Beach Goers

 One advantage of living on Mount Desert Island is having an awesome beach within 10 minutes driving. Sand Beach, to be exact, is one of the bigger attractions in Acadia National Park. On weekends, it can be very crowded. But weekdays are fairly reasonable. Mal is planning a weekly playgroup to meet up at either Sand Beach or the beach at Echo Lake. The kids absolutely love playing at the beach. They love to chase and be chased by waves, make tide pools out of sand, and make new friends in the process. 

I think it's time our 99th percentile cranium boy get a new hat. I think that hat he has on in this photo fits normal 2 year olds...but definitely not this boy.

Getting warmed up to the water. It was about 50 degrees on this particular day.

Lots of kids were joining forces to build tide pools.

Finn was typically ruining them, but pitched in every once in a while.

Madie's Preschool Graduation

 Madie has successfully completed her second year of preschool. She only went twice per week for a half day each, but I think it really helped her develop some social skills. Plus, she will know quite a few kids as she heads to kindergarten. She went on a field trip last week to visit her new school, and had a graduation ceremony. It was less than ten minutes long (which was perfect), and included a couple of songs from the kids in addition to the walk. Afterward, there was a pizza dinner with salad. There were exactly six boxes of large pizzas for 40+ people. I don't know how your family eats pizza, but ours can put down two entire pizzas on our own. Needless to say, it was a disappointing dinner. Thankfully a few people brought food to supplement. Congratulations Madie! We have really enjoyed seeing the many projects you bring home.

Getting lined up to perform.

Poor Madie, she is very self-conscious and gets embarrassed when in front of people so easily.

Getting her certificate, which they misspelled her name on.

When we went to sit down to eat, Madie told us that we'd better not sit with her. I guess she is already ashamed of her parents at 4.5. I thought we at least had a few more years!

Camping at Blackwoods

 We bought a new tent a few weeks ago from L.L. Bean, which was actually made by Kelty. It was an expensive, large tent with air poles instead of traditional poles. In the advertisement, it claimed you could set it up in 60 seconds. That was enough for me, plus I'm always willing to give something like this a try to see how I like it. So a couple weeks ago, we set it up in our backyard when a huge rain storm was coming down to put it to the test. It failed miserably in many areas, but my biggest gripes are that it takes 20 minutes to set up, it is not a sturdy structure and tended to collect rain water on top, and does not fit back into its bag very well when trying to pack it up. All no-no's in my book. So we took it back and got a Eureka Copper 8 for $60 cheaper. Wow, what a difference! Sturdy tent poles, soundly structured, relatively easy to set up (at least it's intuitive), and it actually packs back into it's storage bag. Folks, we've got a winner! We booked a Friday night in the Blackwoods Campground in Acadia to test it out. 

We could not have asked for a more perfect night. It was relatively dry and breezy, which meant there weren't as many bugs. It was clear, so we could keep the rain fly off which I love. And food always tastes better when you are camping. Mal made her always delicious homemade graham crackers for s'mores. Madie always sleeps like a rock when we camp. We are conditioning Finn at the moment. He was so excited that he didn't fall asleep until after 10:00 pm, which led to a night terror at 2:00 am. Other than that, it was a great trip.

Mal enjoying the fire.

We brought Elvis for the trip. He didn't like being tied to a tree, but was probably glad he didn't have to sleep home alone (wuss!).

Finn trying his first s'more of the summer.

Madie gave it a whirl, but I think she prefers it without chocolate. Might be hard to take it all in, but she'll come around.

This is what I woke up to. Life is good.

Sunrise is at 4:45 am here right now, which is peak summer solstice. It was beautiful.

I ran Elvis home after the sunrise so that we didn't have to worry about bringing him along with us, and I snapped this on my way back to camp.

We went for a hike near The Tarn Saturday Morning. Finn was obsessed with the water.

He was pretty content holding blankie and sucking on his 1-2 combo.

Madie and Finn both love camping. I remember going camping a lot when I was her age, and loving every minute of it. I think it was especially fun since I grew up in suburbia and didn't have access to woods to play in. It was exotic. I think the experience of sleeping/eating/living outside is equally fun and exotic no matter where you live.

Mal catching up on Les Miserables.

Eating a fruit snack in the Abnaki shelter near the Wild Gardens of Acadia.

