Wednesday, October 26, 2011

October 14

The past 3 years I've taken pictures of Tobi in the leaves at Stark Park on October 14th. Here are the pics from the last few years.

Sadly this year it was raining on the 14th...so we had to wait until the 17th.  I knew getting a good picture of both kids would be challenging...but I didn't anticipate this reaction from Axel...

"Okay...this is different."

"What are these things?"
 

"I don' t think I like this..."

"Help me, Tobi!  Get us out of here..."
 
"Seriously?  You are sticking those things on my head?"
"I'll touch them, but I won't like them."

"I'm outta here..."


And then there is this girl.....






      Axel preferred crawling in the grass and playing on the statue.  As long as he didn't have to be near those terrible leaves.                 




  




A few more of my favorites from the day...













Thursday, October 13, 2011

Islesboro Cottage 3.0


This was our third year out at the cottage on Islesboro.  Thanks to the generosity of Ben's parents we got to live on the water for 2 weeks.  It was great spending time with Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends at different times during those weeks.
 
It is such a lovely place. I have such a soft spot for the Maine coast and having a view of it out every window is so amazing.
 We had a little trouble getting on to the island since it is only accessible by ferry.  We packed all of our stuff for two weeks in the truck and U-Haul trailer and we were so proud of ourselves for getting there just in time to make our reservation on the last ferry only to find out the ferry was not working!  We had to hustle to take the water taxi for passengers only.  We had to decide what we would need to survive for the night and hope that no one would get into the rest of our belongings during the night.  We did just fine (minus the 3 year old screaming "I don't want to go on the boat" all the way down the ramp to the boat and the fact that we left all our cash in the truck and couldn't pay for the taxi ride! until the next day). 
Oh, Maggie (the ferry's nickname)...we've been "ferried" again!  (That was Ben's new phrase creation!)

Ben had to work most of the time we were there, but if you have to work this is the office view you want.

This was our backyard for the week...(at least at low tide.)
We did a lot of beach combing and digging.
Ryan and Sarah and the kids came up for a couple days...
 Here are the ladies in the "princess palace". 

 And how about a little kayaking?



We took a trip off island one day.
Here is Tobi getting a special ride around Camden.

 We took lots of beach walks...collecting treasures and such.

It was so nice to be able to be with family everyday.
 
 And talk about a sink view.  I didn't even mind doing the dishes ( I think I have written about this every year so far.)

 We spent lots of time on the sun porch...doing puzzles, playing games, enjoying the beauty.


 Everyday the sky was different, and so the view was always new.

 We had some of the freshest seafood you can get...lobsters from the one of the local lobstermen and mussles from the beach in our front yard!

 Oh sooo good! 

 I had my personal lobster preparer (aka my neat freak husband) present me with a fully cleaned lobster.  Yummmmm!

 These two both had a great time...

 ...living at the shore...

....crawling in jammies on the porch...

 ....playing at playgrounds...
`

  ...listening to Grandpa stories...

...playing games at the fall festival....


....snuggling with Grandma...
 ....relaxing in rockers...

 ...petting animals at the island farm...


 ...riding bikes...

 ...celebrating Jon's 10th birthday...


...watching beautiful sunsets...

 ...riding the ferry...

 ...and dancing on the ferry...

 After two weeks we had to make our way back to the mainland...

but we are so blessed to have so many great memories...once again!