One Year Later

It was one year ago today that we closed on our house. It really doesn't seem like that long ago. In fact, just the other day someone asked me when we moved to Maine, and I started to say 'about six months ago' and then I realized it had actually been a year. And it has been quite the year, full of a lot of firsts. Having our first house obviously being the big one. And then the first time making improvements/repairs on the house, the first huge storm (weathered nicely from Hawaii) which lead to our first home insurance claims. I feel like we have really seen and done a lot in Maine in the year we have been here. We've done a lot outside the state as well. Looking back through the blog I think we have really made the most of the opportunity to live out here, and its been a lot of fun.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all of the Mothers (especially mine!) It is a beautiful Mother's Day in Maine. We've actually had an amazing run of beautiful weather. Just about the opposite of last year, when it rained every day in April and May. Its fantastic. I forgot how nice it is to have green leaves on the trees around our house.

We don't have a lot planned for today. Claire and I went out for breakfast, and Mike was able to get some sleep after his last call day (woo!) of intern year. We'll go watch him play in a tennis tournament shortly. Claire made me a card that said "Mom I love you up to the sun" which is very sweet. I'd also like to go check out a trail I thought I saw on a map of Great Diamond Island, but I'm not sure if it exists yet. I have to do a bit of research first, so I'm sure we won't get to it today. But speaking of islands, we did get to Long Island this past week. The beach we found was covered in sea glass. We all had fun collecting it. Its a great island, and I'm sure we'll go back when we have a bit more time to explore.

Saturday is for Sleeping.

Its the weekend. And unlike last weekend, when we worked day and night on the basement, this time we are taking it easy. And speaking of the basement, we have some pictures here. We don't have everything in its place yet (couch, ping pong table, foosball table etc), so there aren't any FINAL final pictures, but you get the idea. Its come a long way from the creepy-crawly basement we bought with the house. It sure cleaned up well!

On to this weekend. Claire and I spent most of the day at Crescent Beach State Park. We were hoping to do some tide pooling, but the tides didn't cooperate. We have the Audubon Society's Guide to Seashore Creatures, and I was hoping to identify a few of them, but there were none to be found. We still found a bunch of treasures, of course. Crescent beach is fantastic for finding treasures, plenty of neat rocks and seashells. Today there was actually quite a bit of debris (both natural and not) washed up on the beach. I've only been there a few times, so I'm not sure if its normal, but I would think a lot of it is from the storm a few weeks ago. Today, however, we had great weather. It was sunny, warm, and calm. It wasn't even windy at the beach, which was wonderful. I believe its suppose to be just as nice tomorrow. I've been wanting to go to Long Island (Maine, of course), so maybe we'll hop on the ferry and check it out.

Back to Maine

We had an incredible time in Hawaii. We saw beautiful things in every direction we looked, went on amazing hikes, ate delicious things, swam and snorkled and sailed, and just relaxed in the sun. Claire loved it just as much as we did. We did have a bit of trouble getting there, and its quite a story. It definitely deserves to be told, but not today. The time change and sleeping on the plane are starting to catch up with me. It was quite the trip home. Not stressful, but very long. I haven't even loaded my pictures yet, so you'll have to wait for that. And when we got home we found out we weren't completely untouched by the huge storm that hit New England earlier in the week. We lost a bit of roofing, a bit of fencing, and we have some water in the basement. We'll probably need to get the ceiling in at least one room replaced. Its hard to tell now how much damage there is (I'm a little afraid to look in the attic), but I'm sure we'll find out soon enough, hopefully tomorrow morning. We were, however, very lucky. Our next door neighbor had much more damage, and other areas of the city are still without power. We hear it was quite the storm. We picked a great week to be in Hawaii!

Welcome Back, Winter

So the 'Picture of the Day' was actually taken today (04-05-07). Overnight we got 10 inches of snow. I'm sure it won't stick around long, the snow already looks to be melting off the roads, but it doesn't exactly feel very much like April anymore. On the other hand, we'll soon be in Hawaii, so I can't complain at all.

