Lead-Up to Christmas

A couple of things we did this year leading up to Christmas was visit Santa's Barn Yard at LL Beans. Carey's mom works there and Beans does something like this every year. It is only open to employees and their families. They have employees who dress-up as different rolls at different stations and the kids walk through doing different activities. They run it for about 8 hours, in half-hour blocks. I think, she said they had around 4,000 people go through!

Making an ornament and being spun for pin the nose on Rudolph!



Giving the list to Santa

And of course we went and got our Christmas Tree. We found this tree farm in Dresden and decided to give it a try. Well as you will see in the pictures the pickings were very slim. This year was his last year in business so finding a great tree was tough......I mean impossible. Once you have the kids there you really can't pack them up and say we are going somewhere else without a melt down. They don't really care if the tree has a bald spot or not, they love it once its decorated no matter what.

They had a good time being pulled and pulling each other through the field. The toughest part was we had to go to the furthest part of the field for any trees and that means they had to walk the whole way back because the tree was on the cart.

Disney

I will get some stories up later, but here are a few pictures from our Disney Vacation last week.

First E.R. Visit

Well Boy 2 had his first visit to the emergency room on Monday. Carey was surprised he didn't have a file at Parkview yet. I guess all the things Boy 1 did to himself (Croup, broken collarbone, fall on his face etc. we became pretty skilled at addressing things.

Though we never learned how to do stitches. Within 90 minutes of being at daycare on Monday after our week at Disney, he proceeded to go head first into a window sill. The funniest part of it all is that Audrey was on vacation so there was a substitute daycare provider there. She felt horrible, but there was nothing she could have done to prevent it.....but it was fun making her feel worse over the past few days!

When Carey finally got a hold of me at work they were all ready at the E.R. She said they were about to start stitches. While driving to the E.R. all I could think of was I remember putting him in a white shirt that morning, I figured it would be covered in blood, but there was nothing on him at all.

When I got there the staff was singing the praises of how well Boy 2 was doing. The nurse said he was easily the best kid they have had in the past 3 or 4 years. Wow, this is the kid who whines at everything. I got there in time to see the final 3 of the 7 stitches go in, not one whimper out of him! The Dr. said kids that young sometimes have to be sedated in order to take stitches. Not Boy 2, some numbing gel and a little shot for good measure.

Halloween and Snow

So the boys wanted to be pirates for Halloween, well actually Boy 1 did and Boy 2 just wants to do what big brother wants lately. I do think Boy 1 will use this power for evil eventually. There is a cartoon on Disney called Jake and the Neverland Pirates, essentially it's Peter Pan.....with no Peter. So Carey again has an idea on how to "make" these costumes for the boys, whips out the sewing machine and presto you now have Jake and Captain Hook.

Though the picture doesn't really show it, the day before Halloween we got 5" of snow. I recall many years of having to wear hats and mittens while trick-or-treating or having to try to put some sort of coat under your costume but never trudging through snow. It only lasted for about 2 days, but it really sours your attitude when you get snow this early. It makes it worse when these two monkeys can't stop talk about how great snow is.

Just Some Catch-Up

This is the first year of playing soccer for Boy 1. I knew soccer was big for the Rec Department, but I didn't realize it was this big. Boy 1 plays on 1 of 14 teams of 5 and 6 year olds, each team has 8-9 players. It's a very tough team to watch.....well because Boy 1's team isn't very good. I'm sure thats why the slogan came along "winning isn't everything." It came from parents who were subjected to watching this. But he likes it!

Carey calls these the varying degrees of cool! Friday was a little on the chilly side and they were each told to put something warm on if they wanted to go outside...........this is what they came up with.

2nd Round of SweetPeaz

Boy 2 started pre-school a couple of weeks ago. We were a little nervous of how hard it would be to leave him there. Once he would be there he would be fine, but the continious hugs not wanting us to go was our worry. First day, smooth as pie. He just went to the window after 1 long hug and waved to me. There were no issues until yesterday, Carey said she picked him up and the teacher talked about the wonderful day he had and everything was fine.

Oh they don't hear his little voice once he leaves. He says to Carey, I hate this school! Walks to the stairs a little more, I hate those flowers! He always has some great under his breath comments that nobody sees coming. There's probably no reason for the comments and he will be fine, but he is pretty funny.

The Girl with the Golden Hair

Just for fun, if you ever want to embarass Boy 1 ask him about Rose, the girl with the golden hair. It's pretty funny........he doesn't wanna talk about it.

They both went to pre-school together and the picture is from soccer camp this summer. Yeah, he digs chicks!

The Creepy Neighborhood Kid

Boy 2 has a fasincation with watching all of our neighbors through the windows or even in plain view and when someone starts mowing, everything else stops.

This has gone a step further now. Boy 2 asked for a drink and snack and then walked outside. He had pulled out his camp chair, set it in the driveway and watched John mow his lawn for about 15 minutes. Just sat their the whole time and made sure he did a good job I guess.

