Monday, January 14, 2008

My Family's Visit

It was great to have my family out for a little post-Christmas Christmas celebration. Nice to extend the holidays a little bit. Since it was Dave's first visit, we tried to fit a lot of stuff in. All the best restaurants (Gilbert's and Becky's), the Portland Head Light, steaming our own lobster, and a hike. Dave wasn't too sure about the lobster at first, and my mom wasn't all that excited about holding one. But they both were very brave. Claire was shocked.










































They picked a wonderful week to come. They were able to see the two feet of snow we had on the ground at their arrival, and then watch it steadily melt off as we had over a week of temperatures above freezing both night and day. One day had an official high temperature of 64 degrees. I get the feeling it would take many many winters to figure out what a 'typical' winter is like here in Maine.

Apart from that, Claire has started swimming lessons. She's taken lessons before, but always with Mike or I in the pool with her, and always with very mixed results. This is her first time in a pool with an instructor. I have to admit, given my past experience with Claire in a pool (earplugs are of more service than nose plugs), I was preparing myself to see her resist it completely. But I was wrong. She did fantastic. She had a little floatie and actually "swam" around completely on her own. She loved it. She was almost as proud of her self as I was of her.

3 comments:

Eric said...

I think the evil grin and arm grip go well with the look of fear on your mom's face.

Claire plays the part of an innocent bystander well.

Anonymous said...

It sounds like it's taken Claire a few tries to warm up to swimming. I see a little of her Uncle Jimmer there.

Sheila said...

My mom had to be talked into holding a lobster, and when he started to move, she immediately regretted her decision and tried to hand him off to me. Not a nice 'here you go!' kind of hand off, either. I think she thought if she could get him close enough to grab on to me, she'd be free to let go.

Claire loves the water now liek she never has. Money well spent!