Maine-iacs

Waiting to board the plane in Orlando.

Wow, it's been awhile since my last post.  A good reason for that is that we've been busy.  Ha!  Actually, we've been busy because we were travelling.  And what great travel it was.  The girls and I left on Wednesday, 3/30 and Duncan flew up on Friday to join us.  Then the four (and a half) of us returned on Tuesday afternoon.

We were lucky that we were able to get out on Wednesday without a hitch as the weather took a really bad turn here and there were hurricane like winds.  But somehow our flight didn't even get delayed.  Since it was just me and the girls, I was hoping that Duncan would be able to take us to the gate but alas, JetBlue does not give gate passes.  Maybe none of them do anymore...I don't know.  As it turned out, I didn't really need him anyway.  When we got to security, I barely even knew where I was.  They changed everything around since we last flew (which was in November) with security.  There was a very specific line for people with families/strollers and there was virtually no one in it (despite the rest of the lines being fairly long) so it was a pretty non stressful event.  We were in the next to last row on the plane and unfortunately, since the plane was mostly full, we did have a teenage boy who claimed the middle seat (I always book the aisle and window seats).  I had asked the male flight attendant if there were any empty middle seats elsewhere for the person to sit in (this was before the teenager showed up) and he kind of mumbled something about waiting until everyone boarded.  Then, the teenager came, no one else was boarding, and I noticed an empty seat two rows ahead.  I asked again if it was alright for him to move and the flight attendant was like, "I'll get back to you."  He disappears, they close the front door, and so I ask the female flight attendant if the kid could move (he was very willing...probably didn't want to sit next to two little girls!) and she says "Oh, no.  You can't move now.  We've closed the doors."  Needless to say, I was a little frustrated.  The funny thing is that when we got off the plane, we ended up on the elevator with just us and that male flight attendant.  He was all friendly and chipper and I almost wanted to give him the evil eye but alas, I was a good sport.  Anywho, as it turned out, the girls were as good as gold and even though we didn't have a whole row to move around, it all worked out fine (by the time the seat belt sign had gone off, the kid was pretty comfortable in his aisle seat and I didn't have the heart to ask him to move to the middle seat a few rows up).  Neither of them slept at all (the flight left at 7:40 pm and arrived around 10:20) which was fine because I'm sure I wouldn't have been able to carry one or both off the plane if they had fallen asleep.  My parents picked us up and off we went after what seemed like a thousand year wait for our darn car seat.

Thursday we hit up the Boston Science Museum with my mom, Kathy, and Bruno.  Unfortunately my pass to our science museum down here at expired at the beginning of March and I hadn't renewed it yet or else it would have worked out very nicely.  Kathy was still able to get us pretty cheap tickets with a library pass, though.  Calleigh had a great time with Bruno, as usual, and Aubree had some bonding time with Gigi as they both had a bit of a catnap at one point.

Holding hands on the way to the Science Museum.

Watching an experiment.

I'd say this speaks for itself.

Friday morning we left for Maine.  The big event of the weekend was the Northern New England Music Clinic that takes place at Pine Tree Academy in Freeport.  Many students from the SDA schools throughout New England come to take part in the choir and band.  My cousin, Jonathan, was the guest director of the choir so he came up from Texas.  With us coming up and then David (Jonathan's brother) and Yully surprising everyone by coming up with Duncan, it left only Ricky as the family member missing from the event (all my other cousins are in the New England area so they came as well).  I won't go into the details of exactly WHY he wasn't there.  If you care to know, you'll have to ask him.  Anyway, my mother had rented a house for us in Freeport for Friday - Sunday nights.  It was us, them, and Shawn's family (which now totals four with the addition of Acadia).  And oh my, what a beautiful house.  My mother really outdid herself again.  We were blown away by the house we had rented in North Conway in September and this one was almost, if not just as, nice as that one.  It was right on an inlet of the ocean so we had an amazing view.  Not only that, but Duncan and I were lucky to get the master suite which was a huge room with it's own bathroom and another "kid" room attached to it that the girls could sleep in.  We checked in on Friday afternoon.  Duncan's flight came into Boston around 5ish so he arrived around 8ish.  My father had stayed behind and picked up him, David, and Yully.

Our room.

Jonathan, Marcela, and Zasha.  Got to see her for the first time!

