The Coast

John, Cally, and I just got back from an amazing trip to the coast. We stopped in six different places in ten days. We were able to visit with some really special people, see some gorgeous parts of the Massachusetts and Maine coast, and bond as a family. Here's the blow by blow:

First we visited the Meyer Clan in Duxbury, MA:


Cally has a ball with her cousins and they treat her like royalty. During this visit we got to go out on the motor boat, hunt for hermit crabs on the beach, eat good ice cream and have a fun "adult night" out thanks to Darlene the babysitter.


Next stop was Melrose, MA, north of Boston where Cally got to see her buddy Boden. It was great to see one of her oldest/longest friends, but it turns out 19-20 month olds don't really understand how to share and play together, so a lot of tears were shed in that short visit.


On Monday, we rolled into Cape Elizabeth, ME where John's buddy from Bates, Alex and his family live. This stop has become a "summer must". In the 24 hours that we were there, we sailed in a gusty wind, had dinner at Scarborough beach, and went back to the beach for more swimming the next day. M.J. and Alex have two lovely teenage daughters (Zoe, 16 and Isabel, 14) and Cally has taken to them all. M.J. was even able to get Cally to fall asleep on a 23 foot sailboat with her uncomfortable infant life preserver on!



On Tuesday, we headed north to Camden, ME to see John's friend Hodding Carter and his family (wife Lisa, 14 year old twins Eliza and Annabel, 13 year old daughter Helen, and 7 year old son Angus). Hodding was the mastermind behind the Viking voyage John took almost 15 years ago. They live in an amazing little homestead with bountiful gardens and chickens. Hodding and his family welcomed us with open arms. Their children couldn't have been nicer to Cally and it was a real pleasure to see such a big household run so smoothly and cooperatively. John even got to go squid fishing (or "jigging") at midnight and they caught almost a dozen squid!

On Wednesday, we finally got to the destination we were aiming for: Acadia National Park. Both John and I had been there in our previous lives and had heard it was a fun place to go with kids. We had no idea just how amazing our visit would be. We stayed at the Sea Wall Campground within the park.


In order to get a campsite, you have to either call six months in advance or get there early enough to catch a "first come, first serve" site. We had heard it wouldn't been too difficult to get a spot mid-week, but didn't arrive until almost noon and felt lucky to get one of the last 5 sites in the campground.

On Wednesday, we finally unloaded the Chariot and set out for a ride along the "quiet side" of Mount Desert Island. We cruised out to a lighthouse and through a few of the picturesque towns.

On Thursday, we decided to check out the much talked about Carriage Roads on the other side of the island. We parked a car and set out on the roads. They were absolutely ideal for pulling the chariot: smooth, shaddy, and endless. We ended up riding about 8 miles out to Bar Harbor and another 10 back to the car.


Upon finishing that ride, we decided to do the touristy thing and drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain and hit the Park Loop Trail.


By the time we got to Thunder Hole on the Park Loop Road, Cally was done with the getting in and out of the chariot and/or car seat. She loved hearing the water rush into the rugged coast, so when we tried to pull her away she put up a fight. At first we thought it was no big deal, but then we realized we were in the midst of Cally's first full blown temper tantrum in a public place. We ended up carrying our kicking and screaming daughter to the car with people looking at us wondering what we were doing to torture the poor girl. I guess there has to be a first for everything!

Cally did manage to pull it together for a fun seafood dinner at a classic Lobster joint in Southwest Harbor. It was sort of cafeteria style where John got to point to the little critter he wanted and his number was called when it was done cooking in the boiling salt water.

On Friday, we headed to one of the many lakes in Acadia. Echo Lake has a great beach, warm water, and a great hike to a fire tower nearby.




On Friday afternoon, we headed up towards Blue Hill, ME-- a peninsula about 1/2 hour south of Acadia. John's friend Nicholas, from Bates, lives on a blueberry farm there with his wife and two sons (Everett, 14 and Julien, 11). Another Bates friend, Joc organized to have a work weekend at their homestead for the weekend. And so, about seven Bates buddies and their families convened for a work party weekend:




There were more than 30 people shingling, framing, trimming, cooking, socializing, and eating great feasts. Cally was in heaven with all of the loving people and animals.

She got to pet a chick:


Look at chicks:
See the piglets get fed:


Feed the ducks:

And collect eggs in the barn:

She finally got to meet her cat's namesake:

I think she was sort of confused by the whole thing.



But I think she has a better understanding of what a lobster is now.

In the end, we couldn't have asked for more during this vacation-- great company, beautiful weather, wonderful food, and good quality family time. Being around so many amazing families who opened their arms to us, especially Cally, was really special. John and I learn more and more about being parents everyday and having such great role models is important to both us and Cally.

So as we rolled across the states of Maine, NH, and Vermont over the course of seven hours yesterday, I kept thinking about how lucky we are. Lucky to have such good friends, positive role models, beautiful places, and most importantly, lucky to have a daughter who rolls with all of it, often with a big smile on her face.

The Adirondacks

John has a great group of friends from his days at Bates. Dave and Kaja Reynolds are one of those couples that met in college, got married, and have lived happily ever after. They live with their two daughters (Sage, 10 and Emma, 15) in Colorado Springs, CO. They come East most summers and spend time in the Adirondacks. In years past, they've stopped through Vermont, but this year they invited us to join them on one of the Saranac Lakes.

They rent a house amongst a bunch of old classic Adirondack style camps-- rustic, log construction, birch bark interior buildings built in the early 1900's.


Emma and Sage are the kind of girls you can only hope Cally will become. They have an amazing ability to chat with adults, play with a 1 1/2 year old, and get along with each other.