In the mean time, we are having an incoming resident and her husband (Sadie and John) stay with us for a few days while they job/house hunt. They drove up from Washington DC last night, and a trip that should have taken 8 hours lasted 14 due to the weather. Then today they found out that a number of John's interviews as well as some showings were canceled because of the weather. Seems like its been a rough start for them, but hopefully they find something they like in both searches. If not, I really think John is all set to just move right in with us.

Mount Douglas

Today we hiked Mount Douglas, and it was really fun. The hike itself was great, there were some pretty steep parts, but we managed to push and pull each other up, and the scenery was amazing. We saw gigantic moose tracks, I really should have put my boot in the picture or something for scale, because you really can't get a good idea of its size from the picture, but they were huge. Much bigger than Mike's foot.












We also saw A LOT of moose poop, which actually doesn't look at all like what I would expect. I didn't take a picture, but if you want, you can see what it looks like here, and depending on how much you like that, you might want to buy a pair of these. Made in Maine, you know. Unfortunately, we didn't see the moose itself, but if we had, we would have been prepared. Our friends from Alaska (Meghan and Jason) told us that you can easily hide from a moose behind a tree because their eyesight is not very good.

Anyway. There were some really pretty creeks along the trail. Some we could see, and some we could only hear, they were still covered by a crust of snow.



















It probably took us two hours to reach the summit, but it was well worth it. The view from the tower at the top was unbelievable. We were lucky enough to be there on a clear day and could see Mount Washington as well as other peaks, Lake Sebago, and the ocean. Beautiful. Then we took the more direct path down, which was much shorter (by about two hours), but also much more steep. I took a lot of pictures and had a difficult time deciding which to post here on the blog. You can see them here.

Nana's Visit

Teresa came out to visit us for a few days over her spring break this week, and we had a great time. I think we did pretty well at seeing 'Maine'. We went to Crescent Beach and explored tide pools and plants and we splashed in the ocean.

























Thanks to a recent 'Best of Maine' article in the Portland Press Herald, we knew where to go for the best of everything. We had Maine's best pizza at Ricetta's. We had Maine's best 'Cheap Eats' at Becky's Diner. We went to Freeport for some outlet shopping and while we were there had some of Maine's Best coffee at Dunkin' Donuts. We went to the famous DiMillo's Floating Restaurant for dinner, something I've heard more than a few people say you should do before you leave Portland, and I was really glad we did. We steamed our own lobsters for dinner. And one night Teresa took care of Claire while Mike and I went out to Maine's best restaurant, Fore Street, for dessert. If you click on 'Dessert Menu' you can see what we had, the Chocolate Souffle Cake, in the picture (back right). I'd recommend it. We had a great time, and we look forward to her next visit.

to the beach!

The last time I posted about how winter finally seemed to be giving way to spring, we got over a foot of snow two days later. So this time, all I'm going to say is, boy today sure was a nice day! Claire and I spent just about the entire day outside. First we went downtown and spent some time on the Maine State Pier watching the boats. We walked up to Old Port Candy Company (this is the only place I've ever found my favorite Jelly Belly, pink grapefruit, in bulk) and then wandered around Old Port a bit while we ate the treats we bought.

After being downtown, Claire and I agreed going to the beach would be nice, so we drove to Old Orchard Beach. We spent the afternoon playing in the sand, exploring, and collecting shells and other treasures. It was a little cooler and much more windy than downtown was, reminding me of a typical spring day like you'd have in Wisconsin. It was warm enough to take our socks and shoes off and stick our feet in the (cold!) water, but not warm enough to take off our jackets while doing so.

I haven't posted many pictures lately, but I'll make up for it today. Here are a few of my favorites, and you can check Flickr for more.

A Northeaster!

Its coming! Our first big Northeaster* of the winter. Actually, its the biggest since 2000. We are suppose to get 10-15 inches of snow and 70mph winds making wind chills of -40 degrees possible and waves up to 20 feet! I would love to get out to the Portland Head and see that, but I doubt I will. Its suppose to start with ice sometime overnight, and at its peak tomorrow afternoon, we could get up to 3 inches of snow per hour. Everything is shutting down, dentist offices, doctors' offices, banks, even some schools already know they will have a snow day tomorrow. I've heard many warnings about having fresh batteries, flashlights, candles and blankets ready because wide spread power outages are not uncommon with these kinds of storms. We have all that stuff and a pile of firewood, so we should be fine if there is a power outage. Its really kind of exciting!

