives...Unless you have been to Disney

If you have small children and cant afford hopping a flight to Disney and dropping 5 months of your mortgage payment on a vacation then storyland is the place for you. Haven't heard of this magical place well shit Google it. Its in Glen NH just a little bit outside of North Conway. Here's my take on it..Mind you I have never been past new jersey so I have nothing to base it on besides funtown splash town..so all you people that have been to Disney..stop bragging..anyway Some of the characters are a little scary like for instance there are 2 Cinderella's shhh don't tell anyone..

Hung over Cinderella

I showered today cinderella

There is one that sits in the castle all day long and just smiles for pictures.. She kinda looked like she had been on an all night long drink binge and was tired and over it. Then there is the other Cinderella that does the tea party and comes out sings at the end of the night. She looks good not like dammmmn girl good, but put together good and could convince a small child that she was in fact Cinderella. Humpty Dumpty is kinda creepy too. He scared my kid she wanted nothing to do with him  in fact her exact words were " he is broken and going to get egg all over me". So you get the idea book characters walking around, there are awesome kids rides that even the adults can go on. Now when I say kid rides I don't mean those boats or cars that go in a circle at .-5mph and your kid just rings the bell and thinks in the best thing ever. These rides are pretty serious. like they have a mini rollercoaster, several versions of the tea cup ride, The Alice in wonderland tea cup ride is pretty sweet cause its a scrambler as well, there are also other things like a water area for kids to explore with a submarine and random things that shoot out water at them.

They do awesome face painting too

Also if you have a child that is really into the princess deal or just Cinderella for that matter pay the extra 10 bucks for the Tea party they did a really cute job, Cinderella comes out talks to all the kids, they have a snack and drink tea, she reads them a story and then takes pictures, it was cute my daughter loved it. Its just all in all good fun and a must do before your kid is to old.  Here are some helpful hints for your trip to storyland..
Tip #1 IF you can afford to spend the night DO IT!

Tip # 2 If you buy tickets after 3pm they will give you a pass to come back for free on another day the park is open..

Tip #3 Pack a lunch don't spend you money on food cause you know your kid is gonna want some stuffed animal or to play games or some other useless toy that they will lose before you even leave the park

Tip# 4 if you have to purchase drinks, buy the storyland cup its 9.99 but you get free refills all day, we got like 8 free refills totally worth it

Tip # 5 If you child is under 3 they are FREE!!

Tip # 6 Plan ahead groupon usually has discounted tickets around the Christmas season like half off which is great!
Tip # 7 Seriously just put your kid in their bathing suit if its summer time a lot of the rides they will get wet my daughter wore her bathing suit and a sundress the whole time.

Me and Alice

Tip # 8 have fun and be prepared for your child to have a mental breakdown, but don't feel bad about it cause the place is full of ticking time bomb children just waiting to freak out.

Up Up and Away

So here we are once again the Dirty Lew has something exciting to offer. The Great Falls Balloon Festival. Its usually the week of Aug 16-18. I have recently moved to the AUBURN area I want to make sure you all understand its AUBURN and not Lewiston..I had never been to the festival never even heard of it when I was living in the greater Portland area. Friday morning I'm drinking my coffee out on the deck and a giant balloon just appears floating over our house.

I Screamed like a four year old and then went and got my actual four year to check it out. We stood out on the lawn for over an hour as they launched over 20 different balloons my daughter screaming at the top of her lungs at every one, waking the neighbors, who had seen this every year for the last 15 years or so my point being they were not impressed. I'm not gonna lie it was pretty magical, one even touched down right in the river behind our house and was so close we could say good morning to them. So naturally after experiencing this whimsical sight we HAD to check out the festival its self. I convinced some of my "City friends" to come on up and part take in the festivities. I warned them it was Lewiston and to mentally prepare themselves for well...Lewiston. They reassured me that they use to live in DC they have seen the ghetto they are not going to freak out or be scared.  We had to walk past the projects to get to the park where the festival was. I believe it was when we saw a mom doing a drug deal with a baby on her hip that my friend turned to me and was like "Well there are some characters up here". Anyway I'm getting side tracked, the festival was in two different parks one side had the classic fair type food (Although no Corn Dogs which I was not impressed about it) they had live music, craft vendors, and an actual balloon that they had half blown up on its side so that you could walk inside. I thought that was pretty cool, and really slippery, oh and about 101 degrees. The kids loved it they threw about beach balls and