Sabbath we went to Sabbath School and then church at the school were the program was going on.  One of the songs the choir sang was "Give Me That Old Time Religion" which is recent favorite of the girls.  We have a DVD of the Cedarmont Kids singing that song and somehow it's gotten to be their favorite.  Even Aubree signs it although the only part she seems to know is "Give Me That Old Time Religion" which she repeats over and over (I think that's a redundant statement, isn't it?).  But it was neat for them to hear the song "for real."  After the service, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, came back to our house for haystacks.  We probably had like 50 people there.  It was nice having everyone there though because then I could just take Aubree right up for a nap and not have to worry about going somewhere.  Meanwhile, I specifically avoided having Calleigh take a nap because it was so much easier just having here go to bed and sleep when Aubree did since they were sharing a room.  After Aubree's nap, we tried to get a second generation cousin picture of the seven of them, which we did, but Aubree was just not a happy camper.  She gets into this mood when we're somewhere else that she's not accustomed to and she's surrounded by a bunch of people.  She's just not her usual self in those situations.  She's SO not like her sister.

Mia - 9, Tyson - 5 months, Acadia - 7 weeks, Camden - 22 months, Calleigh - 3, Zasha - 5 months, Aubree, aka, the one having a fit - 22 months.  Actually, except for Mia, they all kind of look like they're being tortured.

Mia's shirt made the exciting announcement that she'll be a big sister.  Leigh is pregnant and due November 2.  There are seven second cousins now but they'll be three more babies before year end (me, Shannon, and now Leigh).  

Sunday morning the whole family went down to Portland to the Sea Dog Brewing Company for breakfast.  It was great food and a great time.  From there, the party started to break up as Jonathan, Marcela, and Zasha had to depart to go back to Texas.  Later, back at the homestead, I gave a brief couponing lesson to Aunt Lori and Alison who have been inspired by my recent savings.  My mother pretended to be interested in it and sat in for a few minutes and then abruptly, she was gone!  I was impressed that she actually feigned interest for a bit.  Even when I was a kid, I was always the coupon person in the family.  I would cut out the coupons and when my mother would use one, she would give me the cash for it.  Great way to make money when you're 10!  After another Aubree and Mommy nap while Duncan took Calleigh to L.L. Bean, we had some company over.  It was our old friends Norman and Kristin McGuire and their three boys ranging in ages from 9 - 18 (or thereabouts).  Well, Calleigh went outside with those three boys and she as out there forever with them.  Keep in mind that these are older boys and that it was like 40 degrees out.  That didn't phase her a bit.  I couldn't believe they would play with a 3-year old but they sure did and Calleigh had the most wonderful time running around outside.  Prior to that, she had gone down on the beach with Duncan and roamed around.  She just can't enough of being outside (a trait that I will freely admit she does not get from me).  Clearly, she slept well that night.

Uncle Terry and his Mini-Me, Tyson.  Seriously, they could be twins if not for the age gap.  

Aubree and her good pal, Uncle Charlie.

Oh, did I mention that it snowed on Friday?  I think I left that part out.  Yup, it snowed like maybe 6-8 inches in Maine.  It covered the whole ground like it was middle of January or something.  I could have done without it but it made for some good playing for Calleigh on Sabbath afternoon.  It had mostly melted by Sunday with the warmer temperatures and then on Monday, it was raining so it was really gone.  Nothing like snow in April!

Our poor little snowman was pretty much all that was left of the snow come Sunday.

Monday morning we were up and out of the house and it was back to my parents.  We stopped at a few outlets and then my parents and us stopped at Macaroni Grill in Portland for lunch as we both had gift cards.  We then hit the road.  As we were crossing from New Hampshire into Massachusetts (this is in the Portsmith area), we noticed some cops sitting on the side of the highway and then as we went over an overpass, we saw some cops on the road below blocking traffic.  It was the same at the next exit.  My father, who was a few minutes behind us, called to tell us that the cops had blocked off the highway.  We even saw a helicopter flying over head.  But there was no sign of an accident or anything so we were perplexed.  When we got to my parents, I looked it up on-line.  Guess who was in Portsmith, New Hampshire?  You guessed it.  Joe Biden, who is apparently stocking me!  Who would think I would be in the vicinity of his entourage twice in a two week period?   That was a very weird coincidence.

Me and my two girls.  Weird to think it won't be just us anymore come nine weeks.

