Christmas Prep

Sure, there's a lot to do before Christmas, but some "chores" are our favorite parts!

• Decorating the tree and the house with Brian's favorite Christmas movie It's a Wonderful Life playing.
• Baking (and eating!) all those holiday treats. Brian always makes his 'famous' apple pie for Christmas day dessert. And before the holiday, we made a few batches of chocolate-covered pretzels - just for us!
• And Mel's favorite job... wrapping the gifts!! Seriously, I love this part.

Puppy Play Date with Zoey

Our friend Tegan came over for the afternoon and brought her family's dog Zoey. They adopted Zoey around the same we got Jane, so we've been sharing puppy stories all summer. Zoey's about 2 months(?) younger than Jane and was just a tiny thing when she and Jane first met back in April. But Zoey's grown and is bigger than Jane now... but that certainly didn't stop their fun!

They have similar markings so it's hard to tell who's who in the video; Jane's hogging the red frisbee to get Zoey to chase her.....

And after they left.... Jane took a verrrry long nap! Thanks for the visit Zoey and Tegan!

The most sensational inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational

Excited to see the Muppet gang back together, we went to see the movie tonight - yay! We loved it... how can you not love it?
And when we got back home, we made our own Muppets HERE
And if you had a hundred bucks you didn't have a use for, you can actually have your muppet creation come to life!

On a similar (Jim Henson) theme.... It's become a compulsive habit to check for The Christmas Toy movie on VHS whenever we find ourselves at a fleamarket, second-hand store, yard sale, etc because I (Mel) have such fond memories of this movie. It made such an impact on me that I still said goodnight to my favorite stuffed bear long after I was old enough to know better... just because I liked the idea of my toys coming to life. So after years of off-and-on hunting, what did I find in the dollar bin at the library yard sale last month - my MOVIE!!! Which put Brian in an awkward position.... he had to tell me not to get it because he had found it on ebay just a few weeks earlier and was saving it for Christmas. What a sweetie! So now that it's Christmas-movie-watching-season, we're going to watch it. I hope it's as magical as I remember!

My guess is it'll be the most sensational inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational......

I'm dreaming of a white.... Thanksgiving?!?

The day before Thanksgiving and we're getting plenty of snow (and rain later in the day)! Hmmmm... there seems to be a connection between holidays and snow storms.

Anyways, Jane and I took advantage of the snow before heading off to work: Snow Frisbee!!

All that practice teaching Jane fetch is paying off! Have a Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Birthday weekend #2

Saturday night we went to a Mat Kearney concert for Brian's birthday present #2. Pat's Pizza in the Old Port for dinner, then we walked over to the State Theatre for the show. Lots of fun and he sounds exactly the same live as he does on the radio (imagine that!?). He traveled through the crowd while singing, enjoyed some popcorn from someone in the front row, and made up a little song on the spot about Portland and what had happened during the show - just a good time. Was very happy when he came back for the encore to sing my new favorite song of his, Ships in the Night!

Halloween x3

Halloween was busy again this year. We dressed as Harry Potter and Hermione Granger for one party. Then we wore our "fashionable" matching sweaters for a party the next night (costumes were optional for that party and there was the option to carve pumpkins, so we didn't want to get our costumes messy). Mel competed in the "eat a donut on a string" contest...

... and won!It snowed 3-4 inches that Saturday night, so when we got back from the party we let Jane experience her first real snow (I already posted pictures of this... it's only snowed once, luckily!!)

And then we had a great turnout of Trick or Treaters on Monday night. We had many more young kids than teenagers, so that made it more enjoyable. We saw some great costumes too. We even got Christmas Carolers who sang us Silent Night! And this year I decided to make the older kids "earn" their candy, so we asked for a joke, song, whatever... and got some entertaining responses. And, per our Halloween tradition, we made guesses of how many kids would come and Joe won. He was closest to our Trick-or-Treater total of 135 for the night.
Horray for a Halloween full of treats without any tricks!

Birthday weekend #1

Birthday gift #1 for Brian was an afternoon at a Ropes Course about an hour from here. Unfortunately, no photos of us, but we had a blast. About 3 hours up in the trees making our way through obstacles to get to the next platform: climbing rope ladders, whizzing on mini zip lines, crossing wobbly bridges, crossing hanging tires... very fun and quite challenging. The upper levels of the course (about 30-40 feet up the trees) were definitely designed for adults and tested your strength. Then we finished the afternoon with 3 long zip lines (I think they said it was 2,000 feet long) to go from the top of the hill to the bottom. I thought the height thing might me an issue, but it was just plain fun.

Bring your Tokens

For Brian's Birthday, we surprised him with a little arcade-themed fun with pinball, air hockey, guitar hero, foosball, and bag-o..... we sent him out to get pizza and set up quickly!


Scott had Brian open up his gift so he could wear it right away.... nothing better than brotherly love ;) (Gorgar is a character from a pinball machine).
Then we played some games...

Brian shared the spotlight with someone who looked extra cute in her party hat!

Then we ate birthday dessert! I made a 4-layer ice cream cake (with golden oreo crumbs in between layers- yum!) and brownies for my Pacman and ghosts theme.
Then Brian opened presents with a little help from Jane.

Happy 31st Brian. Thanks to everyone who helped make it special.

It's your Birthday... Hit the Road!