The Weigh-in

And in this corner...standing at 36 inches and weighing 30 lbs, whose head has been riding the 99th percentile in circumference since the day he was born...Finnegan Arthur WATKINS!

He has grown 5 inches since February.

 

Here are a few Finn Facts for the books:

1. Loves reading books, particularly likes it when Madie reads him Pinkalicious. 
2. His grasp on words and sentences is very advanced with new words and combinations used every day. 
3. All bugs to him are bees, and he will bend down to look at it and say "Mumma, bee. Buzzzz." and motion his hand around as a bee would move around. 
4. Can be very jealous when Mal or Madie sit in my lap, and shows it by throwing himself on the floor and puffing out his bottom lip and shouting.
5. He eats almost everything we put in front of him, but has really taken to apricots, peas, pizza, and anything with bread.

 

 

Father's Day

 Mallory absolutely spoiled me this year for Father's Day. First of all, I don't remember feeling so relaxed in quite some time. I'm usually go-go-go all day, every day, but Mal just made it a really easy going day for everyone. She, of course, was busy making crumpets/bacon/egg sandwhiches for breakfast before church. After church, we had chicken tacos with home made guacamole for dinner, followed by fruit pizza for dessert. Honestly, whenever we make Mexican food, it's literally the best Mexican food in the entire state of Maine. That means two things, 1. Mal makes awesome food, and 2. Maine doesn't know what Mexican food is. After dinner, we went for a hike in Acadia. I was commenting to Mal on our hike that someday, I would love to sit in a kid carrier backpack and let someone carry me on a hike just to see what it's like. The reason I say that is with both Madie and Finn, no matter the time of day, when I carried them in the pack they always fell asleep. I know that once their forehead starts gently knocking into the pack of my head, they are down for the count. Great day, and thank you Mal for all you did.

Madie walking Elvis for the first time.

Lots of bridges where we went.

Finn's 2nd birthday

 Finnegan just turned two years old over a week ago. Leading up to his birthday, we went back and forth on when we would celebrate, how we would celebrate, and with whom. We decided that since one of my boy scouts was earning his Eagle Scout Award the night of Finn's birthday, we would celebrate his big day on the following day. It was just a nice and small family celebration, which was probably best since that whole week was just hectic. We will probably do a friend celebration next year.

Leading up to Finn's birthday, Grammy and Nana both asked what toys or games he would be interested in. We made a few suggestions, and I'm pretty sure they both nailed it because after he opened them he had a very hard time deciding which to use. Luckily, the garden tools the Grammy gave him are stored outside, which he always grabs when he is out. The tractor & dump truck Nana gave him are inside. He can now choose based on if he is inside or out, simple!

The morning after we celebrated, he woke up at 5:45 and walked gingerly into the hallway and stood in our doorway...wearing nothing but a diaper. He stooped down without hesitating and picked up right where he left off the night before to play with his trucks.

We got Finn a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and the book Owl Moon. We figured we'd better get him ready for an adventurous summer!

Licking the spatula covered in his pre-oven birthday cake.

Made made sure we were dressed for the occasion. She insisted we wear capes while we ate Finn's birthday dinner of choice: pizza.

We did a Google Hangout with Grammy...

And Nana at the same time! Glad they could both see him blow out his candles.

Finn went all around the house testing his tools on our wood floor. Luckily, it's Pergo.

And his trucks. He loves making all the truck noises with these.

Let the summer begin

We went out on our first official hike of the season. We usually go on walks in the woods and along the shore around our home, but I think Madie is pretty bored of that. Mark my words, when these kids move away from this island they will look back with regret for not wanting to take advantage of the ocean walks we take for granted! Madie does, however, love to hike. She loves to hike mountains and climb rocks. She proclaimed that her favorite is South Bubble in Acadia, which is what we did today. 

Finn climbed the last portion of it on his own, and couldn't get enough of scrambling on the rocks. He wasn't really following directions on our way back down, so we had to put him back into the backpack. He threw quite the tantrum after that that involved hitting the back of my head and trying to take my hat off. I let him run the last 100 yards of the trail to the parking lot and he was pretty happy after that. 

We are excited for summer. We just got a new family tent, we all have camping gear, and are ready to explore what Maine has to offer.