First Day of Kindergarten

This day has snuck-up on us so fast. Our oldest child in going to school. Boy 1 has been counting down the days for about 3 weeks. Everyday..........Daddy, how many days until school? He is so excited to be going to school, which is awesome.

This morning we got pictures done outside of the house, Carey's Mom and Grandmother came over to get pictures and to watch Boy 1 get on the bus. Then we rushed over to the shool and saw him get off the bus. He didn't even hesitate going to school, gave everyone hugs and kisses and never looked back.

Tonight, I told him that he only has 2 more school days until he gets 4 days with Mommy and Daddy. He was so disappointed, "I wish I could go to school everyday." Wow.........keep studying buddy and get lots of scholarship money.

This Year, It's Story Land

We had been tossing around the idea of just going back to Santa's Village again this year, the kids had so much fun and we really liked the park. Instead we decided we should give Story Land a try. It was pretty good, no complaints but certainly did not measure to the level of Santa's Village.

This was the kids favorite ride, they had all the controls. Pull the lever back and it raised our shoe.

This is a giant bubble room with thousands of foam balls that you can suck into tubes and then they get shot out of a box in the ceiling. Boy 1 also really like the cannons that you can fill with about 10 balls and shot them down onto others below.

This is a great picture taken by Carey, the only bummer is we now have 2 of them. We purchased this same picture from Story Land for $12 not knowing Carey's picture came out so good!

Time in Rangeley

No real stories during vacation in Rangeley, just alot of swimming, moose watching and seeing the greatest parade float ever!!!

When heading to Rangeley we went to Sugarloaf and rode the super-quad to the top with plans to walk the trails. Due to poor planning, nobody slept in the car and they weren't walking anywhere.

We really gotta work on just taking the pants down just a bit

We had one night of rain so it was a perfect time to check-out the new "Moose Alley" bowling alley. This place is very cool and should do well in Rangeley.

Boy 2 cross dressing in mom's P.J.'s

Just south of Rangeley is a set of falls and hiking trails called Smalls Falls. Very nice are and easy for the kids. The water was still surprisingly very cold.

Boy 1 had predicted we would see 10 moose and on our very last trip through we spotted a very dark spot............and it was our 10th moose! Thank God!

On Saturday before we headed home we stuck around for the Rangeley Logging Museums Parade. It was a very cool parade with lots of big truck and some cool floats, but none greater than the local Porta-Potty business. Presenting the best parade float I have ever seen!

I also found out today this guy works with my dad at the Ship Yard. Probably lots of time hiding in the bathroom!

Distracted Drivers

This picture gives me a chance to vent. Whenever I pass a car and the person has ear buds in I wonder if they can hear anything around them in traffic? Sirens, motorcycles, etc. Oh and while Im at it people with little dogs sitting in the drivers lap or its head hanging out the window, your telling me those people can swerve quickly if needed.

Ahhh, I feel better now!

4th of July Weekend

The 4th was our first extended time off this year and it was so nice. We had a 4-day break from work and we did a few things but mainly stayed home did some small projects and swam in the pool.

We went to Reid State Park on Friday, this was the first time the boys had been to a beach with waves that they could swim at. Boy 1 was all about getting into the waves, Boy 2 not so much. We thought Reid State would be good because we could go over to the lagoon side for a little break from the waves. Well the lagoon was not what neither of us remembered as a kid. We both thought there was a sandy area to sit..............theres not and the mosquitos were unbeareable. The funniest thing at the beach was looking back at the surf and seeing Carey cracking-up laughing as Boy 1 was being rolled like a log in the surf. He jumped right back-up with a big smile and ran back in.

I took the picture of the back of the car initially because I couldn't believe how much stuff you need to pack to go to the beach. A cooler, food, toys, towels..etc. But once we got their I realized how efficient we were, my word people you will only be there for several hours.
Chairs, umbrellas, tents, multiple coolers, radios the list just goes on. It looked as though people were homeless carrying all of their possesions.

Because the 4th was a Monday and we had to be back to work bright and early on Tuesday we didn't go to any of the local fireworks shows. Instead we went to Portland on Sunday night and watched the Sea Dogs fireworks show following the game. We didn't have tickets to the game instead we drove to the top of the Maine Med parking garage and watched them from there. If youv'e ever spent any time at Maine Med you know the hospital overlooks the ball field. Great view and no traffic afterwards.

On the 4th we went to Bath to watch the parade. We had very good seats this year, we were close to City Hall, where the judges sit. This allowed us to watch any perfomances the parade participants were doing as well as there was live music prior to the parade. Our plan following the parade was to walk to Library Park for some food, the craft fair and they usually have a bounce house for the kids. Well we didn't read the timing of all the events so most everything was gone except for the food by the 4th. I don't understand Bath Heritage Days, the event is more important than the nations birthday. The whole reason they are successful is because they hold Heritage Days during the 4th weekend. Well, you really can't expect much from people that attended Morse High.

You can't tell me Boy 1 isn't scheming some plan to make Boy 2 do something he shouldn't in this picture!