rolled around. We decided to walk out to the old railroad bridge to watch the balloons go up cause there was so many people on the field. If you know anything about my family we all pretty much had instant anxiety attacks and needed to find a happy place ASAP. We had a nice view actually and got some pretty interesting shots of the balloons. We headed back to the field after a bit and they had some of this years signature balloons tethered and they Were freaking HUGE!! We ended the night by paying a ridiculous about of money for our daughter to ride some sketchy carny rides that she just loved. All in all The festival is pretty cool and I recommend checking it out at least once in your life time for the balloons alone.

The Dirty Lew's Best kept Secret.

Quick I'm going to say a word... Lewiston. What's the first word that comes to mind? I'm sure its not beautiful nature walk park. Well hold on to your hats cause I found a place in the dirty Lew that makes you feel like you are miles away from the city. Its called Thorncrag bird sanctuary, Its located at the end of Highland Spring Rd, in Lewiston. Its a 372 acre wildlife preserve where you can do bird watching, picnicking, hiking, walking, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, sledding, skating, and   nature photography.

 I wasn't really sure what to accept when I first heard about it cause lets be real its Lewiston. Not that there is anything wrong with living in Lewiston. Anyway we pull in and its seriously a little secluded area off the beaten path. We didn't really know where all the trails went, but word on the street was that straight up the yellow trail was a cool fireplace to check out. We had liv with us so thought it would be cool to go check out this fireplace. The yellow trail was wide and cleared and there was a really cute rock bench along the way to take a break if needed. It was 1/2 mile from base to the fireplace the incline wasn't to bad either, we did stop and take a break on the cool rock bench though cause we had liv and she was being a drama queen about walking. Once we got to the fireplace it was really cool. Kind of in the middle of a field was this giant fireplace with three rock benches surrounding it. It would be an awesome place to have a camp fire maybe sing some kum- bya make some smore's. Livy really loved climbing on the rock benches she thought it was the greatest thing.
We found a caterpillar, well several caterpillars which were a big hit. Livy tried to feed it a leaf and in the process and gave it a heart attack that it pooped all over the rock. We saw spiders and other weird bugs, but Let me tell ya.. We did not see any birds we heard them everywhere but didn't actually see any.  Probably cause we were so loud :) On the way down me and Liv ran the whole way. She started freaking out about having to walk back so I just took off jogging. Well me running down a hill was like that Giant rock ball in Indiana jones, once I got going I could stop or I probably would of broke my legs. We made it down that hill in like 5mins and had a great nap afterward.
 Later in the month on one of those weekends that my mother in-law had our daughter the husband and I went back to have a day date hike and hike around the whole place. It was probably over 3 miles of walking by the end of it. We walked up to the very top where WHALE ROCK is. It was kind of a disappointment for one it did not look like a whale, and for two it wasn't even that big, but it had a nice view and a nice quiet place to have a sandwich. I recommend if your in the area to check it out.

 PS NO BATHROOM THOUGH!!

I'm Back! Back in the Maine Grooove

Holy Cannoli,
Its been awhile huh.. Looking back at my old blogs my daughter looks so young, I was thinking shit I better update my old blog soon before I'm showing pictures of a teenager. So here we are with new adventures from near and far that are mostly kid friendly and maybe a few in between of some just mommy and daddy adventures. Cause lets be real sometimes you need to get out and explore with out a screaming child on your tail. Enjoy!

