We’re back at work today at Charis Hills Camp, but I wanted to share about our very fun long weekend in Waco. I’ll pretend that we went to Waco to celebrate my birthday, but the reality is, we returned so Gary could finish up that fire pit! So let’s start there -
So this is how things looked when we left back in October -

By the next weekend, the fire pit kit had been delivered

but it was still a long way from the backyard – and from actually being usable.
We just let that ol’ fire pit just sit there for a day or so while Gary continued on the prep work and the hearth.




One of the smartest things he did this weekend was take out a section of the fence in the back so he could drive the truck (and all those pavers and bags of sand/gravel/cement) up close to the deck. Man, those babies are H-e-a-v-y!


Once he got the three hearth rows down, he tamped them all into submission….

checked to make sure the opening was a good size for the ring

he started building up the sides of the pit.

What I don’t have pictures of is him putting mortar between the blocks in the hearth or how he cinched each level of the fire pit stone to make sure it was perfectly round and good and tight. But here it is – with one happy homeowner waiting patiently for the burn ban to lift!


And just in case anyone down the road wonders about it -

It’s signed, sealed and delivered!
But the weekend wasn’t ALL about the fire pit! Lara did have some of her friends over for a little birthday pot-luck for me on Thursday. (Of course, it might have just been a ploy to get those fire-pit pavers to the back of the house….). As often is the case, sometimes the most unusual items become the most interesting of the night. In this case – Lara’s Yarn Swift and Ball Winder….

Who knew? And it wasn’t even the kids who started wondering what those “things” were for!
Here’s our group picture from the night -

A fun group – and a fun evening!

By Saturday the construction project was over and we spent the early part of the day running errands. I know that Gary loved the trip to Lowes (mostly returns!), Tractor Supply and Harbor Freight. But I LOVED our stop at Kohl’s where Lara and I left Gary in the truck to go in and look for a new top for me. It’s my birthday after all! What started out as a simple shopping trip, soon turned into the “reveal” portion of “What Not to Wear”, and I walked out of the store with….drum roll……a new dress, sweater (basic black), dark dress jeans, a classic long black skirt and SIX tops. All for $156.00. Ok, I know that’s probably TMI for some of you – but SOME of you are delighted to hear of our shopping prowess. You know who you are! Lara and I had such fun, and since I can’t think of the last time I had so much fun with my own personal dresser, I had to share!

The weekend ended with a safe trip back to our spot north of Dallas, and we were blessed with this beautiful sky as the day drew to a close.

Yes, indeed, dear friends, it was a very fine birthday weekend. Calls from the family (even a Skype call from Ohio!), mushy (and silly) cards from my precious sisters, and time spent with Lara and the gang in Waco. Very Very Fine.

New Brunswick.

Maine’s closest Canadian neighbor.  And quite a beautiful one at that!

Our destination for the day was the home of SOWER friends, Arch and Marg, who live near Hampton, NB.

(Sorry for the scratchy writing. Have you ever tried to write with your mouse? If you’d like to see the actual Google map of the area, here’s a link for that – it might be easier than trying to figure out what I’m trying to make note of on this!)
But I digress.

It was a lovely drive getting there and we even managed a quick stop (and walk around town) in Fredericton, New Brunswick’s capital city.



As is the case everywhere, it seems, there is ALWAYS construction to contend with -

Ah, sweet memories of Alaska!

Arch and Marg live right on beautiful Belleisle Bay, and getting there necessitated taking a rather small (though thankfully free) ferry. Gulp.

Guess we’ll wait patiently for the next one. Who’s in a hurry, anyway?

Our turn – at least we got on first as opposed to finding a spot between the rest of the vehicles!

We wound our way along the bay and arrived in time for a lovely dinner, some R&R on the deck

and beautiful sunset.

A wonderful finish to the first day of our Maritime Adventure!

Do you have time for the second day?
OK -
We started off with worship at a sweet little church right around the corner from our friends’ house -

and then proceeded to have our own tour of St. John and especially the famous Reversing Rapids - where the St. John River actually changes direction twice a day!


Aside from viewing the rapids/falls (which unfortunately were not at their most dramatic stage, I’m afraid!), we could have taken a jet boat ride

or even done a five level zipline.

But can you guess what we did?

Yeah, we watched!
There were beautiful wildflowers all along the observation area

and you know I couldn’t resist a couple of close-ups!



After a little more sightseeing in the downtown and a little more after-dinner lounging on the deck

we girls walked down to the waterfront-

and enjoyed sweet fellowship (and I got to play with the camera) while we waited for another beautiful sunset!



Oh, right – the sunset…..

Enough for tonight. Next post will be about our continued drive up the coast of New Brunswick to Prince Edward Island.
But before I go – just to give you a taste of how beautiful that day is going to be, here is the view from the deck that morning -

Stay tuned, more beautiful New Brunswick coming soon!

Saturday dawned bright and sunny, and we couldn’t resist the lure of a local agricultural fair. We’ve never been to this neck of the woods (though there seem to be more farms than woods here!), so it seemed to be a perfect opportunity to get a feel for the neighborhood.
So, come along as we explore the Houlton Agricultural Fair.

Before we even hit the midway with all the rides and vendors, we caught the tail end of the Lumber Jack Show.

Besides the log rolling competition, there was some fine chainsaw action, a little wood chopping fun, and a lot of corny jokes. It was a fun way to start the fair.
But the Real Beginning of the fair for us was the Fair Food -

We split the sausage sandwich, so that makes that amazing pile of homemade potato chips (called Ribbon Fries at the fair) a little less troublesome, right? Right? My, they were good!!!
From our artery clogging lunch we headed to the Exhibition Halls. It wasn’t very large, but there were jams and jellies, local art and photography, and a small section for crafts and quilts –

From the Exhibition Hall we meandered over to the Lawnmower Races.

