Trip to Maine - Day One

This past November was Jamie and I's 10th anniversary. And it was also Jamie's year to plan our anniversary gift. So in my card from him he wrote that once I was done with treatment and was feeling better we would go to Maine. I have had "Eating lobster on the wharf" on my bucket list for a long time.

So here is day one of our trip....

This is my first glimpse of Maine through the airplane window.

And since we were going to fly into Bangor Maine around noon and we couldn't check into the Bed and Breakfast until two or so. I decided that we had to find the house to one of my favorite authors.....

STEPHEN KING.

And yep, I found the house. Isn't it awesome????!!!!!

Front View. I love the spider web gate and dragon/gargoyles on the posts.

Side view. It goes back really far from the road.

Three headed dragon on a different post.

Once we got to Bar Harbor on island we took a scenic walk around the town. They had a flyer of different historic places in the town.

One of the places was an old church that had different stain glass windows. Some of them are even Tiffany windows. And I'm a sucker for stain glass so we had to stop and get pictures.

After that we decided to walk on the beach.

Jamie doesn't do to bad of a job taking our picture.

After all the walking and a little window shopping we decided to get something to eat. One of the places that was recommended to us was Thurston's at the other end of the island. This place is a lobster pound. You pick out what size lobster you want and they boil them out back for you.

Thurston's Lobster Pound

Here's the poor lobsters we picked to eat.

The lady working there was super funny. I asked her if I could take pictures and she let me go in the back with her when she dropped the lobsters in. They go in the little bag, dropped in the boiling water and then the lid is shut on them to cook.

Here is a bunch of the lobster traps on the dock.

First bite of the lobster claw and butter. You also get an ear of corn and coleslaw with the meal.

One of the other people eating took our picture for us.

After we got done eating we headed back to the bed and breakfast, grabbed a movie and just relaxed in our room.

Spike

I would like to introduce Spike. We got him the night we got back from Maine. I will be posting Maine pictures later.

I forgot how much work puppies are. I don't remember how old Fender was when we got her, but she seemed a lot bigger then Spike.

We'll see how long it will be before he is chasing Taylor and following her into the lake with the boys. Right now all I'm worried about it potty training.

Wilderness Walk

One of the field trips that Seth's class went on was to Wilderness Walk. It's a place here in town that has all sorts of animals. Some are in cages and some are just running around.


Here we go inside. Make sure you hold on to your buddy's hand. : ) I was only in charge of Seth and his two friends Dean and Matthew. Which made things a whole lot easier.

First up was the bears.

A cougar

Llamas.

And a Zedonk, which is half Zebra and half Donkey. I also took a picture of the sign because I figured people wouldn't believe me.

There you go.

You can also feed the goats.

Oh look a camel.

Then we got out more quarters and loaded up on corn. We turned around to go find more animals and this deer came out of no where and started to eat Dean's corn. I was scared at first, but then I saw a couple more running around and realized they were suppose to be loose.

Peacocks. If you have watched the movie Up and remember what the Snipe sounded like you will know what the peacock sounds like. It started to call and Seth looked at me and asked if it was a Snipe. Then started to tell other people in the park that there was a Snipe in a cage. I laughed every time he said it and then would correct him.

Elk.

This poor turtle was trying to escape. He just kept climbing the fence and then falling down.

There's also a spot to feed Trout.

Hedgehog.

Matthew, Dean and Seth.

Here you put corn in the coffee can and pull the rope so it can eat out of it.

Panning for gold.

One of the moms told me that on a normal day you turn the gold in for candy. Or something like that.

I have this feeling that I might see Seth like this again later on in life.

Seth's 7th Birthday

Wow I must have been busy again. I haven't updated in a long time.

Last week was Seth's birthday. During the day I went with his class to Wilderness Walk for a field trip. I will post pictures of that later. It was so much fun and I can't wait to take people there.

Seth's birthday dinner was of course McDonald's and he brought cupcakes to school for class. Then we headed home to open presents.


Seth got to make his own crown for school. The teacher has it all cut out and then they get to paint it with water colors.

We got Seth his own glove. Now he doesn't have to borrow his brothers for practice and games.

Pirate game for the DS.

Stars Wars Lego shirt. He had to wear this the next day. Loved it.

The last gift was his penguin Pillow Pet. He has been asking for this since Christmas. He normally sleeps on his stuffed dog, but all the stuffing is now in the head or feet. So he now sleeps on the penguin.

It's soooo soft.

Still can't believe he's 7.

Then on Saturday Seth had his first T-ball game. He kept calling it a battle. And of course I would correct him. After the game we got one of his friends and went to the bar and grill downtown. It has a 4 lane bowling alley in it and the boys played 2 games.

Here are the scores. Seth won the first game and Dean won the second. And yes we had the guard things up.

After that we walked down to West Dairy and got ice cream cones. It was a great day.

Science Project

Jakob had to do his first science project this year for school and we picked stalactites and stalagmites. We found the project in a book that his Uncle Joe and Aunt Corrina got him for Christmas. It has all kinds of different experiments you can do at home with stuff you all ready have around the house.

With this project you dissolve 1 teaspoon of baking soda in each of the two glasses of warm water. Then take three pieces of yarn and braid them together. Dip each end into the separate glasses and clip to the glass so they don't fall out. Then have a plate underneath the string to catch the dripping water.

Here is the project after a couple of days. As you can see I tried to move the box and a bunch of the water that was in the plate went all over.

Here is the project after about a week.

As the water evaporates off the yarn it leaves the baking soda behind. This is how the stalactites and stalagmites are also formed. As the water drips and evaporates it leaves minerals behind.

This summer we visited a cave in South Dakota, so I printed off three pictures from there that shows different cave formations. And I also had Jake write some stuff on the pages.

This page I had him write that the picture was from the Wind Cave in South Dakota. And also were the largest stalagmite is located. Which is in Cuba and it's over 213 feet tall.

The next picture is of the Box work formation in the cave. And I also had him write how the formations are formed.

Now the drama was on how I was going to get this to school. We decided that I would drive the boys to school so he didn't have to try and carry it on the bus. I put the project in the front seat with me and thought we were good to go. If you have been down our road you know the crazy curves we have. Well needless to say I took the first curve and the glasses tipped over and I had water everywhere. Of course a bunch of the formations fell off, but there were enough still on that you got the general idea. I then moved the box to the back and made Jake hold the glasses. I'm not to sure what he was doing, but they ended up tipping over again. We finally made it to school and got his project to his classroom. Thank goodness they were not being graded or judged on these projects. It was more for fun and all the other classes got to come in and see them.

Sounds like in 5th grade they have to do a small machine of some kind. That should be interesting.