A beach is a beach.. unless its the best beach ever

You must first understand that I have never been to the Caribbean or even FL so seriously Popham beach state park is the best beach that i have ever been to.. so simmer down now I'm sure Hawaii is amazing or even the Bahamas, but don't rain on parade here as far as I'm concerned the best beach is Popham Beach :)  Popham beach is huge! the sand is super soft, there are no rocks or seaweed and crap to walk over. you can seriously walk for miles on this beach. when its low tide there are these small pools, perfect for small children to play in. You can walk out to fox island as well during low tide, and they have bathrooms and changing rooms which is always bonus for me. 
The ride up there is cool yeah it does take about 1.5 hours to get there but it is totally worth it. The road the park is on is very narrow with lost of twists and turns and of course super cute beach houses to dream about owning one day.

When we arrived at the beach we went right to stamp out passport cause ya know we have to get our stamp. checked out the bathrooms which were clean, and then hit the beach. we walked down to the waters edge which seriously could of been half a mile. of course my kid runs right into the water, now for some reason I did not pack any sort of beach gear for our trip to the beach. I don't know what I was thinking so my daughter went from soaking her clothes, to wearing one of my shirts, to running around with a saggy diaper like she was from Biddeford. I drank coffee and relaxed, we made a family sand castle, had a picnic lunch and explored the beach..it was pretty awesome I'm not going to lie..before we headed back home we took a small detour up the road to check out Fort Popham. We were unsuccessful in actually getting out and exploring the fort because the parking lot was only made to hold like 15 cars which of course was full. We circled around for about 20mins waiting for people to leave..people were not leaving and we had to give up we had one angry bear in the back seat so homeward bond we were. I loved this beach I recommend everyone to go check it out. 

Two Lights State Park

It was a hot and humid Saturday and we decided to head to the coast. We were watching my "nephew" too so we didn't want to go to far in case we had a baby melt down. So we headed up to Two lights State Park in Cape Elizabeth. I'm sure I had gone there back in the day but I didn't remember it so it was new to me. Plus we had to get a stamp in our state park passport :) The view is amazing here but I mean what part of Maine's coast isn't an amazing view. There are plenty of picnic tables for snacking and grills are available if your into that. There is a nice trail that goes around the coast and there is a pretty sweet playground.


 It was  an over cast day but so much cooler down by the water, so we decided to walk the trail first, I enjoyed how there was natural stairs made with stones, the trails were clear and easily marked. My honest opinion of two lights state park is, its a great place for a family reunion or a date..nothing says romantic like wild flowers and an ocean view. The playground is fun for the kids but not anywhere really near picnic tables so you have to do one or the other. Its very rocky so if you have small children you need to be on high alert cause no one wants to be that parent that has their kid fall down the rocky cliff. Not my top favorite place that we have been to this year but it is a nice place to visit with an amazing view.

Fort Williams

Last weekend the ol family and I went out to have a picnic lunch at Fort williams park in cape elizabeth. My brother in-law and his mini family came as well. Named after Brevet Major General Seth Williams, Fort Williams grew to be a tremendous military asset during World War II. Besides protecting the shoreline of Cape Elizabeth, the infantry and artillery units provided the Harbor Defense for Portland.Fort Williams has managed to maintain some of its historic past Along with the various batteries is Goddard Mansion. Fort Williams is also home to one of maine's oldest light house Portland Head Light.  There ya go ..your history lesson for the day.. when visiting Fort williams there is a nice coastal path that goes around the park the view is pretty amazing, you can tour portland head light, they have a museum inside which is interesting and you can explore a few of the forts. It doesn't cost anything to get in and they have quiet a bit of parking.



 I have been going to for williams for years. When i was younger you were able to walk through the mansion or castle as my daughter would call it, now they have it all fenced off which is kinda a bummer. when i was younger you didn't have to worry about reading gang signs and tj+sam 4 ever sprayed all over the wall, or worry about stepping in human waste from people living in the forts. That really annoys me ..I mean thank god my kid doesn't know how to read and No actually tu- pac wasn't around during World War II, guess thats what happens when your raised on MTV. Sorry don't let my end rambling scare you away from visiting this historic place. Aside from the teenage antics written all over the place it really is a great place to have a nice picnic and enjoy a fantastic view. Oh and Bonus Red Ice Cream Barn is right up the road for a tasty treat on the way home.