Sydney Visits

Howdy! Brian here--filling in.
Our friend Sydney came up to visit last week, a plan hatched a couple of months ago by her Mom and step-Dad to give us a taste of what life with an 8-year old is like. What's it like? AWESOME! Syd came up and we spent the week having fun. She went to the toy store, hiked a mountain, swam in a lake, explored tide pools, watched Full House (that Joey is HILARIOUS!), built a hotel alternatively for her stuffed cats, our real cats, and her Barbies, played Beauty Salon, and practiced her piano. However, of all of the things we did all week, Syd's favorite was building Fairy Houses.
A friend of ours told Sydney all about Fairy Houses. You can see them on some of the islands off the coast up here, as well as elsewhere. Syd decided to build one in the yard and a rainstorm created a Fairy Lake in the driveway so she built some boats for them too. She left some food for the fairies to eat (blueberries and chocolate) and built a dining room and bed for them to sleep on.
I took pictures of the Fairy House and Lake for Sydney to take home with her. The amazing thing about this is that nothing struck us as out of the ordinary as we took the photos but when I printed them out we could see fairies in the pictures! I've tried to get the pictures to appear on the blog but they won't. So I took pictures of the pictures so you all can see them.
The next day we went to the state park to build some Seaside Fairy Cottages. The same thing happened when I took photos of them: we saw nothing unusual until I printed them. Note to Syd: I'll mail you copies of these pictures.
Anyway, here are some of the pictures.




Here's the Fairy House by the garage. How many can you see?











Here are some the Fairies enjoying a day on the lake.









This is the Fairy Beach House. It's quite large, with a great view of the ocean and its very own swimming hole and indoor mini-pool!










Two of the fairies were apparently enjoying the swimming hole.





I printed this one by mistake--it's not the greatest photo--but it looks like Sydney was being followed!

4th of July

So Brian and I spent a leisurely day with our friends Carol and Steve for the 4th. We had lobster, and played horseshoes. We ended the night with smores (dark chocolate of course) by the campfire. There were sparklers too. Check out Mr. Taco and his patriotic bandanna.

Erin's Shower

Okay Guys. I promised, so here it is. I really ought to keep up with this blog, because every time I go to sign in again I've forgotten my password.

Although there was a lot of driving this weekend, I wouldn't have missed the party for the world. Erin, your apartment is perfect.
Ciara is off to a good start.

Trish, Jon, Syd, and Sully - Thanks for having me as your house guest. Your place is great!

The Renovations Continue

Hi Everybody. So it has been over 6 months since my last blogging adventure. I can't keep up like you can Trish. You never cease to amaze me. Well anyway, here it is. The red room is our new dining room. I only wish you knew what it looked like before this - coral pink peeling wallpaper. We still have to paint the moudlings and sand the floors but we are almost done!!

The other picture is my latest project - the upstairs front bedroom. I thought it would be a quick fix - some paint and voila. So much for that though. Bri pulled up the carpet and broke through the subfloor so we either have to repair the subfloor or go after what's underneath. I think it's wide pine and probably worth going after.

Aside from the house all is well. Bri is finally student teaching, but still hiking to Bangor and back every day. It's three hours round trip.

As for me, I've been on call a lot lately but I got a well deserved break yesterday when Molly, Brooke, Sam, and I went to Portland in search of trouble. Sorry to say I didn't bring my camera. We did some damage at the outlets and went out to a swanky restaurant for dinner. Thanks guys.

For those of you who are frustrated by my lack of blogging, I promise from here on in not to be such a slacker.

House

So I didn't tell you all, the real reason for the blog is to motivate me to work on the house. The current project involves cleaning the basement. This is no task for the faint of heart. That's why there are no pictures. But you will find images of our new and improved living room. Check out the bookcases my master craftsman husband constructed. And might I add, my father-in-law is a force to be reckoned with. He installed seven windows in less than six hours. Bob Vila - eat your heart out. Also, for those of you who haven't seen it, this is our falling down house. 1865 folks! Nothing like cleaning spider webs from the basement walls, only to realize the basement wall is so fragile, it too is getting sucked into the shop vac. Oh yeah - and that's me - scraping lead paint from the mouldings. Unfortunately we stained the beautiful wood underneath, only to paint over it. Four months worth of work down the drain :(
The results are amazing though.

Schoodic Lake

Hi Everyone!! Katie, Brad, Ryan, and Lauren -
you have been our inspiration. So here goes -
our first posting. We figured we'd start with Schoodic Lake. Our friends Katie and Trevor hosted us for the weekend. There was plenty of swimming, kyaking, and sun to go around. Brian took time out from his assigned reading (35 early childhood education books) to explore the water.