Brian signed up for his first road race on the morning of his birthday. So we were up early and off to Portland for possibly the yummiest sounding race ever, as well as one that spoke to the Engineer in Brian:

Easy as Pi (remember math class...Pi = 3.14 and 3.14 miles = just over a 5k). Plus... the promise of pie for everyone who runs! Apparently Darth Vader is a big fan of road races... or pie maybe.
Waiting for the start,then off he goes.

And the reward! Brian finished 30th out of 124 with a time of 25:48 which beat his goal time, so he was happy with his first race. What a great way to start year 31!

Hello Winter, You're Early.

It's October 29th and we've got this tonight...
...hopefully there's not a ton more of it when we wake up in the morning!!

Winter, you're a little too early this year!!!

Apple Fest 2011

Per our annual fall tradition, Brian and I went apple picking at a local orchard. This year was a much better year for apples and the picking was easy peezy. Or perhaps easy as pie. Either way, we picked 35 pounds of apples in about 10 mins. We plan to make and can applesauce, and maybe some apple-pie jam (because who wouldn't want to smother some morning toast with apple pie jam!?). But really, we needed apples for our Apple Party with some friends. Everyone brought an apple-inspired dish for dinner, then we played the Apples to Apples card game, followed by a very close girls v. guys Cranium game. Kurt and Emily even came dressed as a apples - how cute! With all that yummy food and great people, we'll have to consider making the apple party an annual event.

Circus Dog

After Jane's successful encounter with the obstacle/agility course at the Dog Days of Summer event, we've talked about signing her up for a class. But before we commit the time, we wanted to test out her interest a little further..... so far so good! Don't call the circus yet, but she's taken to jumping over a stick pretty quickly.

(please excuse the silent video... technical difficulties)

Beach Day

After our quick picnic dinner trip to Popham that didn't go as planned, we took a day off together, left Jane at home, and spent the day at the beach. Since it was mid September and overcast, the beach was nearly deserted, but it was a great relaxing day. We even got in the water and went swimming!

Popham Beach, we still love you. We'll see you next summer.

Perfect Picinic Dinner

Early in September I was feeling like we had let the summer slip away (once again) without once visiting the beach - and really, what's more summery than the beach?! Brian had just finished a stressful week at work. So on whim, Friday evening right after work, we picked up sandwiches and drove to Fort Popham with Jane. We were excited. What could go wrong with dinner on the beach and Jane enjoying the water? yeah, sure, I'll list them all.

• Sunset comes a lot earlier this late in the summer, so we only had about 30 mins before the sun set.
• the mosquitoes were so persistent we literally couldn't stop swatting long enough to take a bite of our sandwich without getting covered in bugs. We ran up and down the beach, sandwiches in hand, to try to stay ahead of the bugs.
  
• Jane was not interested in getting wet and too nervous about the waves to enjoy herself.
• they put tomatoes in Brian's sandwich which isn't a big deal to pick out ...if your fingers aren't covered in sand.

Was it the relaxing evening we had pictured? No. But we squeezed in that visit to the beach, doing one last "summer" thing before the shorts got put into storage.

Maybe that's just what the beach is, a perfect experience we dream about all winter long, but once we get there the water's too cold to swim, the seagulls want to steal your lunch, and the sand's found its way into places it really shouldn't be.... actually, that's exactly how I remember it. Is it crazy that I love it so much?

More Snuggles

This is what happens when Mel picks out the movie to watch... my two snugglers get to relax together. :)

Sharing the taste of summer

Nothing says summer like fresh watermelon (which finally showed up at Farmer's Market!) so we enjoyed some last weekend. But no one likes it better than Jane!

And no, we wouldn't normally feed her like this.... I dropped my slice on the ground and it seemed silly to toss it when we knew Jane loves it so much. Plus, it was a riot to watch her eat it like this.

Irene Checklist

We've got a weekend guest coming Sunday: Irene.Saturday's checklist to prepare for the hurricane (which with any luck, will be downgraded to tropical storm by the time it reaches us on Sunday/Monday):

• yard cleared up of anything that might blow off or blow over - check
• Pick any veggies from the garden that are close to ripe, since my plants will probably take a beating in the wind and rain :( - check
• food that we can eat cold- check
• water - check
• flashlights - check
• batteries - check
• a good book for when the power goes out - check.
  

We're ready for ya - Bring it on Irene!

We joke, but we're lucky we're not getting the full force of the storm like much of the Atlantic coast south of us. Hopefully everyone heeds the warnings.

Weekend for Jane

We made last weekend all about Jane (ok, so it feels like every day is about Jane.... we keep reminding ourselves that we wanted a puppy and not just a dog ;)). Anyways, we spent our weekend doing things we thought would be fun for Jane.
LL Bean was hosting a Dog Days of Summer event which was for dogs and their families, so we brought her out where she got to see more dogs in one place than she's probably ever seen!
We watched a police dog demonstration, a service dog demonstration, and an agility course demonstration. Then Jane got to do a quick practice run through the agility course to see if she'd have fun doing something like that...and it seemed like she would (that's her in the tunnel)!

Sunday was the day to get Jane in the water again. We've coaxed her into a pond for a very short amount of time before, but she doesn't seem to think that it's the least bit fun. So we spent a little time in a stream nearby the house to get her wet in shallow water.

Then it was off to a dog park on the ocean to get her in the Atlantic!

I can't say that she was excited about the water, but once she was in she didn't hate it either. We're going to count that as a success! It makes us hope she likes snow more than the ocean because she's got a looooong winter ahead of her.