Camden

On Thursday we (Nana, Big Opa, Jake, Elena, Erin, Joanna, and Arlo) all went to Camden to visit Aunt Sue and see the Maine coast. First we had a lovely lunch at Sue's with Sam. Then we headed to Rockport.

From there, Sue took us to a local farm to see a herd of Galloways - we are big fans of Galloway cows thanks to Clancey the Courageous Cow, a beltless Galloway. The farm manager showed up and we got to take a closer look. We think we spotted Clancey and had a nice time learning about the herd.

Then Sue took us up a blueberry hill - Jake was crying in frusteration as our batteries pooped out halfway up the hill. Elena almost pooped out as well (no nap) but emergency cookies and Nana's patience helped her summit the hill and enjoy the wonderful evening light. Then we had dinner in Camden and headed home.

Beach time

Do you think that almost 2 feet of snow would stop our little beach lover from getting her time in? Of course not! Today we hiked out to Red Camp on the lake. Elena was excited to see the beach and brought along her toys to play there, shovel and buckets were loaded into the sled along with a wool blanket. Our little bathing beauty wore tights, pants, snow bibs, turtle neck, wool river driver, parka, and her felt pack boots along with mittens and wool hat. She made ice cream happily parked in a drift next to the small hump that is the fire ring in warmer weather. We enjoyed a nice walk in the snow and had lunch with hot cocoa in the new boat house (with heat!).


Headed to the beach


Time to play in the 'sand'

Christmas "Morning" Madness

What happens when you have a house full of 13 people including a 18 month old up at 6am and a 28 year old up at 10 am (motivated by the brute squad) for Christmas morning? Well, you don't start opening socks until noon! Let's just say that Elena was very, very patient.

Elena and Brayden passed the morning wait by vacuming the house with the ball popper. (also used as morning wake up for those with the gall to sleep past seven). Then we had breakfast, opened stockings, and started in on presents. Eventually we had to take a nap break for the kiddos and then started up again before our Christmas dinner of roast beast.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family. We are in Maine to celebrate this year.


Blogger is being quite a brat and not uploading pictures very well so here one and more posts will be on their way soon!

Tree Time

We love Christmas Trees! Last year we had a paper one, remember? This year we made up for it with three trees (one for the house, one for Elena's room and one with Nana & Big Opa).

We cut our family tree the day after thanksgiving. Gram and Opa were along to supervise. First we drove up to the parkway for a picnic I packed.

It was 32 degrees and the wind was blowing about 20 miles an hour. We ate in the car.

Then on the way home picked up this lovely little beauty from a family tree farm. It only cost us $15! For $25 you could get one of the huge church sized ones in the back log. Gram was busy trying to figure out if a tree qualified as checked baggage.


When we arrived in Maine on Thursday, there was snow! So we got to take elena out for her first snowy tree picking. It should be noted that she does not take after Gram and enjoyed the little jaunt!

I even found the tree this year! Very exciting.

And we made snow angels.

The Loft

Admit it, you've been waiting. Agonizing, gnashing your teeth. Few things prep the literary taste buds like the prospect of reading about someone (some idiot maybe) building a shed to keep pigeons in. Think Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Grapes of Wrath, epic occurrences, epic story lines. All swathed in 3/8" CDX plywood. This is the stuff dreams are made of.

It's been a long time coming, but the loft was a long time building. Over the course of about a month and a half of absent momma, Elena and I managed to put it all together. Except for the paint -- our savoring of the building process ran us short on the climate end of the spectrum and we're going to have to wait for spring before those gallons of latex can do more except hold down a shelf in the garage.

Like all projects, this naturally started with the expenditure of funds. In exchange we received raw materials -- miraculously almost ALL of them -- delivered to the house. The RAV4 is a great little vehicle and even lugs a few 2x4's or a sheet of plywood if needed, but the load of lumber, block, shingles and wire necessary for our "little" (biggest one I've built in about 5 years) loft would just have swamped it. So I went to Home Depot armed with a list. Left with the same list, a lighter wallet, and a receipt and two mornings later this guy showed up and dropped the whole pallet of lumber right in the garage:



Elena and I were both mightily impressed and "forklift" (kid sized) was immediately added to someone's Christmas list.

Phase one, that weekend, was leveling the site and getting the foundation square and level.



With Elena as sidekick



it only took about 4 hours.

The next day she left me in the lurch and went for a bike ride with Erin:



But I persevered and managed to get the deck onto the foundation, side walls and rafters up, and get the frame in front for the aviary.



Week of rain passes, Erin leaves town, and Elena and I do a Halloween party.



Post Halloween party, Elena and I did our level best to get the roof on as well as the front and back walls. Walls weren't too bad, but without a ladder the roof was a trick. Elena tried to build a path to the sky, but we ran out of bricks:



The "hard work" involved in that necessitated a break for Halloween cupcake:



Which unfortunately prompted a sugar coma:



Meanwhile I made a "ladder" out of a 4x4 and some 2x4 scraps and my sudden appearance on the roof catapulted Elena into quantum warp hyperactivity. Somehow we survived and even got a good slug of the shingles in place.



Erin returned and we got another week of rain. Following which, with winter looming, I managed to get the roof done, the aviary on the front, and all the "pigeon holes" on the inside completed.





None too soon (actual finish of everything was post another trip of Erin's and on Thanksgiving weekend) as our first residents arrived the first week of December. Archangels, noted for the beautiful plumage, are descendants of -- and believed to be more-or-less the image of, the ancient holy pigeons of Babylon who lived at the top of the same named tower and flew up into the heavens to "commune" with the Gods. Not bad credentials, hopefully their new home lives up to their ancestral expectations.

Jake! The _kings_ are here!

I have to preface this by admitting that we are not what one would describe as playing, or even practicing, church attenders. At the moment that status is decidedly "bench warmers" and if the religious right is holding out for us to come in and save them in the 4th quarter they are probably betting on the wrong horse. But we are not atheist and Christmas, including the "real" Christmas story and the concepts of familial closeness and gift giving as a symbol of love, is alive and well in our household. As a consequence of these two facts, Elena has a bit more of a pragmatic association with the Christmas story -- it having equal footing with other such Biblical sagas as "Thomas and the Big Big Bridge". Today I walked into her room to be informed that I needed to be quiet as she was talking with baby Jesus (note to self, leave rural Appalachia _soon_). I then received a lengthy discourse on baby Jesus' sleeping habits (in a covered cradle at that moment). I informed Elena that I was headed out to pull the car into the garage, got the OK, and went and did that. I walked back in from the garage to be confronted by Elena who, in an exasperated tone of voice, said "Jake! (which she has taken to calling me). The _kings_ are here!". Madness. The kings brought their kid with them (didn't know they had one did you?) and he was loud and rude and was yelling and waking up baby Jesus. Finally the kings gave their kid away to someone else because he was too loud (apparently an acceptable practice in 0 AD) and gave their gifts to Jesus -- he was sleeping so they had to put them on a shelf, maybe they should have kept their kid long enough to keep Jesus awake for the presents. With that sorted out, Elena settled down to nurse Jesus (yes, the second coming is upon us and I am the "grandfather" -- didn't know that either did you? Be a little nicer next time you see me.) while his older sister (I'd heard rumors of an older brother, but this is the first I'd learned of Jesus' 7 or 8 year old sister who he really likes quite a lot) kept him entertained.

And there you have it, "the rich, bulging, pageantry" of life with Elena in the Christmas season. Seeing as King James clearly muffed a few details in his translation, we'll be getting drafts of the "Princess Elena" translation to the copy editors soon and you can expect the accurate, revised version under pews near you by Christmas 2008.