Is this legal?

I don't think she has her small boat operators license:

So serious looking!

I love this video because if you can see(sorry bad quality cause it's from my camera) she is driving all over the place like a drunk!

Maine part two

I left off at:

July 23rd, 2008

WOW, a sunny day!! Look, is that shadow I see:




Since it was sunny, we were again at the beach around 8:00 am. On this day we actually had to put sunscreen on the girls! It did get a little cloudy at one point but generally it was a beautiful day, so we spent a good long time at the beach in the morning. It was much more crowded this day, which made things a little more complicated with Gillian. She kept eying people's beach chairs and then would try and climb up on them... I would whisk her away screaming at me because she wanted to sit in a chair!

Abby had a great time playing in the sand, running around on the beach and hopping waves with me:

Playing on the sand castle
(diaper is on for a reason....)

This is when the tide was out.

Digging a hole... fun!

The beach was pretty quiet when we got there

We had sand for lunch

We had lunch at the beach - which was basically sand covered sandwiches and apples, luckily the girls are at an age where eating sand does not phase them! Around 11:00 Gillian was starting to get pretty cranky, so it was time to pack up and head back for nap time. During nap time, I would sleep too, while Eric went for a run, so it was nice to relax for a minute.

It was time for lobster so that afternoon we went to O'Rilley's to pick up some lobster and Sandborns for some giant scallops.


It was so yummy! The meat in the lobster was pretty small, but still excellent. I wish we could have had more. Abby was fascinated by the lobster and wanted to play with it, but of course, wanted nothing to do with eating it!!

July 24th, 2008.

It was another cloudy day, so we decided to go for a drive. We were thinking of going to a zoo in York, but it wasn't opening until 10:00 am and looked a little pathetic, so we decided to have breakfast in Ogunquit. I had stayed there as a kid and it was a cute little seaside town with lots of little shops. The problem was that there were millions of people too! It was nuts. The beach there is big and long, so I think that is why it's so popular. After eating we walked down to the beach for a short visit but didn't stay to swim or hang out.

Notice Gilly's new little shoes!

So cute!

Unfortunately, when we were heading home for their naps, the rain started! It had been cloudy the whole time, with sporadic rain showers throughout the week, but on this day it started for good. We spent the rest of the time either in the condo, walking around Kennebunkport or in the indoor pool. And while we were having a great time at the beach, we were not having too much fun inside. So after a couple days of it, we decided to pack it in a day early and drive home, with a stay in Stowe VT.

It was a good decision, because the girls were getting really tired, and we were too, thus tempers running a little short for everyone. But when we arrived it Stowe, it was like a weight lifting. We were halfway home, in a place that felt like home and the sun came out for us on Friday the 25th. We did a quick tour, checking out Nana and Bigdad's old house (available for $525,000):

Visited a real estate agent for fun, had some ice cream (unfortunately not Ben and Jerry's!! Which is just outside the town, but in the wrong direction), went to our favourite art store, the Stowe Craft Gallery, which make the COOLEST games tables in the world!! (this photo doesn't do it justice)
And then took off for home. We drove through the Notch and drove through rivers on the way home:

Lots of figgin' rain = flooding

All while the girls had their best "car sleep" of the trip
They were out for a couple of hours.

All in all it was a good trip, a little tireing, but glad we did it. Gillian is still trying to recover, she has been falling asleep at the table everyday at lunch... so we've been putting her to bed really early! Abby had fun, she loved the beach and is still trying to get sand out of her ears! We truly thank Den and Alexi for lending us their condo for the week! They are so lucky to have a place like that!

A few videos in parting:

The first day at the ocean:




This is Gillian eating some sand:

Maine the recap...

So Maine... we went from July 19th to the 25th. Our trip started with a one day driving marathon from Chelsea to Kennebunkport, Maine . It was a long 9 hour trip, that in retrospect should have been done it two days! Abby was easily entertained, with surprise bags I had prepared for her, books, food and drinks. Gillian, on the other hand, was not so easily entertained. When we'd stop to stretch the legs, and change a diaper, she would scream and fight being put back into the car seat. Do we blame her? NO, I would two if I was one year old and strapped into a car seat unable to move for hours!! So we didn't do any sightseeing, except for Eric's "kid in the candy shop" stop at the New Hampshire State Liquor store!!

