So Many Posts, So Little Time!

I have a plethora of things to share with you, but I don’t want this post to be a mile long, either!  I’m just so…joyful lately, that I can’t get enough happy thoughts out of my head.  Although I was hesitant to let go of summer, and although it really hasn’t even sunk in that it’s gone yet, this fall has wiped those sad-that-summer-is-over thoughts right out of my mind.

It’s GORGEOUS here!!

Mom called me early this morning and said “I just dropped dad off at work-get ready right now because I’m coming to get you!”  And she did!  I woke the sleepy boys up by saying “Let’s go to Dunkin’ Donuts!” which made them pop right out of bed, of course.  Not every morning that you get to start your day with a donut.  We hit up Waterville and bought pumpkin coffee and pumpkin muffins and chocolate donuts, then headed straight for Belgrade Lakes.  The fantastic thing is that although the color is awesome on the way to W-ville, it’s tempered a little bit after that, meaning we get to enjoy it that much longer down south.  Yipee.  

Here is a little “photo tour” of our morning…

Dock behind Day's General Store

When we arrived at Day's, there was a couple sitting at a picnic table with coffee and newspapers. Once they finished, they hopped in their boat (far right) and toodled on home across the lake. My kind of life!

The flower shop

Minus the shadow of the power line, isn't that climbing vine pretty?

I want to use this color scheme for our house someday.

Just beginning to turn...

"Riding" sculptures at the art gallery

YeeHaw!

I’ve often said that some of the best picture opportunities are right on I-95, but it’d be a major risk to pop out of the car on the side of the road and snap while vehicles are whizzing by!  So I took a few anyway, which aren’t that superb since we were going 65 mph and they are through the window.  But what can you do?

river, stil as glass.

home we go...

Oh, I have so many more pictures.  You have no idea.  When I start snappin, I start snappin!

I want to share with you soon some memories of our evening walks, and some really, really fun vintage finds I uncovered that will definitely be gracing my walls and couches…and of course I have more Nora for you!  Oh, and I was chosen to start doing book reviews for Waterbrook/Multnomah!  Ahhh! (I’ll be blogging all about the books).  All that and I’m strongly considering moving my blog to a format that is better for photography.  Do y’all blogspotters enjoy your formats?  Are they easily customizable?

Well, that’s that for now.  Have a fabulous weekend, filled with apple cider and pumpkin hunting!

Love Letters

First of all, thank you guys for your compliments on the pictures; I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with the camera a little lately. And I’m sorry I haven’t replied to your comments! I love them, they mean so much to me! It’s just about enough I can do to get a blog posted these crazy days, in this busy season of life…

Anyway, I wanted to share this book with you-I found it a couple of days ago, tucked away in Marietta’s “junk” room; I love little treasures found in junk rooms! It’s entitled “Love Letters of an Irishwoman”, and it’s actually found online, for free, so I really don’t feel badly posting the letters here. I think I’ll do one a week; they are hilarious. Put together by Frank Voorhies in 1901, written by Nora. Here is the first page:

And the first of 10 Letters:

“Mike dear, this goat is not like other goats. When I look at him it brings the vision of your dear face before me”.

LOL! She sure knows how to compliment, doesn’t she? I laughed all the way through this little book-it took me all of 15 minutes to read, so I thought I’d spread it out a little for you. Makes it better that way, unless you are champing at the bit and want to google it for yourself.

The Country Fair

Oh, ya’ll I shouldn’t be blogging.  You should see my kitchen! (No you shouldn’t).  I tell you, I never realized how spoiled I was having a dishwasher.  Actually, for the first 5 years of marriage I didn’t have one, but it was just the 2 of us, so no biggie.  But after having one for the last 4 1/2 years, and then moving here and NOT having one…good grief.  Blessedly, we ordered one which Erick is going to install tonight.  In the meantime it’s taking up space in the middle of my tiny kitchen, the countertop is covered with the dish drainer and drying dishes and everything is just a grand mess.  But that is not what this blog is about, so I better get to the jist of the story, right?

Monday we went to the Harmony Fair, which reminded me so much of the Curry County Fair which I grew up with.  The animals, the 4H displays…it was fantastic.  There were fancy tractors and cars; even a parade, and I have to tell you that I am KICKING myself because I didn’t get a video of the boys’ reaction to the parade.  We have a special spot for our local parade, up on a little hill, set apart from the crowd.  So the boys have never really caught on to the  fact that floats very often throw candy to kids.

They realized Monday that floats do, in fact, throw candy to kids.  It was absolutely hilarious.  They were almost unbelieving that candy would just be tossed to them willy nilly.  Talk about two giddy boys!  We aren’t really a candy family-it’s a very “special” treat thing, so to have it thrown at them in gobs and masses delighted them to no end.  (It is now tucked away in a hidden spot to be given out occasionally…with the hopes that it will be forgotten about completely!)

