Maine-iacs...

First day of vacation... a short review.

*Alex is up at 4:45... I have been awake worrying about the packing for two hours.

*Play, play, pack.

*Flight to Portland... a challenge with a one year old... less so with ours, but still.

*Bob & Robin pick us up... we try to visit a lighthouse, visit two that are not it, then the original target... fun is had.

*Brewery: closed. Boo. Bakery: open! Yay!

*Dinner at a hole in the wall, local, seafood, dive bar. Beer and food that was swimming this morning... nice.

*Alex is bored... we must leave to take a walk.

*Back to the hotel... drinks at the bar, bath time (thanks Ro), bed time.

Tomorrow... up early to have breakfast and head to Monhegan Island.

More later...

Audi, like a 5000...

Alright folks, we're out of here. Headed to Maine to do some hiking (if the weather holds out) and some relaxing. We hope to post pics and details along the way...

Finished product... for now...

OK... garden is planted... at least for now.


We have a couple different lettuces, tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, kale, cucumbers, and zucchini so far. We plan to get some more greens and some beans next week, but are pretty happy with the progress... we'll let you know if it actually produces any produce.

Garden gnom in a pink hat...

Today's progress on the veggie garden...


Hoping to plant tomorrow... stay tuned!

Training skeelz...

We are starting to very cautiously tip-toe in to the arena of potty training. Nothing too serious yet... just alot of, "say ba-bye to the poopoo," and being thrilled with feces and the like. We're on vacation next week so no pushing until after that. We got this new little potty (damn I hate that word... furthermore known as toilet to you, and to her):


..she wasn't a fan of the one that goes on top of the big toilet (who wants to have to balance two feet off the ground and poo?). She seems to dig it... she can sit there while the bath is being drawn or while we are, umm, taking care of business ourselves. All this info to lead in to this revelation of questionable tact:

I have to learn how the other sex wipes. Seems simple, yeah? I already knew about the front to back business. Makes sense. I get the mechanics... but, and forgive my lack of a mind-blog filter here, I seem to leave tiny, stuck on, torn off pieces of TP across the whole grid every time. It's like poopoo confetti.

I either need to practice or skip the TP and use wipes... or just not write about it for the whole world to read.

Garden, Part Deux...

Today we continued work on carving a vegetable garden out of the back corner of our yard... and I think we made some progress. The space started out last weekend looking like this:


And after today's toil, and that exerted last weekend, it looks like this:


You might think that this isn't much progress... but please consider that on top of 20+ wheel barrows full of gravel/stones/dirt that we pulled out, we also removed all of these stones (please note that this is a full size bench and not one of Alex's toys):


So we are whipped and happy. Hopefully we can finish excavating during the week and fill in with topsoil, manure, and compost as well as plant next weekend before we leave for a trip to Maine.

A girl and her balloon...

Alex and I go grocery shopping together most Fridays. She loves this. I currently go almost exclusively to two places... Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. She gets excited as soon as we pull in to the parking lot, but for different reasons. Whole Foods puts out lots of samples... and samples of good healthy stuff. I needn't plan a snack or meal after a trip to Whole Foods. Trader Joe's on the other hand saves the big prize for the very end... the balloon at the checkout.



When she first gets them she isn't content to merely hold the ribbon, but has to hug the balloon with both arms. A firm grip on a little slice of rubber heaven. We generally have approximately 1500 half inflated Trader Joe's balloons in our house at any given time... but it makes her soooooo happy.