Tuesday it was time to depart which worked out quite well since my mother had been waiting, for months for the state to come to her nursing home for their annual assessment and wouldn't you know, they showed up on Tuesday.  It was very kind of them to wait until we were leaving.  Our flight left at 2:05 and of course, we had Duncan with us this time so it makes for a much easier time.  Plus, there was barely anyone at the airport so that was an extra bonus.  Unfortunately our flight did get delayed this time but only by 45 minutes.  This time the plane was a 2/2 with seats so we didn't have the option of getting a whole row or anything (it's weird how it always seems like a 2/2 going from Boston to Orlando but a 3/3 going from Orlando to Boston.  You would think it would be the same number of people going down as up).  We got into our seats and Calleigh was already sleeping by the time we were taxi-ing down the runway.  For someone who doesn't take naps much anymore, she sure fell asleep pretty fast.  Aubree wasn't far behind her so I was very thankful.  They slept for probably a little more than an hour.  By that time, you have such mixed emotions.  On the one hand, it's so peaceful when they're sleeping.  On the other hand, you're uncomfortable and you have to use the facilities (which I do ALOT thanks to being pregnant).  Anyway, we got home around 7:30 and because of the delay, we couldn't pick Dewey up at the kennel until the morning.  I was so tired that I think I konked out at about 10:00 which is pretty early for me.  Don't you love it when you're so tired that you hit your wonderfully comfortable bed (after being away from it for a week) and within about 5 seconds, you're sound asleep?  It was one of those nights and it was wonderful.

So....back to the regular life.  Poor Calleigh was very disappointed in not being in Maine anymore.  On Wednesday she must have talked about Maine on at least five or six different occasions including asking me very bluntly, "When are we moving to Maine?"  I'm not sure which one of my relatives put her up to that!!  Other times she would just say, "I wish we were in Maine."  Clearly she had a very good time.  It was indeed wonderful being all together.  Acadia was so precious.  She's a little less than two months old and such a good baby.  She actually reminded me of Aubree in that she kind of just lies there and doesn't make a peep.  Very different from her other cousin and her brother if I do recall!  Camden fits right in with the girls and seriously, he can't be much cuter.  He's a real sweetheart and always seems to be smiling.  Okay, I know I'm biased here.

Breaking into Calleigh's toys.

I think Aubree had a good time too despite some of the times when she was fairly crabby/crying.  One of the things that I got such a kick out of is her reaction to seeing things that we had brought with us.  For example, I had brought the music player that's in her room.  Well, when she saw it in the room in Maine, she got all excited and said "It's the same!!"  This happened with a bunch of other things like her toothbrush, books, etc. Poor little dear just didn't seem to understand that those were actually our things that we had brought with us.  It was really too funny to see her excitement over it though.

Just a random picture of Aubree.  We actually had hit up Cocoa Beach the weekend before Maine.

Regular life back at home these last few days has consisted of the playground (boy, was the low 70's and sunny day on Wednesday beautiful or what?  Maine may have been fun but at least the day was just gorgeous here), play date at Yolanda and Emma's (Thursday), and yard sales (today).  You can also throw in several trips to the grocery stores/pharmacies in there too.  Being gone for almost a week got me a little behind in my coupon-ing so I had to cram some stuff in.  I did have some success today in finding some things for no-name baby although not an overwhelming amount.  It's funny how when you have girls, you always seem to run into yard sales with baby boy clothes and you're like darn.  But then as soon as you're having a boy, it's the opposite.  Elaine has been looking for a crock pot now for a while and I swear, I would see them at like every other yard sale.  But once you're looking for one, nowhere to be found.

Some other news is that it appears we may have our name down to a final three.  This, of course, is subject to change but as of now, that's where we stand.  I don't know if Duncan is publishing the three finalists so I'll leave it to him to discuss if he so chooses.

In other Aubree news, her phrase of this week is "I do it all by myself."  I think she went through this a few months ago but she's really been into it again lately.  It's not just her saying it but it's what she does with her hands.  She kind of shrugs and puts her hands palms up at about waist height.  I would say it's the hand motion that someone would do when they're saying "Oh my goodness.  Can you believe it?"  It's pretty cute.

Well, I think I'm going to wrap it up at that.  We're now officially caught up although I'm sure there are things I've forgotten to say.  Oh well!  Happy Sabbath.