Bon Voyage, Marie

We got back into town late Saturday night. The previous 3 days and 2 nights were spent in Boston as a last horrah before saying good bye to our friend Marie. It was a great trip to the big city including dinner with friends Caroline, Josh and Noah and a light early dinner and cocktails at the Top of the Hub restaurant in the Prudential Tower. We splurged and stayed right in the city and so did more walking and T riding than previous trips. It gave me a much better understanding of the city layout. Each step and each passing hour, brought us closer to the impending goodbye.


Marie was with us for about three weeks. Needless to say, Marie became part of the family. She was willing to try anything and met a slew of new people, both from France and Maine. Her french friends became our friends and our Mainer friends became hers. I hope that she got as much from being here as we did hosting. There was a lot going on during the time - we went camping near Sebec Lake, hiking in Acadia, we went to the Celtic Celebration in Belfast and did our best to put on a "Quatorze de Juillet" (Bastille Day) party. In-laws from Ireland visited as did friends from Portland and beyond. We cooked, We did yard work, we swam, we cleaned. Here are some pictures from our New England Odyssey. We will miss you Marie.





















































Merci beaucoup, Marie. Nous espérons vous voir bientôt.

Dirt Pie, S'mores and Sushi

Thursday night the troupe packed as much as we could into the CR-V and roof bag for a quick camping trip to Peaks-Kenney State park near Dover-Foxcroft. There was even room in the car for Basker. It was a fantastic campground with a park and sand beach thought we didn't get the chance to take advantage. Ciara is excited to return. Perhaps we can round up some other families to come with.

Marie, who has been very patient with my francais, has been eager to help in any way. She had never been camping before, but jumped right in to help me pitch the tent. This allowed Ciara to start a fire and get dinner ready. Rylan was suffice with a camp chair, lantern and a bottle of wine.....
After finishing half the bottle, he needed to be buckled into his chair so that he wouldn't fall over. If only adult camp chairs had seat belts. We dined on sausage, rice and tomato sauce followed by S'mores. Marie loves fluff, which is hard to come by in France (socialists!!), so we thought she would enjoy the campfire treat, also a first. We went to bed early, but enjoyed the meal and new camp gear that Ciara got for me as a father's /birth day present.

Rylan was the first to get up the next morning. Ciara took him for a short walk while I made some camp coffee. The activity so early in the morning wore him out though.









Aden slept much longer. He seemed to enjoy the hard cool ground. He had wanted to sleep outside the tent, but since he spends his days and nights almost exclusively naked, I didn't think leaving him to the horse flies and mosquitos would be good. Besides, my last camping trip involved black bears in the camp site.




Rylan is very close to crawling. He scoots around on all fours and can generally get to something that we wants. lately, he's been very taken by grass and dirt. No matter what other objects - toys, food, keys etc - we place on a blanket with him, he seeks out dirt or grass to munch on. He helped himself to a large helping for second breakfast after waking up from his morning nap.



We ate a delicious breakfast of fresh eggs, chicken sausage and feta. Marie missed it though. She enjoyed camping so much she slept through all of our morning stirrings. We were even able to remove the rain fly before she came out for a bite to eat. We finished packing up the tent and gave Basker a chance to get into the lake. We were headed for Bangor for some sushi and shopping. Marie was excited to go shopping. She said that she is always awake for shopping. We stopped for lunch first and then headed to the mall. It had been a long day but we all wanted to get home. I especially wanted to get some rest in preparation for the Winslow Summer Heat 5 K run....my first of the kind.


The race was this morning. Ciara had asked if I was nervous. I wasn't last night, though was a bit prior. I have been working on getting into better shape and had done a 3 mile run earlier this week. My legs felt good and I had found a pace that worked - about 10 minutes per mile. I left early to register and stretch. Many friends from school were there including Jared, Mandy and Lori. Mandy is a strong runner and quickly jumped in front of the rest of us and finished well before. Lori was next. She's also been working hard for this event. I was after her, though not visibly.

Jared......finished. He picked it up a notch when someone hinted that Oak Pond Brewery was shutting down, but if he hurried, could still get a growler. We all won Watermelons. I also won a ticket for two to the Waterville Opera house. Ciara and I are psyched. I very proud of myself for this feat. I was able to both mentally and physically participate. My time was just under 34 minutes. I told Ciara this was a success as it was a little bit faster than my practice run at the park yet the course was more challenging and longer. I'm now in the place where I have to keep doing such runs. I don't want to lose either discipline. I'm fearful that if I don't have events such as this on the horizon, I will get lax.

