Taking Jessi to a college and getting her all set up in a dorm room

....is too much like taking Jessi to college and getting her set up in a dorm room.

NCA day has FINALLY arrived!!!

YAY!!! Jessi has been ready to BURST with excitement ever since school ended for NCA cheer camp! Today I drop her off at Husson University and won't see her again til Saturday.

On Saturday morning they have the last big cheer "thing" and anyone can go watch... so if anyone out there wants to come, it's at 9am and the directions just say "don't worry.... you can't miss us!!"

Cuz 1 get together and 2 blog posts weren't nearly enough....

Rick REALLY wanted to smoke some meat with his new toy... AND we learned that having a get-together the day AFTER a get together is GREAT incentive to clean the house from the first get-together... get it? ;-)

An attempt at redemption for the horrible photos I took last night ;-)

Rick's birthday weekend

Even though the weather didn't cooperate... the party was great!! Rick got some great gifts and everyone had a great time (ok... well I know _I_ did... I guess I can't really speak for everyone else...lol) Rick is head over heels in love with the smoker that his parents and brother got for him. I guess it's a good thing I am back to low-carb with a vengeance tomorrow since I have a feeling there is a LOT of smoked meat in my future!

Bath time!!

Cooper LOVES bath time..... NOT!!!

"Oh please god, not me next."

Tomorrow is your day, Sampson. Lucy's day is EVERY day... that damn dog can NOT stay dry!!

The thing about Old Orchard Beach......

Is that you have to embrace it's complete and total ghetto-fabulousness!! So many people turn their noses up at the mere mention of the place... but not this girl. I FREAKIN' LOVE IT!! From the fat WAY TOO TAN french dudes in speedos.... to the rode-hard-put-away-wet chicks with their cigs and lighter tucked into the string of their bikini... to the lobster red beer bellies.... COME ON... what is NOT to love!!?? I could just sit and watch people all day long.... if there weren't some totally rad waves to catch, dude. ;-)

Last time I made this, it was so labor and time intensive I swore it would be a LOOOONG time before it happened again.

It was SO much easier this time... "I'D" make it again ANYTIME!! ;) ;)

Summer has officially arrived

(Let's just pretend it's not cold and raining out)

Today is the first of our FABULOUS FUN FRIDAYS!!!! We wanted to start it off with some something REALLY COOL... but since it's raining, we settled for "pretty darn cool" with a trip to the UMO rec center WAY COOL POOL, lunch at Pat's Pizza, and then going to see the movie UP! I LOVE that Karyn has Friday's off too and is up for any kind of adventure with all the kids! I even caught her googling "sea kayaking in Maine" the other day!! BRING IT ON KARYN!!

it's only NOON!!!???

We are kickin' ass and takin' names today!!! The den of crap is actually almost presentable!! The hallway of "where the hell should we put this... I don't know just put it in the hallway" is CLEAN and ALL of our shoes are in the CLOSET on SHELVES!! Thanks to all my scrappy stuff going bye bye... I actually have SPACES to put things!!

Rick took about 127 contractor sized bags of bottles down to the bottle drive to save the "B" teams that got cut out of the schools budget. We will be taking FULL credit when the teams are out there playing next year. Rick also took... and is still taking... 2,769 bags of junk to the dump as he works on cleaning out the basement. I think it's ok that we skipped the gym this morning since we are both a sweaty mess!!

We also cleaned Sean's room. The dump and goodwill are now fully stocked. For reals. It was BAD.

I'd love to say now that we have it all good... it will stay that way, but who am I even trying to kid?

Orono Farmer's Market and some garden on campus...

The market wasn't really the "jackpot" for me. I bought some flowers to plant, but other than that there wasn't really anything I was interested in. After that Sean and I found a little garden to take some photos in.

Very glad to have some sunshine today!!

Chris and Raffi.... seperated at birth?

I'm just sayin'.......

Jessi has whipped up a little dessert....

Hangin' out(side)

Gorgeous day today... AND too windy for blackflies!!

Sean setting up one of his MANY "snake traps."

He has random things laying all over the yard and checks them periodically to see if any snakes have gone under. He is usually rewarded. He has mad snake trappin' skillz. Today he even almost landed a new species he had never seen before. A Milk Snake. Ew. (Not my photo... his got away too quickly.) Let's all be very happy that there are no poisonous snakes in Maine.

Here is another favorite pasttime...

I don't even know the last day that Lucy stayed dry all day long.

P.S. In case you are into that kind of thing... I didn't take these with my new zoom. Ken is taking it for a test run right now. I took all of these with my 135mm prime that I LOOOOOVE!!

'Sup chickens?

Wave bye bye to all my scrappy stuff. It's sold off to a lovely family in Dover, Maine.












Wave HELLO to my super yummy, super fast, super sharpy, new zoom lens... bought with the proceeds of aforementioned scrappy stuff! LOVES IT!!

(tried to take some fun outdoors stuff but was out there for 1 minute and am already all bloodied up from blackflies... BASTARDS!!!!)