After the parade, well, I’ll just post pictures which will sum up what we saw.  What a good day we had!

sweet 2 day old calf!

petting a llama

can't pass up fair fries!

there was a young girl sitting on her grandpa's lap steering his Farmall in the parade. Memories! That used to be me on the farm, sitting in my grandpa's lap with my hands on the wheel...

I have quite a few pictures of bright shiny tractors-I loved wandering through and snapping away. But nothing beats a weathered workhorse!

pretty cars, too...

colorful prizewinners-I am absolutely going to garden and can next year!

Ok, must get to parenting my children.  Ya’ll have a great weekend, and catch those local fairs if you can!

Camden Windjammer Festival

Last Saturday, in pictures:

The crowd starts to gather for the Lobster Trap Race

Would you let your children race across these?

25 traps, strung together with rope...

Standing by, in case he was needed!

Most kids ended up like this, about 4 traps in.

Now THIS kid...made it look SO easy. He literally flew! He was last years winner, running 2500 traps before he gave out. He won this year, too, but I'm unsure of the total count. He was AMAZING. And just 6 years old!

Ryan wanted to run.  I actually think he has a good build for it.  But I can’t imagine ever giving my “ok” for him to do anything like this!

The boys found some shade under a temporary gazebo during our picnic

and then they somersaulted up and down the hill at the park. over and over again!

We were able to tour the sailboats. Jack thought we were actually going to sail, and was seriously distressed that it was just a "tour". He and Ry were able to "steer" in place on the Mary Day, which made up for the disappointment a little bit!

We wrapped up our Camden visit with a sailboat cupcake from Boynton McKay, before heading on to Linconville to let the boys play at the beach. Oh ya'll...I'm not ready for summer to end! How about you?

A Good Day

You know what verse was running through my mind today? Luke 2:14…

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men!”

Oh, ya’ll it was an almost achingly perfect day.  Beautiful, Gorgeous, are you KIDDING me, God?  Is this for real?

I just wanted to run up to people and give them hugs!  Seriously!  Say, “Do you realize what a gift this is?”  You feel such wonderful weather, and see such beauty, and ponder the fact that God intended perfection, and peace, and that one day what we see here will be what we will eventually experience, but a thousand times better.  Man.

Mom and I did our Route 1 day trip…Belfast, Camden, Rockland.  It was just…very good.  I’ve about run out of descriptions!

Camden Bay

I didn’t snap too many pictures.  But I couldn’t help but get the next shot.  It’s in honor of my southern friends. 

Grits! Doesn't that beat all?

Well, it’s high time I crawl into bed.  Just wanted to document this day before I hit the hay.  And just gotta say it again…

Glory to GOD!

Well, this is embarrasing.

Hooked ya with that title, didn’t I? 

Kudos to Firefox for making me laugh, when I opened my browser just now:

Stay tuned for house pictures, hopefully tomorrow!

Vacation Part Two, and Back to Reality

As nice as it is to come home…it’s hard, also. To come back to messy houses and responsibility. To work, and changing diapers. Although it was wonderful to see Ry and Jack! We’ve never had 3 days and 2 nights away from them. Doesn’t sound like much, but it was to us!

We had grand plans of visiting Boston and venturing a little further south to visit Ikea. But they didn’t pan out; this ended up being more of a relaxing vacation, which was exactly what we wanted. It was so refreshing; our Inn was right in downtown Newburyport, MA, so we walked everywhere. Such a nice break from Motel 6in’ it every time we get away! (Which isn’t that often, really). It was hot as blazes while we were gone, so we spent a good part of our time in our room, becoming totally addicted to the Food Network. I took a few pictures; not really that many. But here we go:

our home for 2 nights

our 8 dollar lunch from Edible Arrangements...fruit salad totally fit the bill in that heat!

rooftop dining from the 3rd floor...a majority of the following pictures came from up here.

the bay

Chim Chiminey Chim Chiminey Chim Chim Cherooooo....

Erick's middle name is Lee. This boat cracked us up. It's probably "Erica", because boats usually have girlie names, but still!

the boardwalk in the evening

fun signage

The following sign caught our attention right away…is that not Ryan and Jack?! Skinny Ry with his blond hair, and little Jack with his wild mop of dark hair? We couldn’t believe it! You can actually get these signs personalized, so I think we’ll do it. Too good to pass up!

Anyway, it was wonderful to just immerse ourselves in one another for a few days. A “must-do” for all marriages. Oh, and when we came home yesterday, this shirt was waiting for me. I bought it from Union 28…because he absolutely does!

Vacation Part One

Erick and I are currently on a little trip in Newburyport, Mass.  It’s hot as blazes outside, so we are  hangin’ out in our air conditioned room right now; thought I’d use the time to blog a little bit about the trip we just took with the kids!

