Merry Christmas to All

What a beautiful day!  No snow yet this winter, temps near 60 and even some sun.  Doesn't get any better than this for me.  

Our little tree is surrounded by gifts...

 We enjoyed a nice walk with Titan...

We all opened our gifts...

We sat on the deck for a few minutes reveling in the great December weather...

Wendy & Dan, Kris, Scott and Trevor came for dinner...

And then it was over, until next year.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

Today's Haiku 10/6/15

The sea takes a breath

Gathering its energy

Waves assault the shore

Fun (and creative) Time with Ella

I traveled to MA this weekend and enjoyed an awesome visit with Ella and Greg.  It was delightful!  Ella was funny, polite, well behaved, a great helper in the kitchen and very creative.  Greg was patient, a welcoming host, a great cook and a wonderful, loving dad.  

We started our visit by making Halloween decorations, then moved on to coloring with pencils. 

This was as far as I got before we moved on to sculpey creations.
 
We spent a good hour or so working with this fun clay and Greg was able to get some outside work completed.  I tend to be am a perfectionist.  Everything I do needs to be perfect, which of course, it never is; therefore, I'm never happy with things I do or make.  I stress over everything being perfect...even sculpey!  Thanks to Ella, I was able to work on being satisfied with less than perfect.

I brought home a nice ball, a square of squares and a not-so square of squares.

The purple and white square pieces reminds me of red onions for some reason and the bright yellow reminded me of cheese.  Weird, I know!  Ella cut the green/yellow/blue squares, which are obviously not all the same, therefore not perfect and there was no way I could make them perfect.  Soooo, I satisfied myself with less than perfect.  It was a good life lesson ;o) and I like them both equally.

Next up...cooking dinner.  Greg chose a recipe for acorn squash and apple soup.  Ella loves helping Greg cook and she does a really good job.  She has learned a lot in cooking class.  I'm quite sure Greg and Wendy were not helping me cook this much when they were seven and I know for sure, they were not handling knives this big.

 

The soup was delicious so I had seconds.  Lemon bites for dessert!

After dinner...games, games, games.  We played Loopin' Louis, Sorry Sliders and Mr. Diamond.  Ella won a few and lost a few and she was a very good sport!  

Time for bed.  We did some problems in the Big Book of Brain Games and took some selfies, which didn't turn out very good ;o(

 

 

Cracks me up that she knows exactly where to look!

After a great night's sleep and a morning wakeup call compliments of Ella, accompanied with some snuggling, we had breakfast and still had a little time for more creating, this time with kinetic sand.

 

I don't have any idea what this stuff is but it's very cool.  It doesn't stick under your nails, doesn't smell and just sort of falls apart when you hold it in your hands.  Any guesses as to which creation is mine?  Ella's is quite obviously a turtle while mine is quite obviously...nothing recognizable.

They headed off to church and I headed home.  I had a lot of fun with Ella and thoroughly enjoyed my time with them both.  Hopefully, I can do it more often.

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

Good-bye Acadia, See You Next Year

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Today is Wendy and Dan's fourth wedding anniversary.  We wish them both a very happy day!

Our time goes by so fast, it's hard to believe it's already time to head home.  We got up about 7:30 to 45* temps and clear and sunny skies...a spectacular day!  We were on the road by 10:00 and the temp was already up to 60*.

Generally, we do a short hike or bike ride before heading home but today we decided to leave early and take our time checking out some of the sights we have driven by for years.

First up...the town of Ellsworth.

It has a nice Main Street with lots of small shops.  We stopped and took a nice walk up and down the street.  We stopped in a couple of antique shops because I always think it will be fun.  After half and hour or so, I realize it's all old stuff that I don't collect and I'm not going to buy so I get bored and we leave.  Eventually I'm going to figure out I don't enjoy antique shops...duh!

Even the town hall was nice to look at...

We left Ellsworth around 11:15 and drove to Bucksport, where we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and donuts and instead of taking a left and heading over the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, we went straight and drove to the end of town (a short trip).  It did provide some great views of the bridge and Ft. Knox across the river.  You can read about our visit to the bridge here.

Penobscot Narrows Bridge and Ft. Knox

We were excited to get gas in Searsport for only $2.25!  Then we stopped at the Treasures & Trash Barn.  Oh brother...this place is loaded with Americana from top to bottom, in the front, along the side...everywhere!  How does anyone keep track of all this stuff?

We wandered around for half an hour, visited with the owner and were amazed to see things that we grew up with waiting for someone to fall in love with them and take them home.  The owner actually sorts through everything and puts it all away when the season ends, mid October.  Nothing is on a computer, it's all in his head.  He was really interesting to talk with.

Next stop, Moose Point State Park, a really nice place.