July 20th, 2008

Upon arrival, the girls test out the furniture!

We arrived in Maine around 4:00 pm and had to stock up with provisions, so I went in search for a grocery store - the only thing within reasonable distance was the little general store in Cape Porpoise. After dinner We went in for a little swim to try and calm the girls down a little, gave them their bath and put them to sleep for the first time in the same room. Not a problem for Abby, since she shares a room at daycare, and at first OK for Gillian too. Unfortunately that first night she woke up for a couple of hours, crying and sad because I think she didn't know where she was. The condo didn't have blinds on the windows, so it was much brighter than what they are used to at home.

On a side note, we were staying at our friends condo near Goose Rocks Beach (see map). It was a cute little two bedroom place with access to both indoor and outdoor pools, and gym and games room, which we used a lot because of the rain.

On our first official day there, we decided to hit the beach! Goose Rocks Beach was fantastic. The sand was so soft and fun to play in, and when the tide was out, the space was great for Gillian and Abby to run free in!

Abby discovers the beach!

It was a perfect place for Gillian to run free

After a few spills in the water... they got n-ak-ed!

She loved the water!
She also loved the sand!!
Gillian protecting our sand castle... you go girl!

Love this shot!

As you have undoubtedly noticed, it wasn't exactly sunny. But we were lucky to have had at least a couple of rain free hours at the beach with the girls, and moments after we started packing up, the skys opened up and it poured!

Here comes the rain...

That afternoon we spent eating fried clams in Kennebunkport, and swimming in the indoor pool!

July 21st, 2008

Unfortunately the second night spent at the condo was a sleepless one as Gillian once again decided that she couldn't sleep from 12:00 am to 3:00 am, and still woke up at 5:30!!! So we were progressively getting more and more tired. But in order to make the best of it, and being up so early, meant getting to the beach early and getting a prime spot (as we were the only family on the beach -- all others were the early morning joggers!)

Day two provided us with a little more sun, but really only glimpses of it from time to time!


Again, the rain hit so we rushed home - which was fine, it was usually time for lunch and naptime by them!

July 22nd, 2008

We decided to go to Kittery, for some outlet shopping on the Tuesday, since it was raining again and we thought that it would be a good plan to shop on the not-so-nice day. It was good, I finally bought Gillian a couple pairs of shoes at the Stride Rite shop as well as some cute clothes for the girls. Eric bought some nice clothes and I got myself a raincoat and some stuff from J. Crew. All in all it was a good, quick, shopping trip to Kittery!

Stay tuned for the continuation of the Maine Recap... as it only gets more and more exciting from here!! I'm off to bed!!

Back from Maine...

We're back!! I'm not going to post all the details tonight, since I'm still trying to recover, but in short: It was fun, stressful, tiring, good shopping, great lobster and scallops, WET, sandy and far. The details, with photos, will follow hopefully tomorrow, if I get a chance to write!

Here's a quick pic of us at the beach:

Later!

On Vacation!!

Yeah! The car is packed, the car is gassed up and were off to Maine tomorrow! I'm excited and Abby is excited too. She has been telling people all week that she was going to the pick sea shells and see whales in the ocean. I've been telling people I'm going to be eating lobster all week. Gillian is oblivious to what is going on, but I keep telling her anyway. I hope the drive goes well, it will take a while to get there, and were are doing it all in one day!

Since I'll be gone, I won't be blogging all next week! I'll go into withdrawals! I'll bring my journal along so I can record it all when I get back - with photos of course!

In the mean time, I leave you with these 7 pages I did today. I was catching up with my Bruce Peninsula book and did a scraplift over at DD.










See you in a week!!

I love looking at old photos

I would often pull down our family albums from our childhood when I still lived with my parents. I still enjoy to flip through them from time to time. And now that I have the scanner, I plan to digitize some of the old photos and slides and clean them up. All I need is a plan of action because there are a million slides and photos to scan!

