Water Park

The boys and I went to a water park with great friends today.  It was a blast! The kids had so much fun - they were exhausted from all the fun! Both of my boys fell asleep for a nap in the car on the drive home!  They really enjoyed the day. I have so many pictures to share.  Here are just a few of them.  

They had so much fun getting dumped on by the bucket and going down the slides!

My baby just loved kicking around in the shallows and playing with his buddy. :)

It was so wonderful to watch the kids have such a fun time! Thanks for sharing a great day with us Ginny! :)

Purple pea flower

The kids and I went for a walk/bike ride this morning and saw this purple pea flower on the side of the road.  So pretty.... I stopped to take a picture and almost got carried away by the mosquitoes, but it was worth it. :)

Itchy Great Blue Heron

The kids and I saw this Blue Heron today in the water, and I had to pull over to take his picture.  He kept scratching his head...very itchy guy.  SO CUTE.

Aquarium

The kids and I went to the KW Aquarium this morning.  It was free for locals.  They really enjoyed themselves.  No matter how many times we go, they don't get tired of it.  There was a lot of squealing when the sting rays splashed us while waiting to be fed, excitement to touch a nurse shark and an alligator, amazement at the different kinds of fish, jellyfish, and corals, and crazy interest in the touch tank.  They wanted to hold every single animal in that tank.  So cute.  I LOVE that my little boys are so into marine science - just like their parents. :)

Painting a masterpiece

My kids did a little painting this morning.  I snuck this picture of my baby creating his masterpiece.  He was really concentrating intently - he filled up every square inch of his paper.  It was stuck to the table when he was finished.  :)  Luckily it was washable paint.  

Play Doh restaurant

My kids spent at least 2 hrs playing with Play Doh today making me "meals".  While my younger boy was busy cutting and rolling, my older son took this seriously and made some awesome foods! :)  He kept bringing me plates of breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, and dessert.   He was so adorable - he was really excited to serve me "the specialty of the day" and other interesting meals including: hot dog, lasagna, and green beans (top), toast with butter, eggs, and bacon (middle), and carrots, fruit bar, and yogurt (bottom).  At the end of the whole thing, I just had to document a few of the meals. I wish I had taken pictures of everything he prepared - truly priceless!

Laughing in tub

I shot this photo of the boys laughing hysterically in the tub tonight during their bath.  Their laughs are contagious....just music to my ears.  I absolutely love their awesome bond. :)

Flashlight fun

I heard lots of laughter coming from my older son's room tonight so I went to investigate.  I found both boys sitting in the bed playing with flashlights in the pitch black dark.  They were making shadow puppets.  My older son was making a "spider" on the wall, and my younger son was pretending to squish it and then busting into hysterics over and over again! Hilarious.  Really - you can't make this adorable stuff up!

Goofballs on a couch

These are our two goofballs tonight on the couch after dinner.  The best part is that I CLEARLY remember doing this all the time with my sister when I was little.  We used to actually watch an entire tv show upside down this way. :)

Legos

Ah, what would my son do without LEGOS?  We have BINS of the stuff.  My husband still has ALL his legos from when he was a kid, and he passed it all on to our son!  Really.  It is insane.  We bought him a new NinjaGo lego set before our trip to Maine, and now he is completely OBSESSED. Today, he combined his castle lego set, Alien Conquest set, and NinjaGo set and played for over 1.5 hrs at the kitchen table.  So sweet... :)

Lichen on branch

I saw this cool lichen growing on a tree branch during my morning walk with my son today.  

Cuddling on couch

Now that my oldest son owns a brand new DS, his Leapster is old news and is being handed down to his little brother.  My eldest, ever patient, was trying to teach my youngest son how to play it, which I think must have been a very frustrating venture. ;-)  However, look at how sweet they are!  Not sure how much my baby absorbed.  He was too busy resting his head on his brother's shoulder and snuggling in...  