They’ve been so good this summer, what with our bouncing around from house to house, and the endless work everything has entailed.  We figured they deserved a little treat, so we took them to meet this guy:

For non-parents, that is Thomas the Tank Engine, hero of those ridiculously overpriced train toys.

It was a great surprise for them…we didn’t tell them what we were doing until we arrived.  We were able to take a ride on the train and partake in the various other activities that were offered, including chomping down on 3 dollar corn dogs for lunch.  ($3!!!!)

train ride

We also camped out and had a blast taking an evening dip in the ocean, and then one in the morning around 7:30 am.  The water was warm. In Maine.  We took off without our rain fly, which was actually great because rain wasn’t on the horizon, and we drifted off staring at the stars.  Threw some roasted hot dogs and smores in for good measure.

isn't this what camping should look like?

view from inside the tent. cute kid included.

water baby

deeper and deeper...

sunset swim

silly daddy

we had the beach to ourselves in the morning!

they were offering me gifts of seaweed. awww.

sandy toes. the sand came home with us and ended up trailing it's way through the house...

home again, home again, jiggity jig.

Well, we are getting ready to go find a place to eat, then take a stroll on the boardwalk.  Hopefully it’s cooled down a bit out there.  Good night!

Tired, Tired, Bo-Bired

Banana-nana-fo-fired.  Me-my-mo-mired….tired!

Jack came home the other day and fell asleep standing up.  Just draped himself over the chair-he didn’t even have enough energy to climb up.  I think that is what we all feel like this summer!

Erick has the most on his plate; as soon as the school year ended, he had to do some major wrap-up work with a particular program he is involved with there.  He is now into the 3rd week of an incredibly intense Master’s course, and one week before this course ends, he’ll start teaching summer school.

All the while, we are

1. trying to get our house in sell-able condition
2. living at mom and dad’s house, and
3. cleaning up the house we are going to be moving into.

All preferably before the school year starts again.  Eek.  I dunno…

Last week we also had VBS at church, and it was a first for the boys.  Erick and I accompanied them every night, minus one for me when I went to pick up mom and dad from the airport.  Wonderful!  And Exhausting!  The hilarious thing?  Tuesday morning of VBS, the very first thing out of Ry’s mouth is “When I finish my crafts, will you post them on your blog?”  Ha!  So here they are, and a few others from the week.  The boys had a “build a bear workshop”, but it was focused on the Armor of God.  It was a great success.

A few others, from game and craft and snack time:

The last one cracks me up.

To end the week, we had a good ol’ fashioned church softball game on Sunday afternoon.  I love church softball-it was a staple growing up. What southern town doesn’t have church softball leagues?  While Maine doesn’t, we had a few men get together and decide it was about time to do something about it!  A church from Auburn drove up, and we spent the afternoon playing softball, a little bit of kickball, then ending the whole she-bang with a cookout.  And 25 apple pies.  25!  Needless to say, quite a few of us got to take a pie home.  Which was not a problem.

I have to tell you-Erick was thrilled.  He grew up playing baseball and hasn’t had much of a chance to fool around with it since high school.  Well, first up to bat…very first, mind you, and he smacks a homerun.  Yay honey!

It was a good end to the week, and I, for one, actually slept well last night.

Here’s to another 7 days!  Erick is currently knocking some projects out up at our place, mom and dad are cleaning over at our, prayerfully, soon-to-be place, and I’m blogging while the boys are blessedly napping.  Then maybe I’ll catch a snooze or two before the evening work begins.

Happy Monday!

George

I just had to share this; it was one of those “makes me very happy” moments.

We have a friend, Ms. M, who is in the hospital right now, so I scoot over to her place to check her mail and phone messages every day.  This morning there was a message on her machine from George.  It was wonderful;  he had this gravel-y old voice that was precious as it could be (I’m sure he would love me calling him precious) and he announced himself as her old classmate. I have to admit I googled him, and found out that he did indeed attend high school with Ms. M…he graduated in 1936.  So it has been, very likely, 73 years since they have seen each other!  Maybe not that long, but he had a wonderful old laugh that seemed to imply it HAD been that long since they had seen each other.  He went on to say “I’m still here (Ms. M is 91 years old; I assume he is close to that too) and I wake up every morning just as suprised as can be!”

I can’t wait to see Ms. M tonight and see if she remembers him.  I’d love to hear a story about the good ol’ days; her memory is failing a bit these days (although so is mine!) but maybe she has a recollection or two left of her old classmate.  Wouldn’t it be great if she could call him back?  The stories they could share!

Anyway, his “wake up every morning just as suprised as can be” makes me remember that I need to “wake up every morning just as grateful as can be”.   That’ll be first on my agenda when my son wakes me up at the crack of dawn tomorrow.