Now instead of flipping through albums, I'm clicking through digital photos. I figure I started taking digital photos about 3 1/2 years ago when my dad bought his first Canon G2 camera. I find that totally amazing because it feels like we've been using digital for much longer than that, and I already have amassed hundreds of photos!

I was flipping through the set we took on our vacation to New Brunswick in July 2006. And memories came flooding back.... Abby was 11 months old, and had a terrible time sleeping that week, so it was brutal in those regards (otherwise it was great - weather, food, beach etc)!! I remember she was sleeping in the playpen and each night she would sleep less and less, waking up earlier and earlier and not going back to sleep. We would put her in the stroller and walk her around in circles, we even loaded her into the car and drove for miles to Jacket River at 1:00 am. If it was today, I think I would have just let her cry it out, but back then we were suffering from first child syndrome, and we also didn't want to disturb the others in the house at the time. Finally, near the end of the week, I couldn't take it any longer and I just wanted to go home, so we packed the car and were going to leave for home the first moment Abby woke up. I was prepared to leave at midnight if we had to and drive the 12 hours home! All I wanted was to get home so she would sleep and then we could sleep!!
The car was packed up with all of our stuff, gassed up and ready to go... and what happened... she slept the whole night. As it turns out Gail, my mother in law, suggested that maybe the bottom of the playpen was too hard, and that we could try laying a blanket down to soften it up... duh!! How could I have been so dumb!! The playpen was rock hard, so no wonder she didn't want to sleep, she was miserable! Another note taken for our parenting manual as a lesson learned...

The Culligan Home
A great photo of Eric!
Playing on the pebble beach
Abby would love this now!
On the Bay de Chaleur

It's amazing how photos capture the moments and almost create memories for us. We all seemed so normal and happy in these photos, but they sure don't convey the complete sleep deprivation we were all suffering. I'm not sure I know how to take a picture of that...

A day at the office and Independence

Worked today, here is a quick synopsis of my day:

• wake up at (5:30 am)
  
• try and eat something (I have a lot of trouble eating that early!!)
• pack my pannier bags (hopefully not forgetting the essentials!)
  
• jump in the car
• drive to Mousette Beach and park (20 min)
• get my bike off the car
• bike to work (25 min)
• shower
• log into my computer (7:30 am)
  
• work until colleagues get me for coffee at Tim's (9:30 am)
  
• work some more
• go for lunch when colleague comes to get me for lunch (11:45 am)
  
• work some more
• change for biking (3:15 pm)
• bike to car
• drive to Chelsea, sometimes stopping off at the grocery store for food)
• pick up girls (4:30 pm)
  
• get home and feed screaming baby and girl
• prepare dinner
• eat dinner (6:00 pm)
  
• give girls bath
• put girls to bed (7:00 pm)
• come down to have some me time playing!!
• crash and go to bed (10:00 pm)
• tend to crying child (3:30 am)

Repeat 5 times Monday to Friday.

My friend Beth blogged about independence in her children and it made me think of our life and how we are at the very infancy of independence in Abby. Tonight was a perfect example. Abby was done dinner, so she excused herself politely (OK maybe in my little fantasy world she did, but in reality she said "I'm done" and got down from the table), she went into the kitchen and we heard rummaging around in the lazy-susan cupboard. She came walking back with a bag of cookies in her hand for dessert. Opened the bag and grabbed a couple of cookies, then jumped up in her chair and started eating them... the next thing that happened was that after her cookies, she went up to the TV room and started yelling "Mommy - turn on the TV!!!" I said no, if she wanted to watch she would have to turn it on herself (which she had never done before). I added that if she needed me to point out the power button, she could bring the TV controller down and I would show her. She apparently didn't need even that amount of help because the next thing we heard, she was yelling "Mommy!! I turned the TV on!!!". I realized when I read Beth's blog that while she was a few years down the line on us, we were just at the very beginning and that I should really cherish every moment that I have with them as little girls. We all know that as time moves on they become more independent and as a result more distant. I certainly did when I was a young girl!! It must have been tough on my parents. But no matter what I always loved them just the same even if I never really showed it.

PEI 1976