Claire's take on the whole thing is: "I guess we'll have to put on our snowshoes if we want to go to Dunkin' Donuts". She's probably right!

*The correct way to say it is 'Northeaster' (as opposed to 'Nor'easter'). This pronunciation is used on ships because 'Northeaster' is more easily understood than 'Nor'easter'. People who say 'Nor'easter' are thought of as trying too hard to be 'authentic' Maine or New England, but that doesn't keep the tv weathermen and papers from using it.

Claire's New Shoes

Here is Claire in her snowshoes. Beautiful girl.

Sunny Skies Again.

Another fantastic day in Maine. I can't believe its been so nice. Yet again today we were treated to temperatures in the upper 50's and bright sunny skies. So we spent the day outside at Wolfe's Neck State Park in Freeport, Maine. Its not a very big State Park, but they do have over 5 miles of trails through the woods and along the ocean and Harraseeket River. The trails were perfect, easily walkable for Mike and I, but just a great challenge with tree roots, rocks, inclines and declines for Claire. It was very peaceful, and of course, very beautiful. We didn't do a lot of planning, so we were pretty lucky that we went during low tide. It looks like the water gets pretty high:




























We even got our family picture for the Halberg Phone Directory taken care of!

December What?

So far, the end of this year has been mild. Or so I've been told. Since this is our first winter in Maine, we don't have anything to compare it to. But on days like today, anyone can tell its unseasonably nice out. I don't know what the 'official' temperature today was, but when my thermometer read 57 degrees, Claire and I jumped in the car and went to the beach.














You just have to take advantage of these warm days. I keep thinking that this will be it, from here on in its going to get chilly...and then it doesn't. Or hasn't yet, anyway. Its exactly what Eric was just talking about. In Hawaii, 75 degrees is cold enough to wear a sweatshirt. In Maine, 57 degrees in December is warm enough to head to the beach without a jacket. I kind of hope it cools off soon, I want to see some snow out here!

Mackworth Island and Christmas Lights

This weekend we went to Mackworth Island, a State Park just off the coast of Falmouth. Despite the wind (it was actually very windy), we had a great time, and seemed to find something interesting around every corner. There is a trail that loops all the way around (1.4 miles total) that we followed and discovered beaches, a granite wall that sticks out into the ocean, a gigantic pet cemetery, and a part of the forest where you can build houses for the Fairies. We didn't actually stop to build one, and though I did take pictures, they really don't show anything. Maybe because most of the houses people built are pretty small and made out of natural things, like branches. Or maybe because the Fairies don't like having their pictures taken, so they magically altered my pictures. Either way, Fairies obviously enjoy their privacy.










































The above picture is the pet cemetery. When I saw it in the woods, I thought "Wow, that's cool. I wonder what that stone circle is about". And then when I got closer I could see all the grave stones inside, and it was downright creepy. But then Mike remembered reading that this is where the original owner of the island buried his pets (horses and dogs according to the headstones), and so it was a little less creepy...but still creepy.

Then, after it got dark out, we went to Old Port to look at the Christmas lights. There are a lot of very cool lights, and in true 'green' Maine form, all of them are LEDs rather than the incandescent bulbs. I've been wanting to see the lights for a while now, and I'm really glad we had the chance.

the portland headlight

Today we had a weather alert for "over-splashing and flooding at high tide". Tides right now are higher and lower than usual because of "astronomical effects", and the ocean was rough by coincidence. The result was 9-12 foot waves crashing onto the shore. And on a beautiful day like today, I thought it would be a great idea to visit the Portland Headlight at high tide this afternoon and check it out.















































It was amazing. The waves pounded the rocks and made everything hazy and soft looking, as you can see in the second and third pictures. It was beautiful, and definitely not like any other time I've been to the Headlight.