Tall Ships

The Tall Ships came to Philadelphia and Camden at the end of June.  We started out by parking at Rutgers in Camden and then walking over the Ben Franklin Bridge to the Philly side to see what we could see.  The kids stayed awake for this trip over the bridge - unlike last time :-)

The first ship we saw was the USCGC Eagle - the same ship that Pop Pop learned on when he was coming up in the Coast Guard Academy!  The kids were very excited to see this ship.  They were actually pretty good while we waited in line and posed for lots of pictures...

Finally on the Eagle:

We toured a couple more ships before walking down the pier to go see L'Hermione.  On the way, we watched this ship set sail for home - Portugal!

We found a junior rubber ducky - much smaller than the seven-story rubber ducky that we were promised (it kept blowing over, so the organizers took the big ducky down).

We did make it to L'Hermione but it was closed for a private cocktail party!  Gee whiz!

So, we walked back up the pier and sought out the River Link Ferry to go back to Camden but the line was about 10 miles long!  So we decided we would walk back over the bridge but first we stopped at a cafe on Race Street for refreshment.

Clare rested:

Clare perked up on the walk back over the bridge and both kids spent the last part of the walk giving me 20,000 heart attacks by running around on the bridge like crazy people!

And to cap off our Philly day, we stopped at Wawa for hoooagies for dinner :-)

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 :-)

Power Outage Day

We had an ice storm Tuesday night but by morning all the ice had changed over to rain but it was too late since the damage had been done - our power was out and the kids' daycare had no power, either! The school was hopeful that they would open if the power came on in the morning and they did end up opening at about 12:30 but the Sooys stayed home!

Thom John went to work and Sean and I worked on putting up our Valentine's Day decorations while we waited for Clare to wake up:

Lucky for me (and the kids), our awesome next-door neighbor went out for a Wawa run and picked up a cup of coffee for me!

After breakfast we got to work on building a bi-plane and a battleship...

...while we waited for the paint to dry, we listened to some music and had a little dance party.

After dancing, we went on a little trip. As Sean told the librarians, "We have no power at our house and there is no power at our school, so we thought that maybe it was a good idea to come here for a little while!"

We read a lot of books, did almost all the puzzles, and watched the fish for a good long time.  We decided to go home to see if the power had come back on - it had!

And just in time for lunch, too!

After lunch, we had naps, and then we put the finishing touches on our projects:

All was back to normal by Wednesday night and we got in two full, normal days on Thursday and Friday.  Sean told me that he thinks Spring will be here next week - I hope he's right!!