The day was a success however and in our own way we celebrated. I swam a bit at my mother's pool. Marie likes French Bread pizza so we got some groceries and made a delicious dinner.

Ironically, Marie hasn't done a lot of cooking but did a great job making the sauce and putting together this masterpiece. It gave me time for a photo op with Rylan:
Tomorrow we will clean, do yard work and get ready for a trip to MDI on Monday.

Treading Water

After two straight days in the 90 degree sun Ciara decided that it was time to have an indoor day. That was until 10ish when her good friend Janet called and invited us over to her place for a day on China lake. After an hour splashing around in the shallows, Ciara worked up the nerve to go tubing. I had told her a childhood memory of losing my shorts during tubing...she was paranoid that she would lose the bottoms to her two piece resulting in a girls only trip around the lake. Understandably, she did not want to be bottomless around former students.

After her trip around the lake, Richard took Marie and I out on the little sail boat. I want one of these lake cruisers. The wind had picked up by this point in the afternoon so we were getting some pretty good speed. Richard was patient with me as I helped man the ropes. Everything was going well until I got the bright idea to jump out of the boat. The wind was too strong to get the boat back to me. They eventually left me to my own devices in the middle of the lake. I was able to back float to a nearby point.

Exhausted, I was informed that we had been invited to dinner. Burgers...yum. Janet pulled together a delicious dinner while helping Ciara and Richard to teach a new song to family friend Churchill. Beth, our new babysitter, whether she knows it or not, played with Rylan. Aden was teaching Marie how to drum. Aden excels at drumming....something about the freedom provided by complete nudity allows him more flexibility.











As dinner neared, the music shifted. Richard and Marie worked to find a duet. Ciara, every the star and not to be upstaged by the French adolescent kicked Marie off the piano bench and showed off her skills. Aden continued to give drumming lessons, but with Churchill his student. We completed the jam session and ate dinner. Aden was pleased with his baby burger, but more entertained by the construction zone in the sandbox. Overall a great day. We are fortunate to have friends like the Prestons.

Notre Amie Francaise

The last post was back in February. Long story short....We went to Burlington with the Fahey's over April Break. Had a fabulous time. We got back and Ciara started up with Track and a multitude of concerts for school. So we were very busy juggling. School ended well. I went on a great camping trip in the White mountains with two friends from school. We had a black bear in the camp as a high light.

More recently, Ciara and I are hosting a teenager from France. Marie arrived late July 4th. The first night was rough as Rylan and Aden were both tired and cried for the first hour of the ride home. The last hour, we were treated to fireworks along Route 201 from Augusta through Winslow.




The last few days have been very hot. Marie joined us at my mother's pool on Monday and then a day at Lake St. George on Tuesday. Lake St. George is one of my favorite spots on earth. The water is almost crystal clear. We rented a canoe and paddled out to the rope swing.

After a rough day keeping cool on the lake we ventured to Belfast for gifts and post card to send back to France. We also bought some lobsters and mussels for dinner.

This is Marie's first visit to the States, yet she dove in to the seafood dinner. Any pure blood
Mainer would have been proud of her skillful and confident
approach.



We followed the meal with some Needhams (chocolate covered coconut) and a small dish of Gifford's Lobster Tracks Ice Cream. Ciara says that tomorrow will be in an indoor day since we've been in the sun for the past two days. In this case, Mommy knows best.

Footprints

We could not have had a better start to February break. I made banana pecan pancakes for breakfast using our new griddle. The first few were dark ("that's what she said"), but then I got the hang of it. After breakfast, I cleaned up and the four of us, five including Basker, went for a walk in the fields behind the house. It was a beautiful day so I went to the top of a knoll to see if could get a good shot of the Wind Turbines in Freedom. The prospect of Industrial Wind Power generation coming to the area has been a heated debat over the last year. Being Chair of the Planning Board, I will be glad when we are finished with the ordinance.

I realized as I rejoined the group that it has been a little less than 3 years since we first found out that Ciara was pregnant with Aden. Now we have two boys. Aden loves walking, running and dancing. I love watching him be independent. Along the way we found a few natural treasures. Deer droppings were all over. With the warmer weather, snow in the fields has melted and the deer have been moving.



