Defensive Gardening

Here is a picture of the niece chilling with her iPad next to the new gas logs. These things are making the heater unnecessary, pretty much!

The holidays are always so busy – we did a lot this last month and January has not slowed down yet! We undertook making a new 2012 calendar for Grandma which entailed some photo shoots all over town of the kids holding up signs listing the important events and birthdays for the month, which also let to taking pictures of whatever else we found interesting. Oh, and led to some pouting sessions in the car, refusals to get out of the car, fights over who got the front seat for each leg of the journey (but I ordered a pamphlet called “Shotgun Rules” which should alleviate this problem in the future), not to mention grumpy faces on kids, including one kid who refused to remove his stocking cap for most of the pictures.

Did I give it away with the use of “his”?

After the driveway was finished, the kids did come back and we had lots of stuff to do before Christmas and before they went to their dad’s house for the week!

We had to make cookies:

Here’s a silly photograph and if we did Christmas cards, we would use this, but we did steal this idea from a “pin” on Pinterest from Barrett Jackson. The niece is totally responsible for the sign in her mouth. Merry Christmas!

We took some picutres downtown:

And took some pictures on the playground at Royall:

Here was a great pre-Christmas gift for the niece and nephew – lanterns from ThinkGeek.com – we had a lot of fun with these!

We also went to the zoo to see the Christmas lights:

Hopefully that takes us through the end of the year!

This ended up costing me $3.00. Actually, after a few shots of Matthew the wooden soldier, I told them I would give them a dollar for a smile, then another dollar, then I said I quit paying them. After all was said and done, I paid both $2.00, but Kayleigh told me she only wanted $1.00 and gave me one back. I guess two dollar bills were just too heavy and bulky for her pocket.

I printed out a bunch of pictures at CVS but still may do a book out of all of them so you don’t have to go through each and every picture.  I did have a great vacation and my only regret is that I think it wasn’t long enough! I have a bunch of pictures but will pare them down here. After the whale watching tour, I took Lucy on a drive down south and we checked out Blue Hill and some other small towns/villages.

The next day we went up north. We lost the key to the house which was a-whole-nother-issue but it ended up okay. We did pick up a geocache in the town of Lubec, Maine, which is the eastern-most town in the U.S. and also contains a bridge to Canada and I think it was at this point I realized that Lucy the Dog was making a concerted effort to take a poop in every state and every town in which we stopped.

I did manage to take some more pictures of the house and the view from the house.

Lucy and I then had to leave and head west to Niagara Falls. I will have to post those pictures later.

Wednesday I went on the whale watching tour – we saw a bunch of pilot whales but that is the only kind we saw.  The next time I run away from home to Maine, I will come in September. Maybe. Maybe I’ll just watch the Discovery channel with Matthew to see whales.

Anyway, before we saw the whales, I was all set up top on the third deck when it started raining – I think it was hailing but the girl kept saying it was just rain but it HURT so I gave up and went downstairs. I never did go back up there even after they said it stopped raining because it kept raining on and off so I stayed down there where I could hide out in an alcove next to the stairs. This one woman tried out a rain poncho that she must have bought on board the ship. It didn’t work out so well.

She later came out in another one. It suffered the same fate.

We saw some great scenery along the coastline of the Acadia National Park plus some cliffs that made it into a DiCaprio film. Not sure now which cliffs those were.

Then we saw whales:

And we saw seals:

You may be able to see their little heads popping up out of the water.

And here’s the lighthouse on the island where the seals hang out:

Here’s another light house:

And there are a bunch of pictures that I will post later from Thursday and Friday!

I did leave this a.m. with every intention of going on a whale watching tour – I had already ordered my ticket Monday and the guy didn’t say anything about parking.  When it became obvious that I was never going to find a parking spot that didn’t say “2 hour limit” on it since the tour lasts 4 hours, I gave up and called them and asked if I could reschedule.  No problem, she said, and rescheduled it for tomorrow, then when I told her what happened, she said, “Oh, no, they don’t enforce any parking laws this time of year.”  Oh, well, that would have been good to know earlier, but it’s not like I’m on any sort of schedule that can’t be adjusted.  I did drive around Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Island, then went to a grocery store to get some Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale or Beer to bring home but couldn’t find any of their Blueberry Soda and Root Beer – I did find the brewery, though, and will stop by there after the whale watching tour tomorrow.  I stopped by a going out of business gift shop and then came home.  I decided to try lobster tonight for supper so Lucy and I walked down to Perry’s Lobster Shack which is a short distance down the road.  On the way there, I saw the cottage next door’s security system which leaves a little bit to be desired but maybe they really don’t have any crime up here:

Here’s another cottage down the road – it is tiny:

Here’s the lobster shack:

And the menu:

And the lobster-heavy cart:

And dinner – there was also cole slaw and a roll but I didn’t get a picture of them:

I have never had lobster before – I’m not counting the lobster tails I cooked that were awful – but they need to come with instructions!  They are nothing like blue crab!

Got up early to let the dog out – I did go back to bed, until I woke up with a tick running across my arm.  Of course I didn’t kill it or put it outside, I freaked out and threw it across the room so it’s still there, somewhere.  I think I’ll sleep in the other bedroom tonight.  Anyway, here is this morning, minus the tick:

Here’s what I almost hit today after I went to the LL Bean Outlet in Ellsworth:

Later on, Lucy and I went to see what the rest of this road looked like.

And later, Lucy went nuts on the balcony – this is why:

I left yesterday, Saturday, and drove to New Jersey.  I set up the GPS to use a regular voice since Darth Vader just gets a little much when you are traveling but I did use the X-wing fighter from Star Wars:

We made it all the way to Somerset, NJ and here are a few things we saw on the way there.

And here is Lucy in the hotel, after she had major troubles trying to eat our of her travel bowl:

But she finally figured it out, had some dinner and stretched out:

Today we set out at 8:00 a.m. and managed to add an extra 1.5 hours to the trip due to traffic and stops that we needed to make anyway. I had a time getting from NJ to ME – New York posed a bit of a problem.

And I know I haven’t mentioned this yet but I’ve now spent more on tolls than I have on food (not including groceries that I bought for the trip). We are up to $39.95 right now. I have the breakdown in the notebook in my car but NY is the big winner of “highest tolls with the worst roads and worst attitudes of toll booth operators” award. One toll booth operator was so rude, after I paid him the money, I said “thanks” and he said, “whatever”. Damn, dude, I know it’s Sunday morning and everything, but it can’t be THAT bad, can it?

Whoa – wait a minute!  What the hell is going on in New Hampshire that they have state signs pointing out the liquor store that has its own exit on the interstate???  Don’t get me wrong – a liquor store, open on Sundays, easily accessible from the interstate?  Sounds like a plan.  Of course that may be the college student on the way to Mardi Gras talking, because the cough-cough year old me was very prepared and had no need for a Sunday liquor store stop.    Anyway – I can hear the Bible-thumpers bitching about it now…

I’m just not sure about New Hampshire – and I don’t even care – but I do think this is a little odd.

And finally, Lucy and I make it to Maine – and it is just beautiful!

After we reached the cottage, I unloaded with NO help from Lucy, took a shower, then fixed a drink and got to enjoy it sitting on the balcony looking at this: