Maine!

My brother got married on Labor Day weekend!  Him and his new wife got engaged the Wednesday after my wedding.  He proposed to her on the steps of the house that they met in at college.  They have been planning this wedding for the last year, and from day one, we knew that they were planning on getting married in Kennebunkport, Maine.  She grew up in Texas, but spent summers with extended family in Kennebunkport.  Her parents moved her and her sister to Michigan in high school (she actually went to high school with my brother and I), she went to college in Michigan where she and my brother officially "met" and started dating.  Her parents have since moved to Colorado.  My brother and I grew up in Michigan and our parents still live here.  Because of the spread of family, they realized that pretty much everyone was going to have to travel and they might as well have the wedding somewhere fun!  Somewhere like Kennebunkport.

Since Landonand I have never been to Maine, we decided to make a vacation out of it!  We planned a great trip!  We started at Niagra Falls.  I have never been there before and I was very excited to see the falls!

We left the falls on Wednesday and started driving towards Maine.  We knew we were not going to make it all of the way in one day, so we decided to stop in Utica, NY for the night.  The next morning we headed towards Kennebunkport!  The first night we had a family dinner with all of the relatives from my mom's side of the family.

The next day we were able to explore the town a bit before the rehersal and rehersal dinner.

The day of the wedding was beautiful!  The sun was out, the water was beautiful.  The bride and groom were excited!  It was a great day with family and friends!

The reception was also a blast!  We had the best table ever!

After the wedding we headed to Acadia National Park!

After Acadia, we finally headed into the middle of Maine!  I was so excited for this part of the trip!  We decided to try white water rafting.  The river I chose was the Kennebec River, which is one of the best rivers in Maine to go white water rafting!  The rapids were mostly class III and class IV's.  Landon and I were both pretty nervous, but were excited to try something new.  We got up to the middle of Maine the evening before we were schedule to white water raft.  One of the women working at the Inn that we stayed at was also a guide and went on and on telling us that we were in for a treat.  Becuase of all the rain that we had gotten in the previous week, the damn that releases water into the river was flowing at double the rate it normally flowed at.  All of the guides were extremely excited.  I was freaking out.  We ended up rafting the next morning and the river was releasing 9000 cubic feet/second of water.  Normally it releases 4500 cf/s.  It ended up being a blast and I tribute most of that to our amazing guide Jeramy.  Not a single person fell out! 

All in all, this trip was an extremely memorable trip!  I am so happy for my brother and his new wife.  I wish them all the happiness in the world.  They make such an amazing couple!  I am also so glad that we were able to turn this wedding into a vacation to remember!