It was so nice to spend some time in the lakes region of the Adirondacks. Mostly, it was a real pleasure to hang out with a lovely family, relax by the lake, canoe, read, and eat good food.

Summer Heat

This summer, Cally's Grandma and Bumpa decided to do something different. They rented a camp on Lake Champlain for two weeks instead of heading out to Cape Cod. Folks were ready to try a lake and John and I promised to have an abundance of babysitters and reservations at good restaurants for everyone to enjoy.

The location really was amazing:

Beautiful views of the Adirondacks, refreshing lake temperatures, plenty of space for all, and for the first week lovely breezes.

John, Cally and I decided to move over to the lake for the entire two weeks. While it was lovely to be in a place that felt so far away, but still only be 45 minutes from home, his proved to be a logistical nightmare. We weren't on the ball about packing because we knew we could come home if we forgot something, so we kept making lists of more stuff to bring the next time one of us swung by the house. That said, because I only had to work one day while we were there, I felt very far away and in a very different world from the foothills of Jericho where we live.

During the first week we took Grandma and Bumpa up for a field trip to Montreal. Aside from being held up at the Canadian border for 1/2 hour on the way up because we forgot any sort of identification for Cally, we had a lovely afternoon. We ate a delicious lunch of crepes and strolled along the river:




The weather the first week was chilly. I read a book for the first time since X-mas vacation and we all did a lot of relaxing. Some days didn't get above 65 degrees- as you can see from the fleece and jeans attire that Grandma and Cally are wearing below:


Things changed on the weekend of July 3rd........... We managed to catch the Bristol parade on Saturday morning before it got too hot. Cally saw lots of tractors and horses:

And, she even got to catch her first pony ride. She hasn't been able to stop talking about cookie the pony since....


Though it got warm that day, the evening cooled down and I think I recall wearing a long sleeve shirt and pants while watching Burlington's fireworks from our friends Jeff and Jules' boat:

By Tuesday, which was Cally's cousin Will's first birthday, things started to get unbearable. The wind stopped, the camp absorbed heat, the lake developed algae blooms, and the fans around the house just couldn't seem to get the temperature below 90 degrees.

Fortunately, for Will and good planning by his parents, we had a late morning birthday party. So, things didn't get too hot until later.......


Cally was pretty happy to be having her second cupcake ever:


By Wednesday, we were running out of cheerfulness and places that were tolerable to sleep at the camp. We managed to get some reprieve by going out to air conditioned places for dinner, but our poor babysitters deserved hazardous duty pay for staying in the house during he worst part of the day.

In the end, Bumpa decided to pull the plug on the Forced Family Outing (FFO). Everyone had put up a pretty good front, but no one was really having that much fun anymore. And so, we all decided to pack up early and head in different directions. Uncle James, Aunt Paula, Kesley and Jameson headed back to Duxbury, MA where they had central air conditioning and ocean breezes. John headed into the Adirondacks for what one of his students called a "bikram backpacking" trip, and the rest of us went to Stowe for a night at Uncle James and Aunt Paula's place where at least the bedrooms had a.c.

You win some and you lose some. As Bumpa said, "this was like getting rain on a ski vacation". I think it was way worse than that........ maybe that's because I can deal with cold and I can deal with rain, but I moved to Vermont to NOT have to deal with days and days of heat. In any case, it was a real treat to get Cally and her cousins on the Meyer side together for the first time since Will was born. We were lucky to be able to do that.

Alas, it poured last night and the temperatures have been hanging out in the 70's today. It's still muggy and buggy, but I'll take this over the heat any day. Actually, I'll take below zero temperatures for a month before another heat wave like this again!

Summer!

It's official! Summer has started for Cally's mom. I finally have time to post some photos, do some organizing, relax, and hang out with Cally for days on end. Here is a little recap of the past few weeks. John has been busy honing his carpentry skills, first by building a couple of raised beds and then constructing a sandbox for Cally. As you can see, Cally is all about being a helper:




The real carpentry skills are coming in handy for a massive project we have finally embarked upon. It's slow going, but here's a picture of the progress that we've made so far:


Today, Cally woke up from her nap to a rainy day. She decided to snuggle down with Lobby for some hugs and kisses. Fortunately, Lobster seems to love Cally as much as she loves her.



Here's to many more relaxing afternoons, warm baked goods, and fun adventures!

FFO's

When I was growing up, every once in a while, my parents made us decline playdates, skip sports practices, or avoid homework assignments for F.F.O.'s (Forced Family Outings). Participation was mandatory and there were definitely times that I was pretty unexcited to hang out with my family. This weekend, I put off grading labs, John avoided finishing a qualifying paper, and we let the lawn remain unmowed so that we could go on the first of many F.F.O.s with Cally. We packed up our camping gear and set out for the solitude of the mountains.


Cally isn't old enough to put up much of a fight. In fact, I don't think she really knew where she was going or what she was going to do. She does know about backpacks and loves to ride in one, but I'm not sure how keen she was on being stuck in one for several hours while being shwacked in the face with wet branches. Whatever is the case, Cally took to the backpacking like a fish to water. She talked/babbled for the entire hike up, ate well , and slept like a rock in the crowded two-person tent.




We almost canceled our FFO at the last minute because of a forecast for rain. Alas, we decided to go anyway. It did rain on us and it did make for a soggy dinner, but if it hadn't rained, we wouldn't have had a sunset like this:

The next morning we had a "Homer Simpson" breakfast of donuts and coffee before heading down the trail.


Cally even took a little snooze:


Even though I moaned and groaned about having to go on FFO's as a kid, I look back on them so fondly now. Hopefully, Cally will feel the same way.