Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

 She's in awe of the fact that Santa Claus came and left presents for her.

We spent a lot of time with family on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  It was a spectacular time with good food.  (sorry mom, this was the only picture where the majority of us were in focus and actually looking at the camera)

a photographic day

 We were up early just hanging out waiting for daddy to get up.  She is getting so tall!

Later on that morning we went to the park and captured this one of her about to go down the slide.

Happy Halloween!

 Bella wore only two costumes this year.  A monkey (because when she whines sometimes it sounds like a monkey or chimp) and Tigger (which was a favorite from last year and still fit this year).  We had a good time going to the neighborhood park for some playing then trick or treating.  Of course, the most fun was coming home to see all of our neighbors and the outpouring of CANDY!  She had a great time!

crashed car

Our poor car was crashed.  A drunk driver hit Matt and Bella, but very fortunately, everyone was okay.  The police and ambulance were there almost immediately.  Not so immediate was all the negotiation with the insurance company.  The lesson learned was that "replacement value" doesn't really replace what you lost.

a family visit

In August, after Baby Max's arrival, our family and dogs got together to celebrate.  Something must have been really funny (to me, not Bella) as you can see we all had a good time visiting each other.

ferries...and fairies

On our drive "down East" we stopped at a Maritime Museum. Bella enjoyed pretending to be a captain. Sunny skies ahead with Bella at the helm!

On our return back to Long Island, we took the ferry. It was a great ride at sunset!

For some in car and in flight entertainment, I loaded up the ipod with Tinkerbell movies. She loves the fairies. We even made a couple of fairy houses while at Grampa Joe's house. Overnight the fairies stayed in the houses. We know this because they left pixie dust! What a surprise!

Waldoboro, Maine

Further North on the coast (but everyone says "down East") we visited friends in Waldoboro, Maine. We all had a delightful time boating, exploring the rocky beach and woodsy forest, visiting neighboring towns and eating lobster!

Way out on the rock are seals! As we approached some scooted off the rock and into the cold water to scout us out. They surrounded the boat ...and were in their "attack" positions, evenly spaced encircling us. We weren't scared.


We explored the big rocks and muddy bank at low tide.

Bella walked down the path in the meadow to meet Daddy who was walking up from the boat at the end of the point. They beamed walking toward each other.

After twists and turns on a mossy path into the forest we came upon a little log cabin.

Harpswell, Maine

Even though we kept driving North from the Catskills, we could not escape the 100 degree heat! On Friday, we headed to Portland, Maine to pick up Matt's cousin Katherine on our way up to their summer house on Long Reach in Harpswell, Maine. As we drove through Massachusetts skirting Boston on 495 the temperature was nearly a record in Boston at 103!!! It was close to 100 when we arrived in Portland but had plenty of trees to hide under in Katherine's yard as we picked a bucket of raspberries in preparation for our short ride up to meet up with Katherine's husband Roy and their son Ben who had gone up earlier in the day to get things ready for our arrival.
After packing up the car, we took a round-about way up to Harpswell; first Katherine took us on a tour of Portland showing us their cool neighborhood with all of its unique shops and nearby universities as well as the harbor.
Long Reach is a stretch of water way up in Casco Bay just south of Brunswick. The house we were going to was built by Roy's Dad many years ago on a small point of land in a very secluded area. We needed Katherine to navigate us there since we had to go about a mile and a half down a dirt road through heavy forest off the main road in Harpswell to get there. It is in such a beautiful and quiet place, but then again, when up in Maine nearly every house is in a beautiful quiet place.
What would a trip to Maine be without a voyage aboard a locally built classic wooden yacht? It was sooo nice to escape the heat out on the open ocean (where the temperature immediately dropped to the high 70's). The "Maya" is a custom 40 foot wooden ketch designed and built locally in Harpswell for Roy's Dad back in 1970. Bella just couldn't see enough of the boat: in the cabin, out on deck, and then a few laps around the topsides. After lunch, she laid down on one of the large berths below and took over an hour nap quickly rocked to sleep as we sailed out on the morning wind and back through various rocky islets back to the mooring on the afternoon breeze.What a great view from the dock behind the house: and look at those happy vacationers!

Grandpa Joe and Tutu

After a few days in Point Lookout visiting Matt's old friends, we headed up to the Catskills to spend some time with Grampa Joe and Tutu at the Cottage. With the great heatwave of 2011 hitting the rest of the US, it was nice to get to a place where the daily high is typically only in the mid 70's and the nightly lows go into the high 50's. We didn't escape it all however; there was a stale night when the cool night air didn't descend down from the mountain and the temperature never dropped below the high 70's.
Bella enjoys visits with Grampa Joe and Tutu; in fact all throughout the rest of our vacation, she kept asking when we were going back to see Tutu.
Bella is always in search of ways to be helpful and really enjoyed helping Grampa Joe husk the corn. Bella wanted to make sure that there was enough for her: she's been eating up to five ears in one sitting!
Bella is quite animated eating her corn having to stand up to show everyone.
We spent the rest of our visit driving through the mountains, visiting some of Matt's old friends that own a small shipyard in Kingston, and swimming the in the Hudson River (the temperature actually hit over 100 degrees on that day even up in the Hudson River Valley!)

Vacation!

Caught in mid sentence - "I wannnt a plaaaaaaane!" cries Bella as we are waiting at the gate to board. We have a smooth system of getting Bella on the plane and securing her in her car seat without holding up the boarding process. Matt goes ahead of us and installs the seat, and then Bella and I follow about 5 minutes later and just plop her into place; nobody skips a beat and no aggravated passengers behind us.

We flew into New York LaGuardia and were promptly picked up by Uncle Mike. We spent the night at Wendy's apartment and had a wonderful bagel breakfast with them before heading out to Point Lookout. Uncle Mike headed out before we all got out of bed and returned from the bagel shop with an assortment of toasted bagels with some made into different variations of egg sandwiches; there's nothing like fresh New York bagels from a corner shop!
Our first scheduled appearance on our vacation was at Mateo's 2nd Birthday party at the playground in Point Lookout. Mateo's mother Ana postponed the event just so that Bella could attend. Ana went all out with crostini, pizza, penne pasta a'la vodka, salad, and gelato from Olive Oil's.
Bella is captivated by "Penny and the Puppettes". Not Penny our dog, but Penny the Puppeteer that Ana has made friends with and had at Mateo's first birthday. Penny kept the kids entertained for over 45 minutes with songs and dancing.
Ana, Bella and I participating in the "hokey pokey".
Bella asking for a piece of the giant number "2" birthday cake; it was over 2 feet long and over a foot wide and filled with very yummy chocolate custard in one half, and fruit filling in the other half!

blueberry picking

We drove up Conroe to pick blueberries! It was so much more enjoyable than picking strawberries...for several reasons. First, there was little bending down. Blueberry bushes are tall! In fact, I was on my tippy-toes much of the time while Bella was perfectly content gathering berries on her level. Second, there was shade. It would have been better if we went earlier than 10 am, but it wasn't bad. Third, the place was really laid back. "Here's a bucket, go pick where the flags are." We could also bring Bella's car (stroller) and we could have even brought Penny if we wanted to. Last, it was cheap! $2 a pound...and a pound is a lot of berries! We recommend Moorhead's Blueberry Farm!

Ship Channel Tour

The Port of Houston Ship Channel Tour was fun and far more interesting than Bella's facial expressions made it out to be. The best part was that it was free with complimentary coffee and soda! (...I didn't have any, but I thought it was nice for everyone else.) It was a 1 hour+ tour of the Houston Ship Channel.

Not every ship has a boring name or is named after someone's wife or girlfriend, perhaps this name brings good luck.

We had a special assignment this week: to show Sandy's "Flat Stanley" all around Houston. Since we were spending the weekend with Kathy and Patrick doing a few touristy things, this was also a great opportunity to show "Flat Stanley" around as well. Kathy and Patrick, our friends who moved from Houston to Kansas City, joined us. It was on their bucket list...and now, about 9 months after leaving Houston, they got to cross it off. ...and so did we!

In case you're wondering, here's our bucket list:

• Ship Channel Tour - done!

• Hunting - done!

• Sailing - done!

• Big Bend

• visit Aunt Jackie at least 3 times - one done! ...two more to go

If you have other interesting things to do in Texas, please let us know so we can add them to the list!

Going, Going...Gone!

Matt flew to Baltimore to sell his sailboat. Much to our relief, he sold it! He sold it to the nicest man and the boat is in such good hands. The new boat owner is a retiring shipyard mechanic. We couldn't have asked for a better outcome!...except if we sold it 4 years ago thus saving thousands of dollars in slip fees! Matt enjoyed spending some good quality time with the boat tidying it up (not that it needed much) and replacing the shaft in the beautiful cool weather.

We'll never forget...

...Dutchess. Matt still talks a lot about her a lot (did I say a lot twice? well, he talks about her that much!). It's almost been a year since her depart to Doggie Heaven. Bella still remembers her and talks about her leash and dog tags much to daddy's delight.

static

Bella's aunt sent this fancy picture using an app on her iphone. It looks so cool! Bella slid down a plastic slide and her hair became electric! Now you can see, her hair is s.l.o.w.l.y growing.

Meet at Joe’s

You've seen the t-shirts, right? "Eat at Joe's [Crabshack]" Well, we meet at Joe's... and drink...because there is a great playground. We've met twice on a spur-of-the-moment and had a great time! The kids get along so well! These happy boys watch over Bella on the playground, carefully following her around and entertaining her.

While attending the oldest's first birthday party 5 years ago, I never thought that we would all be enjoying ourselves while our kids (mine included) played together.

Mother's Day

We had a relaxing day celebrating Mother's Day. Matt made fancy French toast then we went on a walk to the sculpture garden. We weren't very into observing & interpreting the sculptures; mostly we just wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather!

Across the street was a small fountain so we had to go check it out. Bella and Penny thoroughly enjoyed dipping in.

Bella and Daddy smooching.