Otisfield, Maine

I had a fun opportunity to travel up to Maine this weekend. My wife was headed up to Otisfield (just a bit outside Portland) to shoot some family portraits. These are friends of ours that haven't had a family portrait taken in over 6 years! They own a "lake house" in Maine and invited us to stay. It's called The Moose Lake Ranch.

I've heard about this "lake house". My wife has met a group of friends up there for "girl weekends" before. I've been told the stories about this place, but finally arranged to see it for myself. It did not disappoint:

Yeah, it's huge.

The great room - and you can see a little of the upstairs...

This is the entrance - a long, winding road through the forest...

Just one of the many rooms

Words are hard to find, to describe it. Our friends built this place and I just now heard the incredible story about how difficult it was to build this house in the middle of nowhere.

Just beyond the back deck lies beautiful Sebago Lake:

My wife took some great pictures of their family on the boat dock. G-Man decided that he would jump right into the lake and experience it first-hand:

Go Cougars!

As if the lake wasn't enough, G-Man decided to play with his friend J in a giant sink. This is the mud room of the lake house:

It was obviously a blast...

For the adults, there were many other things, besides a sink, to keep us entertained. We played cards, watched movies, played air hockey and even played a few arcade games:

Reliving my teen-age years, crushing Donkey Kong

I actually made that shot, by the way...

They even had a home theater downstairs, complete with a candy counter and popcorn machine. We couldn't take a decent picture of the theater, as kids were watching a movie. However, we managed to capture G-Man lounging with a drink:

It got better. We moved up into more "grown-up" toys. First, we rode ATVs (4-wheelers) around the ranch:

That's not me...

And then some real fun. This video clip will give you a quick idea of what I mean. However, the video can't come close to depicting how loud this thing was. I had ear plugs in, just as a precaution:

As you can tell, we had a great time. The most fun was just being able to sit around a fire and talk with our friends. We're lucky to have them and really enjoy the time we spend with them. All this other stuff is simply icing on the cake ; )