Oar Island

We took a trip to Maine for Labor Day weekend!  We rented a cabin on an island in Muscongus Bay - about 1.5 hours north of Portland.  To get there, we piled into a 16-foot skiff to take a short boat ride to the island...

Thom John was our captain since he'd driven similar boats on fishing trips in Canada.

Our little red cabin was roomy enough for four adults, two children, and a dog.

Early mornings would start out foggy and high tide would bring the water up close to the cabin...

...but as the tide went out and the fog lifted...

we'd be treated to a beautiful morning!

The kids loved playing on the rocks while the grown-ups ate breakfast, drank coffee, and made plans for the day.

We'd get back on the skiff...

...and drive the boat back to the marina, being careful to dodge the buoys marking lobster traps.

Each morning we'd pull into the marina (except Sunday since traps are not allowed to be hauled up on Sundays according to Maine law), the lobstermen were happy to show us their lobsters and to let the kids touch the lobsters.  This lobsterman was looking for a huge lobster that had come in earlier - but he couldn't find him.  Figuring the big lobster had been bought, he showed us a pretty big lobster...

After the kids were done checking out the lobsters, we were free to continue on our way :-)

Nine days

Yesterday, Clare was playing with some wooden toys next to another child and the two started to argue. The child hit Clare on the forehead with the toy - owie! Rather than retaliate (hooray, Clare!!), she went to her teacher to show her the "injury."  The toy left quite a mark and a little bit of a scrape, but Clare insisted that she needed a band-aid.  The teacher relented and sent her to the nurse's office.  After the nurse applied the bandage, she set out to meet the school's requirements for when a bandage is applied - including calling me at work to make me aware of the injury and preparing a "Boo-Boo Report."  Ha!  Nine days in and Clare is already creating unnecessary paperwork :-)

The worst part of the whole thing was taking that bandage off of Clare's little forehead last night - it was not easy and it was not pretty.  But she's all better tonight!

And We're Baaack

While I get some catch-up posts together, here are a few nuggets from Sean's day today:

- Sean had Library class today and he was allowed to pick out a book and borrow it for one week! He picked out a book from the "scary Halloween section" - it's about a family of skeletons who go on vacation together.

- Sean's class was shown where the school nurse's office was today.

- Sean told me that his teacher cracked open a real coconut today for "science time."  Then they all drank the coconut water and the teacher made coconut ice cream from the "white stuff" but since Sean doesn't like coconut ice cream, she brought "chocolate minto" (chocolate chip mint) ice cream for Sean to eat.

- Sean had a little scratch underneath his nose and when I asked him what happened, he called it his "hot spot." He got the hot spot when he went to visit the "black smither" at school.  The black smither was making a horseshoe and he said that Sean could touch the horseshoe when it cooled, but Sean couldn't wait and he touched the horseshoe while it was hot then he touched the hot spot under his nose.

- Sean said that a police officer comes to his school everyday to each lunch at the cafeteria.  Then the police officer goes back to work at the Police Station at Town Hall near the Library.

- When I asked Sean if he could call his teacher to ask for more details about all the stories he told me that I couldn't call her because she told the class that parents weren't allowed to call her. How convenient :-)

Here's our storyteller boarding the bus for school!

Technical difficulties

No, I haven't lost my love of blogging and we definitely haven't run out of things to write about - settling into new school routines,  a couple of late-summer day trips, trips to the beach,  and our big trip to Maine!!

Our computer is busted - the screen has a huge crack! We'll get a new one soon and be back to share our adventures!

Xoxo

First Day!

The kids started new schools on Thursday - Clare started a new preschool and Sean started Kindergarten!!  We've been steadily receiving paperwork and notices from the elementary school regarding Sean's first day.  Sean's teacher even sent him a letter that included some "Jitter Glitter" to put under his pillow the night before school so that he could be sure to have a good night's sleep!

The kids had a good breakfast, we made sure we had all of our bags and that Sean had his nametag necklace on.  Then we headed out the door - we stopped to take pictures, of course:

Google made a little movie of our pictures on the porch  :-)

We dropped Clare off at her new preschool and she seemed totally fine - not nervous at all!  It helped that there were only a couple of other students in the class so Clare was sure to get a lot of attention from her teachers.  After we made sure Clare was settled, we drove Sean over to the elementary school.  We were a little early, so we checked out the before-care program and then waited outside the front doors.  

In the parking lot with Mommy:

Waiting to be let into the building:

Sean met up with one of his buddies -  they've known each other since the Toddler A room at daycare!

Once we were let into the building, we walked down to Sean's new classroom.  We met his teacher and Sean found his seat.  He got right to work coloring in his owl (the school mascot is an owl):

With Daddy:

Sean had a great first day of Kindergarten.  His "special" that day was gym class and he loved it!  He also really liked the aftercare program - they got to go to the gym again!  Clare did well at her first day, too.  She met new friends and spent a lot of time at the puzzles center, doing each and every puzzle over and over again!

The kids both had great second days, too.  Sean's was extra-special because he got to ride the bus to school!  Can you see him in this picture?  The bus driver let him sit in the front seat since it was Sean's first time riding the bus to Kindergarten.  Sean thought riding the bus was the coolest thing ever!

We're looking forward to this new and exciting school year with our two big Sooy Kids: