Another Land Trust hike!

This time we did the Linekin Preserve/Burley Loop hike. It was a lot more challenging than I thought it was going to be! Oops!

The hardest part though was that Maggie fell asleep shortly after those pictures were taken, and Nick, Dad, and I had to carry her the whole mile back. Poor Nick did the very steep uphill part. She was exhausted though from all the fun we'd been having with Erik, Isabelle, Chester, Craig, Elizabeth, and Jess all weekend. Probably mostly from staying up until 10:30 the night before.
Fishermen's Festival was super fun, as always. Mom and I took the girls to the Miss Shrimp pageant on Friday night, and it was great. Nina is pretty sure she's not going to want to do it when she's 9, but Maggie is game. And she already knows what she wants to do for a talent--twirl a baton! She came up with this before she even knew that 2 of the contestants were doing just that.
On Saturday morning we got downtown in time for the trap hauling contest. It was cold! But that's ok, that meant I got to wear my pretty new jacket. I love it! Trap hauling and crate running were lots of fun too.
Then on Sunday, we did the hike and had lunch at Dunton's. The weekend was too much fun--we didn't want it to end!

I am too tired to post!

But I just had to write a quick note about our fantastically fun Fishermen's Festival weekend. Pics and updates tomorrow, but tonight I'm just waaaaay too tired. :-)

Also, we went to the dentist yesterday

The girls did great and no cavities!

I got to go first, and Maggie and Nina passed the time by harassing the dental hygienist. "What's that on your hands?" (gloves) "What are you doing to my mom?" (cleaning my teeth) "What's this for?" "What's that?" "Why's that there?" and on and on and on and on... The hygienist was laughing. As was I, as much as it was possible.

The girls went next and did a fantastic job. Maggie loved getting her teeth cleaned and wanted to come back every day. Nina was less enthusiastic. She did fine, but she did not (NOT) like the tooth rinser and sucker straw. Wait, I take that back: she didn't even get to the tooth rinser. The sucker straw went over so badly that we didn't even try it. But it would have been even worse for her. So she just rinsed and spat the old fashioned way, with a plastic cup and the sink. No big deal.

The most exciting part was probably the little gifts they got--a toothbrush, sparkly toothpaste, and some flossers.

Nick, you had best sleep with one eye open tonight...

It's no secret that Maggie and Nick have a somewhat, shall we say, adversarial relationship.
Last night, she fell asleep plotting ways to get the computer away from him today (why? so she can go to "my little pony backslash online" on the good computer). I thought it was idle bedtime chatter, but when she woke up, she picked right back up where she left off. Over breakfast, she got this devious look on her beautiful little face and said "Oh no, Papa already ate breakfast! I was going to trip him!"

See, Plan A was to leave her half-eaten bowl of cereal at the breakfast table and wait for Nick to come and finish it. But unbeknownst to him, Maggie (and I, her faithful minion) would each be holding one end of a rope lying innocently in his path. And then, when he walked by, we'd pull it tight, tripping him). Devious. I told you.

But that's alright, Maggie is a quick thinker, and she whipped up a Plan B. Actually, I think she'd probably cooked it up before bed last night. I think watching Infested! with me at night probably put her in a slightly twisted state of mind. Regardless, Plan B was to put her thinking stool in the path from Nick's work chair to the coffee machine. Then, when he went to get some coffee, he'd--wait for it!--trip over it!! The funniest thing of all is that she does her planning in this adorable stage whisper, and Nick can obviously hear her. But he's such a good sport, and he obliged her, went to get some coffee, and fell over her thinking stool. Maggie yelled "woo hoo!" and ran for the computer.

Unfortunately, Nick had only been playing along and wasn't truly injured. And he wanted his computer back. So Maggie was forced to fall back on Plan C, which was my favorite: hitting Nick with a baseball bat. For real!

It's ok, she carried out the assault with a little toy princess baseball bat, and he wasn't injured. But watching her hit him on the butt with it was priceless.

Still, in the end, Maggie didn't get her way. So Nick, maybe consider locking that door tonight!

Ok, one last post about vacation

We hit the West Hartford Children's Museum on the way home (you guessed it, reciprocal membership, thanks to our Boston Science membership!). What fun! We haven't been there in years (since we had our most recent NY Hall of Science membership. See the pattern here?). We had a scary experience on the way in:

The girls almost got eaten by a sperm whale! AAGGGH!!!!
Hee hee. Kidding! The real danger came inside, when we all almost got eaten by dinosaurs!!

Maggie saw them while we were looking at the animals (they have lots of rescued, abandoned exotic pets. Very fun!). She ran back into the room and said "You guys!! There are real dinosaurs in the other room!!"
It was confusing, because they were animotronic dinosaurs. Haha! And it only took us 10 hours to get back to Maine. Practically a new record!

And finally, the rest of the vacation...

On Monday we took the girls to the Hall of Science. We used to have a membership when we lived there and went frequently, but Nina didn't remember any of it. That was money wasted I guess. Kidding! Nick and I always enjoyed ourselves!
The museum was a hit, as always. Nina enjoyed this surf board that demonstrates how it's easier to keep your balance with your feet further apart. I can't remember what Maggie said her favorite thing was*, but both girls really liked the thing that you drop your coins into and they whirl around and around and the drop down. You know, the coin donation things. That was probably their most favorite thing actually. I tried to explain how that makes a good model of orbital motion, but they were having none of my educational explanations.
Look at us, having fun:

Here's Nina's surf board thing:

and here's Maggie, standing next to the hotel she built:

We got in for free thanks to the reciprocal membership program and our Boston Science Museum membership. We had wanted to go to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens (free thanks to the reciprocal membership our Boothbay Botanic Gardens gets us), but it was closed on Monday. Which was fine, it was so, so hot that we wouldn't have been able to handle it.
That afternoon, we met up with some old friends at the North Queensview playground, and there was merriment all around. On Tuesday we went into Manhattan and got the girls' Austrian citizenship paperwork filed, saw some more old friends, and did the playground one more time. And we left for Maine bright and early on Wednesday.
*Nick remembers: Maggie's favorite thing was the model of a power grid, which demonstrates how the grid can absorb the extra electricity load when one major line is damaged, but if too many are down, the grid will shut itself down to avoid destroying the remaining lines. This is how major blackouts often happen.

New York trip, continued...

Sunday morning, we went to Cony Island:

The girls got to eat some rainbow Italian ice (finally!) and Wyatt and Vanessa and I played in the sand. Good times all around. It was pretty deserted (for NY) and very clean.
In the afternoon we went to Aunt Maria's house for some BBQ and lots more family. Lots of outdoor time, too, which the kids sorely needed. Nina was horrified to learn that although Queensview has a lush, green lawn, there's a fine for walking on it. On the way home Wednesday she declared that she missed the outdoors so much she didn't want to go inside for a week. That's my Maine girl!!