There were many other tracks that we suspected could have been fox, birds, mice etc. Half way through our trek, Ciara saw a tuft of grass. We walked by for a closer look at what turned out to be a skunk carcass. Aden had many questions about this. He seemed to be able to recognize it as being somehow related to the cats and dogs that he sees everyday, but didn't understand why it was "incomplete" and what had happened. It was a long while before the image evoked fear. I ran ahead again to climb a deer stand and get a view from the vantage.

Initially I thought it was something that I could take Aden up on, but once I got up there thought against it. Aden had his own idea however and suprised Ciara and I both climbing two-thirds of the way independently. He further suprised us when he was able to climb down, with minimal support. Ciara and I were both relieved that neither Nannies were around to see it.

After our walk we went into town for groceries. The boys fell asleep as we expected, so we traveled further out to Skowhegan. The woman we bought our cloth diapers from opened boutique in one of the shops. We went there to get some supplies and an impulsive train set for Aden. Just down the road we broke for lunch at a fantastic spot. The Old Mill Pub was off the main drag but worth it. The interior was as Old Enlish/Irish as I've been in Maine. The pub fare was delicious - Ciara got the Fish and Chips and I a guacamole burger. Aden got a PB&J, minus the PB. To wash down the burger I had a fantastic Oak Pond Brew. MMM. I love my family.

Smelling Roses

I'm very excited for the next couple of months and the time that will be spent with my young family. We kick off the fun tonight, the beginning of February break for Maine schools, by heading to Bangor to watch Mount View win their playoff game. They were ranked 3rd in the Eastern Maine B and should go far into the tournament. Winslow's Girls team is also ranked 3rd, but we had to leave before their game kicked off at 8:00. Ciara and I have deliberately not made plans for the break. We'll have some time to work on Rylan's room, see some more tournament games. I might even get some time in the school to get caught up or ahead. Towards the end of the break we'll be heading to Orono to see the re-emerging Black Bear hockey team with my mother and Clair. I think they'll enjoy this as well .



The first weekend in march, we'll be heading to Boston to see friends, Caroline and Josh, and family Simon, Siobhan, Larry and Imelda. During the middle of the month I'll have a full week with Ciara and Rylan as part of my FMLA leave. I'm fortunate to be in the position to do so. Ciara will return to work after that week, I'll continue to stay home for another week and then return to school part-time for a few weeks. I loved having time with Aden without Ciara and feel confident that this go around will be just as good if not better.

The adventures culminate with a 3 night stay in Burlington, Vermont during April break. Last year we found the Lang House, a kid friendly B&B within walking distance of downtown.

26

Today was one of the best days of my young fatherhood life. Aden slept deeply all night and Rylan was cooperative with us in our room. We slept in, 6:30, but got an early start after showers. We decided to go out for breakfast and make our way to Belfast to visit the Coop, our favorite grocery store. This was our first grocery trip as a family of four. Aden had fun running up the aisles with a mini-cart and Rylan had fun...peeing. Fortunatly the Coop is an organic store and family friendly; none of the patrons seemed to mind the knee high read head tearing by or blocking the way.

Ciara and I unpacked while Aden hung out side. I eventually went up to the woodshop/garage/barn to open the door so he could go visit with the ducks and chickens. This was time he spent a prolonged period of time outside on his own. I'm sure both grammas would not have been happy had they been around but for Ciara and I was proud moment to see him finding enjoyment in the outdoors and being independent. This is why we live where we do.

This was the first weekend without company. I hadn't really connected with Rylan since his birth. Unlike Aden at that age, Rylan spends most of time asleep, when not nursing. So once I finished unpacking I settled down to enjoy a nap with the little guy. Ciara and I will both miss these times when the boys are young and small enough to fall asleep on us.

On the way home I had a new revelation. We knew on night of Rylan's birth that both Aden and were born on the 26th day of thier birth months (November and January respectively). Today I realized that Aden was exactly 26 months old when Rylan was born. Hmmm. So I googled 26 and found some interesting things on 26. Here are a few:

• Number of letters in the alphabet.
  
• Atomic number of Iron.
• Gematric number of the true name of God - YHWH.
• A Spiral Galaxy in Pegasus.
  
• The number of Spacetime dimensions in the original string theory.
  
• Michigan was the 26th state to foin the Union.
• The age at which males can no longer be drafted.