Reading with Daddy

When I came out of my younger son's room tonight, I heard lots of laughing and giggling coming from my older son's room.  I snuck in and saw my husband and son reading a Secrets of Droon book together and totally enjoying themselves.  My husband was using all these different voices and my son was laughing hysterically. So precious.  Very low light, and I had to be super quick so they wouldn't notice me, but such a sweet moment captured.  :)

Home sweet home

We arrived home FINALLY today after more than 30 hrs of traveling since we left the island.  After we groggily unpacked the car and got our youngest to sleep for a well-needed nap, I surveyed our house and yard....  I admit I was not feeling that happy to be home.   I really miss Maine.  I am definitely a northerner at heart.  I love winter and spring here, but summers and fall are tough with the heat and mosquitoes.  However, as I walked around our yard, I realized/remembered how beautiful it is here too and how lucky we are.  The royal poincianas are in full bloom, and our frangipani is busting with flowers.  The pink blooms are so beautiful and smell HEAVENLY.  I guess we do live in paradise...just a different kind....  It's all in your attitude, right?  :)

Leaving paradise

Today was our last day on the island.  We woke up this morning and saw this view in the harbor directly across from the cottage.  Wouldn't you want to wake up every day to this?  It was VERY hard to leave this paradise.  The kids didn't want to go either.  They had such a great time hiking, exploring, and spending time with their Oma and Opa.  My older son said that he wanted to go home, pack up all our stuff, and come back to live here permanently in the spring and summer.  :)  I wish we could.  Maybe someday.  But, I'll tell you....when I die, this will be my heaven.  

Cliffs of heaven

I took another hike by myself to HEAVEN this afternoon and found this amazing cove in between two cliffs.  I scrambled down the rocks where I discovered these purple irises growing in the bushes.  I practically fell off the cliff with happiness!  Would you LOOK at this beauty!!!?

Harbor Seals

We all took a boat tour around Monhegan today on the Balmy Days ferry.  The kids loved it!  We got to see Manana (small island across from Monhegan) up close, the whole village and the cliffs from the ocean, a Mola mola (ocean sunfish) at the surface, and then we spotted a whole bunch of harbor seals sunning themselves and swimming around Seal Ledges.  What a blast!  

Rainy day

You'd think that an entire of rain would have made us sad and gloomy, but we had a blast.  Erich kept a cozy fire going all day, and we played Monopoly, Rummikub (my older son is really scarily good), cards, built legos, played with matchbox cars, and spent some good quality family time all together.  We even hiked a bit in the rain.  The boys were so cute under their shared umbrella.   Then, I ended the day near sunset, when the rain stopped, photographing some soaked flowers and fungal polypores. :) 

Cold windy day

Today it was really cold and windy on the island.  We bundled up and hiked anyway - we went to Gull Cove and scaled the big rocks, got to take a tour up into the top of the lighthouse with Oma and Opa, and threw rocks at Swim Beach.  There was no sunset and it was very gray, but I did manage to get some blur shots of the crashing waves on the rocks by the house tonight. 

Beauty on the cliffs

I hiked to Squeaker Cove through Cathedral Woods today all by myself.  Erich took the kids for a couple hours.  I was in HEAVEN.  I was actually talking to myself out loud....crazy anyone?.... saying over and over again how incredible and amazing this place is and, once in awhile, I just stopped and smiled like a lunatic, breathing deeply and giggling.  Yes,  I had a very nice hike.  

Hike with the boys

We all took a hike through the Whitehead trail to the east side of the island today.  We took our time walking through the gorgeous forest.  It was so lush and green.  The boys were amazed by all the moss on the forest floor.  They kept stopping to pet it and see how soft it was...hilarious!  It was so peaceful.  All we could hear were cawing crows, seagulls and, as we neared the cliffs, the crashing surf.  The trail ended at the most amazing view of the cliffs and ocean. 

Sunset at Lobster Cove

Erich and I watched a phenomenal sunset up at Lobster Cove tonight after the kids went to sleep.  There is a shipwreck of a tugboat that crashed years ago, as well as a life ring perched on the cliff there in case anybody falls off the rocks into the crashing surf.   The undertows and high surf in the ocean on the southern side of the island are particularly dangerous, and there are many chilling stories of people that fell and were lost in the sea, never to be found.  The raw beauty of this place blows me away.

