Blue Tape Fun!

There are many things you can do with blue painters tape. You can use it to cover areas you don't want to paint. You can unroll the roll on a long drive home from Maine. You can tape your toys. You can tape your brother. You can tape yourself. Or you can do this:

An Update From Grandpa

Just got this in an email in reference to Roo and Daddy's visit on Wednesday after going to the National Aquarium.

Daughter,

a question dad asked here....

By the way, we really enjoyed Roo's visit. What a trip; he had pineapple cake, took out the brownie mix and asked for brownies ("You guys have brownies!?"), popcorn ("Do you guys have any popcorn"; then, after I found it and made it; "this is yukky popcorn"); I gave him a bag of chocolate chip cookies, which he turned down, ditto for cheese; he had an apple, or at least started one, and he had his fries from lunch. And of course he rearranged the family room in order to watch Wall-e.

Dad

First Harvest

While we were on vacation, Uncle Nate took care of our garden. I had moved a couple of pots off the deck to where the rest of the vegetables were growing about a week before we left. As that week went on I was thinking it was a bad idea to move the beans and basil. Unfortunately, I was right, the beans continued to die and the basil isn't doing great. I moved the basil back to the deck and need to poke holes in the bottom of the pot to help it drain. This is all a learning experience, I should have done something about this before we left, the beans were clearly asking for help and I didn't help them, I just hoped. And I had them growing so well from little seeds, they were so happy in their first spot. Doh!

But the good news is that Uncle Nate took amazing care of the garden, so the tomatoes that were looking like I'd miss harvesting them, are still growing; I didn't remember planting tomatoes that grow as big as they're growing. And we even got to eat our first cucumber! Yummy! Roo helped pick it and walked it around in his wagon for a while.

The watermelons are still doing well. I have no idea how to tell when the sweet potatoes are ready. We lost most of the pumpkins but still have hope for one of them. The squash just didn't like where I planted them since this was my second attempt at squash so we'll have to try harder next year.

So the garden is growing, I need to get some organic bug stuff to get the bugs off my cucumbers; I'll probably use Sevin Dust as Daddy's grandfather recommended last week. And hopefully we'll enjoy lots of cucumbers and tomatoes and maybe even some yummy watermelons, sweet potatoes if I can figure out how to actually know when they're done and maybe even a pumpkin or two for the kids!

Other Vacation Tidbits

As I'm sitting here updating the blog with all the pictures to go along with the stories, I'm thinking of all the other little things that happened on vacation.

Bug had a word explosion. He is talking up a storm and will repeat words right after you say them. He's even putting some 4 to 5 word sentences together. What's great is that he's able to tell us what he wants and is a lot less frustrated than Roo was at this age.

The best laugh looking back is probably when Roo hit the panic button on the alarm system in the house. He was walking down the stairs and the keypad to the alarm is right at the bottom of the stairs, easily within reach of a curious 3 year old. We heard him hit the button but didn't think much of it. That is of course until the alarm company called, the house lady called and when the very nice police officer showed up. Roo spoke with the police officer and didn't touch the alarm again. I still laugh when I think about this.

On one of the more dreary days, I let the boys have some popcorn. You can see from the picture that they're really enjoying it!

I taught the boys how to roll down a hill. This was so much fun. By the end of the 2 weeks, Bug had figured out how to do it as well. It's a bit different when you are not a kid anymore though, makes you a little dizzy!

There was a nice entrance sign to Rackliff Island. Just beyond it was a man and dog made out of lobster buoys. The dog was not always standing in the same place.

Daddy took Roo to visit Grammy at work one day and then visited Les, Sandy and Logan at the campground they were at for the week. Roo had a ton of fun playing with a little girl named Abby. She was also 3. Daddy said that they had very similar personalities and got along great.

I took Roo to drop Uncle Matt off at the airport with me; he enjoyed 4 popsicles along the way. He didn't want to see the airplanes but was in a great mood and wanted to get candy for everyone. After the airport we went to Freeport and he got to see the big boot at LL Bean. He really wanted to jump in the water in the store that had the trout in it. It's hard to shop with Roo so we wandered for a bit and he wanted pizza for lunch so we had pizza at a great little pizza place in Freeport. On the way home I stopped with him to get some starfish that would last a bit longer than the ones he was catching. He loved that stop and found the greatest thing of all, a giant pine cone.

We enjoyed so much of what Maine has to offer, lobster, clams, whoopie pies, blueberry beer; it was all wicked good. And lets not forget the beautiful view of the ocean, waking up to the birds and lobster boats and the salt water breezes.

And we loved having all of the family in and out over the 2 weeks. When everyone was gone it was really quiet and just wasn't the same. We were really grateful for everyone who watched the kids so we could go on a few dates, that was awesome!

What a wonderful vacation. It was so much fun and we enjoyed all of it. We miss everyone already!

If I've missed any stories or that sort of thing, let me know, I can easily add them to this post.

Home

After more than 12 hours on the road today, a flat tire caused by a nail and 2 other short stops, we are home from Maine. The boys did not enjoy the car ride at all. They were good little troopers and went right to bed when we got home. In fact, Roo fell asleep just a little after 7, you know, his bedtime, but in the car. Bug really wasn't thrilled about the ride at all and got to run around a bunch while we got the tire changed, have some soda (no, we don't normally do that) and then was good until about 3 miles from home. Whew, it was a long day. We have no a/c but Gene will be here early in the morning to fix it. Goodnight!

