Tuesday

Our kitchen is done! I just have a few touches left to do with the curtains and hang a couple of things up, but I'm calling it DONE. RJ put about 800 nails in last week (no joke) to get up all the floor boards, trim, quarter rounds, and trim, trim, trim. We've got a lot of trim work. And I love it! I got the job of priming and painting. We're a good team.

I'll post photos soon! I'm sure you are all dying with anticipation, right?! 

I'll at least leave you with some pictures of the kiddos. 

Henry talked me into buying Popsicles the other day and we've been enjoying them on the front steps. This August has been so awesome in the weather department!

My hours and hours (and years) of practicing braiding hair on my Barbie head have finally paid off. I can get Harper's hair into a french braid. One of the many (little) things I love about having a girl.

Then there's my boy. He has completely stopped napping and after a few rough weeks at first, he's doing great with it. He now just does "quiet time" either in his room or sometimes downstairs with me. One day he came down after his quiet time covered in marker:

He was pretty proud of himself and I have to admit I was a little proud too. He usually hates getting messy so this is a big step for him! 

And one of the many (little) things I love about having a boy? The nightly wrestle matches. After supper Henry has started cleaning up his toys without being asked, to make room for the nightly brawl. He's always the superhero (usually Spiderman) and RJ is always the bad guy. I sit on the side lines and save them from the bad guy and encourage Harper to get in on the action too. (and she usually does...and is pretty scary about how tough she can be) I love that she has a girly side but I really love that she has a tough side. Boys, watch out.

Hope you are all having a great week!

We kind of had a bummer weekend with RJ being sick for most of it, but thankfully we still had some fun with the kids last week when we got back from our vacation and spent the day all together on Tuesday....so it made the stuck-at-home weekend not so bad.

We had some Groupons to use up (seriously, what was life like before Groupon??) and started off with a walk to Great Harvest Bread Company.

The kids shared a yummy muffin and RJ and I got a cinnamon twist. Probably the best things ever created.

RJ and the kids did some racin'.

And then it was off to the zoo. (again...with our groupon zoo pass)

It was a beautiful day to go! I let the kids choose just one animal to feed each time we go since we go quite a bit. This time they chose the goats.

Then it was off to use another groupon at Flour downtown. They serve pizza by the slice. Pretty yummy!

We ate outside downtown. I love being outside downtown over the lunch hour for some people watching and the best part is that they all have to go back to work...but I don't have to. :)

The kids walked through the water on the way to the library.

We checked out some books and headed home for naps.

It was such a fun family day!

We also got to see Alisa and her 3 handsome boys and eat ice cream at Smokey Row.

And got the official call that Henry made it off the waiting list and into preschool! So he and I went over to take a little tour and pick up some paper work. He's going to a preschool at a church, but it works with the public schools so it is FREE. If we would have had to pay we wouldn't have done preschool, but I'm thankful for how it is going to work out. He'll go M-Th for a few hours in the morning. When we were talking the tour I actually got a little choked up...but now we're just excited. He doesn't start until Sept 6th so we've still got lots of time to party!

Here he is in front on the doors. It's a beautiful church!

We had a super fun week and are ready for another one. 

Hope you all have a great Monday!!

Maine

Talk about the best weekend evah. We left for Boston early last Thursday morning with our "free" stand-bye tickets. We got on both of our flights with absolutely no problem and got into Boston right after lunch time, rented our car, and drove north to Maine. We spent a lot of our time in Portland:

It was full to the brim with tourists, but still so beautiful and lots of fun. 

We found an amazing ice cream shop called Mountain Desert Ice Cream and we may have eaten there everyday...cuz it was seriously that good. 

The first night we ate at a little restaurant with picnic benches on the dock. It seems like a majority of the restaurants there had picnic benches outside to sit on. Lovely.

RJ is a little more adventurous than I and ate steamers (like clams) and gross things like raw oysters. Yuck. I stuck with the fish and chips, fish sandwiches, lobster and shrimp rolls. Delicious.

On Friday we drove up north to Bailey Island. It was my favorite day! The drive was absolutely breath taking. There were times where we were surrounded by water. I think I said "I can't believe how beautiful it is!!" about 100 times. Just gorgeous.

There were tons of little tourist cruises you could go on and we settled on one of the cheaper ones that was about 1 1/2 hours on this boat:

We saw all the little islands around, learned how they catch that yummy lobster, and even saw 2 dolphins!

After the boat ride we ate at Cook's and had our first lobster. It was really good, but we honestly didn't love it as much as we were hoping we would. Still pretty delicious though. Now, put that lobstah in a yummy roll with a tiny touch of mayo and we were in love.

These are just some more pictures from the edge of Bailey island.

There were so many beautiful homes! Probably a majority are just summer homes. Can you imagine living in this one?!

On Saturday we took a ferry over to Peaks Island. We walked around and ate some lunch. Again, it was beautiful!

We walked out on the rocks and read and relaxed for a while. It was so peaceful.

That night it was more yummy food, of course, and went to this cute little shack that was about 1/2 mile from our hotel. It was so good! And of course we just sat on one of the picnic benches they had in the back.

First thing Sunday morning we headed back to Boston. We were going to stay until Monday, but were a little nervous about the stand by tickets getting home. Plus, it rained all day so we couldn't have done much anyways. We couldn't get on the 11:00 flight....and couldn't get on the 1:30 flight....and barely, barely, got on the 5:30 flight. We didn't even get to sit by eachother, but were glad we made it! 

So it was a short trip, but by far the best trip we've ever gone on together. It's a bit heartbreaking thinking we'll probably never get up there again, or at least not for a very, very long time. It was exactly what I was hoping it would be. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Seriously, it was beautiful!

And now this week I've had the blues. Thinking "last week at this time we were...." but it is good to be home. In the middle of nowhere. Far, far, far from any ocean. But it's home. And I love it.