 Clearly there is not much beach at high tide but lucky for us, the tide was out!

Panorama

We had lunch at a picnic table near the beach and just enjoyed the great weather and the great view.  I nearly left my iPad on the bench but luckily Bill reminded me to grab it.  That would have sucked!

Next stop was another state park we had been wanting to check out - Lake St. George State Park.  It was also a nice area but not as nice as the one on the ocean.  It was beginning to get late and we still had quite a drive to get home so we only stayed long enough to take a couple of pictures.  The water was nice and clean and must have been fairly warm because a woman went swimming while we were there.

We stopped at L.L.Bean's in Freeport and dropped off our bikes for maintenance, then drove to the Backstreet Grill in Sanford for dinner.  Finally got home at 7:00.  It was a long day but it was nice to enjoy a relaxing drive home stopping to "smell the roses".  

Thanks for stopping by...
;o)

Acadia Mtn. and Sommes Sound

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

52* and cloudy when we got up at 7:30.  The four of us agreed to hike Acadia Mountain, on the "quiet" side of the island. 

Bill and I have never climbed this peak but Wendy and Dan highly recommended it, so we were looking forward to something new. 

The climb isn't very long; however, there were several steep, rocky sections to conquer.

The summit is only 681 feet and the hike took 2.5 hours round trip.  

Although it was cloudy, the view of Sommes Sound was awesome.

From here, we traveled a little farther to the second summit, which provided even better views of the Sound.  Acadia Mountain was originally called Robinson Mountain but was renamed under the leadership of George B. Dorr, the first park superintendent in the early 1900's.

Even though the temperature only reached the mid 60's, we still worked up a sweat. 

We sat for awhile and enjoyed the view.  Wendy spotted a couple of bald eagles, which was pretty cool.  We will have to climb this again on a sunny day, the view would really be spectacular.

Oddly, the hike down was just as steep as the hike up!  Bill and I aren't any faster going down either but Wendy and Dan are very good sports.

We drove a short distance to Eagle Lake, where we sat on a dock near the water's edge and had lunch.

panorama view

From here we could pick up the Beech Cliffs Ladder Trail, which we talked about hiking but decided against it.  Wendy and Dan wanted to do some shopping, which was okay with us.  One hike a day is about our limit anyway.

We dropped them off at Edgewater and grabbed our books for some reading at Sand Pond.  It was windy and cool so we didn't last long there but found another place along the rocks where we read and napped for an hour or so.  We went to JPH for our usual but were disappointed in the popovers once again.  

We went into town and bought a couple of riding/hiking books for Wendy and Dan's anniversary (tomorrow).  Bar Harbor isn't very big and guess who we ran into...  Well, not technically but we did come across one another and they gave us a couple of dog treats shaped like squirrels they had purchased for Titan!  

Did some packing when we got back to our cottage because we have to head home tomorrow ;o(  

 

Thanks for stopping by...

;o)

A Hiking and Biking Day in Acadia

Monday, September 21, 2015

Cool when we woke up this morning (48*) but clear and sunny!  The four of us left Edgewater around 9:30 and drove into Bar Harbor to walk over the sand bar to Bar Island.  In all the years we have been going to Bar Harbor, this is one of the places we have never visited.  The island can only be reached twice a day, one and a half hours either side of low tide and we never seemed to time it right.  

It's a very quick walk, taking about ten minutes to cross the sand bar and reach the island, then another 15-20 minutes to reach the summit.  We were rewarded with nice views of Bar Harbor and Cadillac Mountain from a different perspective. 

Photo bomb!

Bar Island summit...or not

After returning and looking again at the map, I think we may have missed the summit completely, stopping where everyone else stopped, assuming it was the summit.  Good grief...

We wandered along the water's edge on our way back.

Wendy checked out the water temperature, while Bill played lifeguard...

Brrr, looks warmer than it is

The water was crystal clear.

  

There are lots of rock cairns built along the shore.

Photo by Wendy

If you look closely near the left edge of the photo, you can see the cruise ship docked for the day.

There's lots of life in the tide pools and Dan found one of them.

We arrived back at the car around 11:30, the temp was up to 70*.  

From there, we drove to the North lot at Jordan Pond House and rode the Jordan Pond/Bubble Pond Loop.  This beautiful pair of horses passed us on the carriage road.

We left at 12:25 and arrived at Bubble Pond at 1:10 where we stopped for lunch. It was such a gorgeous day!

There's just a hint of what's to come up on the hill.

We were back at the car and ready for popovers by 2:40; Dan said it was 9.27 miles, uphill both ways!!!

We sat outside today and the popovers were much better than yesterday, thankfully.

We returned to the cottage and enjoyed the remaining sun.

Thanks for stopping by...

;o)