Men Versus Crab

The title says it all. Daddy and Uncle Matt spent hours at how tide trying to get a big crab from the rocks. Crab wins!

Roo's Big Boy Day

Today we took Roo out for a big boy day. Grammy and Papa watched Bug so Uncle Matt, Grandma, Daddy and I could go on a lobster boat ride with Roo. Grandpa stayed at the Resort to get a 9 holes in. We picked Grandma up at her hotel and then headed to McDonalds for coffee. Roo got to have a little bit of Grandma's ice coffee and some of Mommy and Daddy's Frappes...yes he likes coffee. Then we headed over to the middle pier and boarded Capt Jack's lobster boat.

The boat ride was awesome. We got to watch Capt Jack pull several traps around Rockland and Owls Head. He didn't get much lobster but did get some really nice crabs.

Roo was really excited about the crabs but most excited about the starfish on the traps.

The most random part of the ride was when we were cruising by the Rockland light and saw Grandpa golfing ...what are the chances of that!

The weather was perfect the ride was relaxing and it was just such a fun way to see the harbor and some of the local light houses.

And Capt Jack was really nice and his prices were totally reasonable. When we got back to the dock Capt Jack helped Roo find more starfish. Roo gave him a big high five to thank him. The best part after we got off the boat and headed to lunch was that Roo said he needed to call Bug and tell him about his starfish.
After the boat Roo and Uncle Matt requested McDonald's for lunch. Back to McDonald's we went and Roo enjoyed his meal of choice. Grandpa met up with us as well. After lunch we got Roo ice cream at Coldstone. He got blueberry ice cream with M&M's, he was a happy boy.

Lotsa Lobstah

One of our favorite things about Maine is lobster right off the boat. We're staying in Mid-Coast Maine which means there's good fresh lobster every where. Last night we were headed to Miller's but it was already closed. In a very thick accent the nice man told us to head to Tenants Harbor. I'm so glad he did. TH was another quaint seaside town and the lobster was great. Usually when you have lobster on the coast you have ity on a dock comprised of multiple shacks, one for serving guests, one for processing the lobster and some for storage, etc. Last nights place had special prices for double lobster dinners...yum!

We've enjoyed a lot of lobster on this trip, and steamers too. We had amazing lobster rolls from Red's in Wiscasset. I had one lobster roll fail at one nearby place but we've recovered from that...just wasn't enough lobster in the roll.

The best part about lobster though is listening to Bug say lobstah as he attacks you with his new lobster lobster that he takes every where.

Good Times On Vacation

Vacation continues to be fun and relaxing. Daddy got to play a couple rounds of golf at the Samoset with Grandpa and the next day a group of us went to Boothbay Harbor for shopping and clams and lobster.

On the way home from Boothbay we stopped at Moody's Diner for dessert...and it was delicious. I found an amazing hat!

That night Daddy and I went on a date to Primo and enjoyed a wonderful meal. Primo is great because everything is organic or grass fed, which is important to Mommy.

On Saturday, the boys had a great time playing in the pool at Samoset, they didn't want to leave!
Yesterday we had a wonderful party with our Maine family and friends. It was great for both sides of the family to meet. Roo had a great time playing with Allison. The food was great and nobody could tell that it was any different than the normal food they eat; everything was Bug friendly.

Today we're hanging out at the house. It's a lot warmer today than its been the rest of the week, so we spent a lot of time at the beach at low tide. The kids had a blast running around and the older boys found a bunch of crabs.

The plan is for a yummy lobster dinner at Miller's tonight.

Alpaca Farm

On Thursday Grandma, Uncle Matt the boys and I went to an alpaca farm. None of us had ever seen alpacas so it was neat to see them. You couldn't pet or feed them though so that was disappointing. There was also an electric fence off to the side where Bug wanted to look so he was upset that we didn't let him go over there. There were also little baby alpacas running around that were really neat to watch. It was a good free side trip, we just wished there was more to do to interact with them.

The Atlantic Ocean is Our Backyard

Now this is a view!

The house we're staying in on Rackliff Island backs right up to a beautiful rocky cove filled with cold Atlantic Ocean water. The water is clear and beautiful with a rocky ocean floor. The boys have had a blast playing in the water at both low and high tide.

We've found lots of crabs hiding under the sea kelp, tons of clam and mussel shells, snails and hermit crabs. We've even found some mussels still in their shell at low tide; no we didn't eat them. It's been fun to watch the tide go in and out and amazing how high the tide gets and then just how far you can walk out at low tide.

The house is great too. We were a little nervous at first that it doesn't have air conditioning but the breeze off the ocean is cold so we leave the windows open and the house stays cool. In fact it was such a change from the 100 degree weather we left that we have both boys using humidifers to keep the air in their rooms warm and moist since they both got runny noses and coughs after arriving.

The house has a nice kitchen and we've cook almost all our meals since arriving...except when we have lobster. The nicest surprise was that the local Hannaford has an amazing selection of allergy friendly foods.

We're enjoying our time away, the amazing view and playing with the kids.