Blueberry Festival 2018

This year's Blueberry Festival was quite a mixed bag!  Friday during the day and the road race in the evening it was so hot and humid we were hoping it would rain and never did. Saturday we thought it wouldn't stop raining! Regardless, we had a super fun time. We spent Friday at the kid's games, getting fire truck rides and face painting.

Friday evening we all got some exercise.  Audrey and I ran the kids 1 mile fun run and she finished with an awesome time for being 5 (24th place overall 9:39!).  She was super determined throughout the entire race!  James, Ben, and I ran the 5K with our friend Suzanne who was celebrating finishing treatments for cancer.  Ben voluntarily ran a 5K, his first, with minimal complaints!  He doesn't seem too happy to run another though, so we will see what happens there:)  I gave Noah the choice to run the 5K with us or to run the 10K on his own... I was proud that he chose the solo 10K as a challenge to himself.  He has never run more than a 5K solo before and I was a little nervous about him being able to pace himself on such a hilly, challenging course. He pushed himself and finished in 58:18! That was several minutes faster than I thought he would do it, especially without someone running beside him!

Saturday morning it rained. Not just a little rain, but torrential downpour rain.  Just when we thought it couldn't rain any harder it did!  But the parade went on rain or shine, so kudos to those parade participants who stuck it out.  It still lasted almost 45 minutes.  Per usual it was a really enjoyable parade. Everyone was soaked after though so we cut our day short and went home to dry out... Gabe was grateful to have been working and miss this part of the festival;)  

Rangeley and Visitors

We have gotten so much time on the boat this summer, thanks in part to the Wojick family who is kindly letting us dock the boat at their home on Wilson Lake. The kids are all loving tubing and are getting super adventurous with it.  They are all also great at the knee board and getting adventurous there too, especially James and Audrey.  Noah and James are extending their boat activity repertoire and have both gotten up on water skis and, so far, are enjoying it!

This week we had an awesome over night visit with our friends from New Jersey at their rental camp on Rangeley Lake. The weather wasn't super fantastic, but it did hold out enough to go out on the boat for part of the day, visiting, bowling, and lots of campfire fun. 

Also this week we had an fun and relaxing picnic on the back deck... until the chickens came that is!  Matilda was being curious and we thought she just wanted to be part of the lunch, but as it turns out she just wanted our grapes and certainly helped herself.  I love Noah's expression here:)

Showers, Soccer, Swimming, and Visits

Hillary and Cody are getting married!!  Last weekend we got to attend an awesome bridal shower for Hillary and Cody.  It was full of laughs and good times, we can't wait for the big day!

Also last weekend we got a visit from Grampy Grampy.  The kids got to visit with him and we had a wonderful meal at Calzilaio's.

This week as been the Challenger Soccer Camp week in Wilton. We hosted both coaches for the 3rd year in a row now.  The kids have a blast with the coaches and loved taking them kayaking and on the boat tubing and knee boarding.  One was from England and the other from Northern Ireland. We had a really great and enjoyable week, but everyone is exhausted for sure!  Especially since Gabe left us mid-week to attend the Civiello Invitational family golf tournament.  The kids also ended the week with some warm summer shower swimming.  It is always fun to swim in the rain!

Lubec & Campobello

Gabe and the kids have never been to the Lubec/Campobello area so when Gabe had a surprising 3 days off in a row, we jumped at the chance to camp for a few nights in that area.  We had beautiful weather and the tides worked in our favor so that all combined with the beauty of the area outweighed the incredible amount of mosquitos at our campsite.  Gabe and I have lived in Maine for most of our lives, but neither of us had experienced anything like it.  We had to eat meals inside our tent because we couldn't stand it... we even skipped meals because the mental strain of trying to cook with that many insects flying around was too much.  Needless to say we didn't have to spend much time at our site;)  

On our first day in town we explored the Quoddy Head light house, explored the beach there, and took in the sights of Lubec.  The next morning we got an early start to explore Campobello Island (luckily we remembered our passports!).  We toured the Roosevelt complex (technically getting in our first day of school;)), did some hiking, explored the Campobello light house at low tide (and got a tour of the inside), checked out the salmon pens, and saw lots of jelly fish on the beach.  

The next morning we quickly packed up camp and headed for home, but not before scouting out the way better camping sites with fewer mosquitos... so we will be better prepared in our planning for next time:)