80's prom party pics

High.

Between our trip to the beach and Tim and Kristie's photo shoot... and the 2 weddings I am shooting with Nicole this summer.... I am on a photography HIGH!! I even bought myself a fancy schmancy new zoom lens for shooting the weddings :-)

I always go back and forth about whether or not I want to make photography my career... and I always lean towards not because I don't want to suck the fun out of it. But I am definitely leaning towards doing a little 'sumthin sumthin' on the side!

I am also really wanting to do the teacher thing. I can't even count hoe many times in my life I have "looked into it" and gotten all the course info that I needed, and then put it on the backburner. But the drive feels a little stronger this time. Partly because I really want to work with middle school aged kids (I'm sure you can read between the lines there by thinking about what I am doing now.), and as a teacher a photography biz on the side would be a great summer thing... since that's when all the weddings are anyway!!

So.... we'll see if it hits the backburner again. There are a lot of roadblocks to that goal right now. The biggest of which to me is that to school takes time and money away from the family.

A little preview of Tim and Kristie's engagement photo shoot....

a day at the beach

I took about a zillion photos today and I don't even care... I'm posting them all... ok... not all... but a LOT of them!! 44 to be exact ;-)




Nicole and I had a great time with the kids at the "Atlantic Ocean" (Sean and Sophie discussed at LEAST 172 times that we were going to the ATLANTIC ocean and not the PACIFIC ocean today) today. It was almost nice that our evening plans got cancelled because we were able to hang out as long as we wanted to and didn't have to worry about getting back. It was GREAT to get out and take some photos!! I love that and when I don't do it for awhile, I forget just how much!! Now I am SUPER excited to take Tim and Kristie's engagement photos Tuesday evening!!

I feel all oceany... so it's off to the shower for me!

I know.... I know....

MAJOR Blog Slacker!!

I need to get out and take some photos this weekend! Thinking about taking the kids to the coast. Plus I should have some fun wiffleball photos to post soon!!

Apparently the game that started out on Monday and was then changed to Saturday... is now back to Monday. We aim to please ;-)

Found him!!

A GREAT weekend.... Capped of with a great show!!

What a weekend!!!

Saturday morning we were up bright and early for Sean's Little League game... apparently sleeping in on Saturday's is a routine long gone from our family life ;) While we watched the game, Jessi and Caroline walked up to the store and came back with AMP drinks an milkshakes. AMPs are Not something I would ever buy for Jessi... and I definitely frown upon them... but got the whole "I used my own money......" So.... I guess that's just a little part of my letting her be a teenager. But... I DO draw the line at her buying crack... EVEN if it's her own money!!

After the game we went home and cleaned up for a bit and I got the kids off to all their "weekend homes" Jessi at Caroline's and Sean with Uncle Tim and AUNT Kristie ;-) Jerry and Julie came to pick Rick and I up at 4pm and it was ON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After a fun drive down to Portland, we checked into the hotel and then headed down to the Old Port for Dinner at Fuji. After parking in the parking garage, we started walking over to the resturant and the skies opened up like they had never rained before! We only had to walk probably 200 yards yet we all looked like we had showered in our clothes before dinner. As for dinner....WHAT A GREAT PLACE!!! It was PACKED and HOPPIN! We hung out at the bar while we waited for a table and had some $134 drinks that were WELL worth it...lol!!! I told the bartender I wanted something "raspberrish" and she invented my new favorite drink... Chambord, Vanilla Stoli, and club soda... YUM!! Dinner was a DELICIOUS BLASTY BLAST!!!! Jerry and Julie DIDN'T forget thier cameras... so once they post pics, I'll steal em and add them to my blog ;-)

After dinner we went back to the hotel and hung out for awhile in Jerry and Julie's room and then headed back to our own.... I'll spare you the play-by-play of that ;-)

I woke up at 630 the next morning and instead of going to the hotel gym, I decided to go for a walk. It was SO quiet and neat to walk all around the Maine Mall with NO cars or people anywhere in sight.

We were SUPPOSED to meet Len and Dyan for breakfast at IHOP at 1030am, but forgot that it was Mother's Day and IHOP had a line like I have never SEEN! So after a REALLY LOT of shenanigans about where to go and how to get there.... we ended up at Denny's... where we didn't get OUT of til almost 1pm! Then it was on to Machester.

In Manchester we met up with Nicole and Brhaun and all went to Margaritas for some snackies and... well.... Margaritas of course. We were going to have dinner there, but most of us were still stuffed from Denny's. We hit one more bar before the show and then it was time for Dane.


The show was great!! We were pretty high up there... so I mostly watched the screen. So it was KINDA like going to see a REALLY EXPENSIVE movie... but it was a great time!! I also love the kid that did the first opening act... too funny!! I wish I could remember his name so I could link a video... I google the shit out of it and I can't find anything. But you know me... I'll figure it out eventually!

After the show, Rick asked me if I would do it again... and I said "For just the show... with the seats we had.... probably not, for the whole "weekend experience" that we had with all my favorite people.... HELL YES!!"