Traveling to Maine

The day of our long-awaited vacation has finally arrived!  We traveled to Maine to spend a week with Erich's parents today!!!  It was a LONG day.  We had a 6am flight, so we had to wake up at 3:45am to just barely make it in time to board the plane.  Then, after 2 plane rides, we rented a car from Portland and drove 2 hrs to Port Clyde, where we boarded a ferry boat and rode to Monhegan Island, a 1.75 miles long by 0.75 miles wide island located 12 miles off the coast of Maine in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, where Erich's parents own an amazing cottage (see photo below).  We haven't been here in six years...much too long!  After the very long trip, we were all really excited to step off that boat and see Oma and Opa!  


I feel most myself on this island. I LOVE this place... The second I stepped off the ferry, I felt myself unwind.  I love breathing the fresh, cool sea air, hearing the seagulls, living the simple, slower-paced life, walking everywhere (no cars on the island), being surrounded by stunning nature, the wild flowers, having a zillion photographic subjects at every turn, hiking any of the 17 miles of gorgeous, pristine trails through the woods to breathtaking views of the cliffs.....  It is just heaven.  I am really looking forward to this vacation.  I may not come back home. ;)

Soon-to-be Second Graders

It's SUMMER! Today was the last day of school for my son; we went to the award assembly to honor all the achievements of the students this year.  I'm going to gloat.  ;) Our son made A Honor Roll all year long, received the Pizza with the Principal award, received the Gold Principal's Young Reader Award, and most importantly, received the Outstanding Citizenship award for his class!!  I'm so proud of my amazing boy! At the end, the principal did her graduation "magic" and had the students spin around, and as she yelled "Shazaaam!", they all turned into...... SECOND graders!  This is a snapshot I quickly took right after they all spun around and made the "transformation".  :) My baby is going to be a second grader next year....  Wow.

Turtle

This afternoon, in our yard, we saw this little turtle.  I'm not sure what kind he is... He looked like he'd had a rough life...his shell was very beat up and his face was all sandy.  He stared me and my sons down with attitude as I took this picture and then he slowly crossed to the other side of our grass into the mulch.  Funny little guy.

Peeking out of the dugout

This evening while I was taking pictures of my older son and the rest of the team practicing on the baseball field, I turned around to check on my other little doodlebug and found him peeking out of the dugout to watch the boys batting.  Would you look at that cute face?  :)

Alligator in the reeds

I went to see my alligator friend again tonight after putting the kids to sleep.  I couldn't find him at first, but then I spotted him hiding in the reeds.  He was making the water vibrate around him, causing all sorts of ripples.  I thought the reflections were really pretty.  Such a peaceful way to end the day...just me, the alligator, crickets, and about a trillion no-see-ums and mosquitoes.  ;)

Balloon craziness

I volunteered to blow up 150 balloons with air and fill 175 water balloons to be used for Field Day at my son's school tomorrow.  It's been an interesting evening/night. :)  I have a huge blister on my finger from tying all the balloons...  Thank GOD my husband brought a scuba tank and air-filling valve home from work so we didn't have to blow the balloons up with our lungs ourselves.... We got the kids to help with the water balloons - we had an assembly line going.  It was a very soaking experience - ha ha - but so fun!  Drank some wine and watched a movie while we filled the air balloons.  Here is my husband buried in bags of balloons tonight after we finally finished filling them all up.  Hilarious.  Not at all an artistic/pretty photo, but it tells the story.  :) It's gonna take a few trips to school in the morning to deliver them all! 

Beautiful sunset

I watched another beautiful sunset tonight.  It was the perfect way to end a great day.  We wound up having a completely different day than planned since the baseball games were cancelled due to flooding on the field.  We were disappointed, but it wasn't a total wash.  We made the best of it and went out on the boat all morning and got to do some snorkeling and swimming!   Very fun!  

Pizza with the Principal

My amazing son received the "Principal's Award: Pizza with the Principal" this semester and went in a limousine to lunch with the other recipients from his school and his principal today.  I'm so proud of that little guy.  This is the second time he's gotten acknowledged - the first time was when he was 3 years old in preschool.  Back then, I didn't let him go in the limo (I drove him myself and had lunch with everyone) since he was so little and there was no car seat for him.  Today, he went like a big boy with the other kids....without Mommy.  Big sigh.... how can he be growing up so fast like this???