Wasn’t quite the Tim the Tool Man idea of a souped-up mower, but those boys sure seemed to have a good time “racing” around the track!
Back to the entertainment tent where we witnessed Alexandria the Great escape out of a straight jacket while being bound with chains.

In about 3 minutes, no less. Quite impressive. You could tell she was a trained professional!
Next up was Dan Grady & His Marionettes . At first it was a little odd since he wasn’t behind a curtain or anything, but he did an amazing job with his marionettes. One of them was this flying trapeze puppet -

This is my attempt at a close-up action shot….

“E” for effort?
He had these triple synchronized clowns

that were pretty impressive until they started doing this….

Ok, still impressive, but hey, there are KIDS in the audience. It was pretty freaky!
We left the entertainment area before the Karaoke started, and headed to the livestock area. There were pigs and lambs and goats and chickens and bunnies. My favorites, though, were the alpacas -


There are a couple of alpaca farms close by, so you might see more of these guys this month!
And I couldn’t resist this shot of the bovines -

Someone needs to figure out how to have us walk down a CENTER isle so we have a slightly better view of the cows!
But apparently the BIG event of the day was the Demolition Derby.
Before -

After -

After the After -

These guys were in the “sedan class” (and had their radiators on their roofs), and are getting ready for the “consolation” round.

Really, this is fun? I confess I’m still trying to understand both the appeal of watching cars crashing into each other and the appeal of actually being the driver of one of the cars. But judging by the amount of hooting and hollering going on around us, the crowd was loving it! Everyone seemed to have their favorites – and the kids behind us were rooting for their MOM who was driving a car in the compact class. If nothing else, there was some great community spirit going on here!

We had a great day at the Houlton Fair. I managed to steer Gary away from the midway (and another order of those ribbon fries) as we walked back to the truck, and by the time we got back to our rig, we were blessed with this beautiful sunset -

Thanks for coming along! Alpacas and Demolition Derbies. Who knew?

Pssst….guess what’s coming up in a couple of weeks? The Maine Potato Blossom Festival! Maybe they’ll have those ribbon fries there too……

This past weekend there was a glorious full moon. According to moon-watcher folks, it was spectacular in that the moon was as close to the earth as it’s been in the last 18 years or so. A couple of us did our best to find just the right spot to photograph this Super Moon, and while the results weren’t nearly as spectacular as the moon itself, watching it rise was beautiful.







I’d really like to say my camera just wasn’t up to the challenge, but I believe it was more operator deficiency than camera.

I guess a tripod would have been a good idea, too!
Good thing I have another 20 years or so to hone those “shooting the Super Moon” skills!

is good.
It’s very good!

We’ve had a great week hanging out with our kids and since they have been doing that “work” thing, we’ve been left on our own during the day to nap, read, and visit with local friends. It’s been a wonderful combo! So, in no particular order, here are some highlights of our life in Lancaster.
Shoe Shopping
(You didn’t know this would be quite so exciting, did you?)
So while shoe shopping for me was a bust (Abigail managed to snag two cute pairs), we did manage to be at the outlets when the fire trucks came barrelling in on what seemed to be (judging by the 8 fire trucks that arrived on the scene in short order) a major conflagration. We saw no fire or smoke or even smelled any smoke, but just about every fire company in the area was there. And we were (literally) first on the scene.

No news at 11~
Out with friends
We love when we can connect with friends during our travels! We have a couple of SOWER friends that live in the Lancaster area, so we were blessed to be able to see Ann and her son Brad for dinner one night.

We hadn’t seen them in over two years, so it was a real treat!
Plus we were able to get together with our Alaska buddies, Jay and Naomi. We were able to combine lunch with a stop at the local “market” where we picked up some yummy stuffed pork chops for dinner and then another stop at a local produce stand where we picked up the best sweet corn I’ve had this season. It was a delightful day!
The Girls


Gia – age 1 1/2

Libby (short for Liberty) – age 7 months
and

Macho -found as a kitten where Josiah works, and named before they realized she was a girl.

Although the dogs live happily in their crates during the day while their folks are at work, we enjoyed having them down with us on occasion. And with the nice fenced in yard, it was easy to just let them out to do their business. Of course, the trick is to let them out, but keep Macho in. She got out once, made a beeline for the only hole in the fence and disappeared from view. I was able to lure her back, but the next day as I was being extra careful to close the door behind the dogs, I managed to lock myself out. Of course, Gary had just left to get the tires rotated, so I busied myself with a nice walk, some weeding and some general backyard clean-up. So while I was reasonably productive, I mostly was glad I had gotten dressed before I let the dogs out in the first place!
The pets were great – but we were reminded how glad we are that we have chosen to do our lifestyle pet free. It’s much more fun to just borrow the mayhem!
Around the House
We thought there would be a nice long list of chores for us to do while we were here, but it turns out that the house is cosmetically in pretty good shape and most the changes that the kids have in mind were of the nature that requires planning and a budget (and maybe a larger crew). Pretty much we’ve been doing little odds and ends (like the afore mentioned weeding) but mostly we’ve been collecting ideas of little projects. So last night we had a night on the town -
Lowes – (for a modest housewarming shopping spree.)

(and the tub was NOT in the budget!)
Hot Diggity Dog for dinner

A drive through downtown Lancaster


and our final stop -


What Else!?
Tonight we head out to a Barnstormers baseball game, and then tomorrow we wrap up our house chores (Josiah will be learning how to pull and re-install a toilet. A good skill for any homeowner!), enjoy a quick visit from Toby and Tammy and the other girls on their way to the shore, and then get ready for our next destination – a couple of days with my sister and hubby up in Perry County. We have a couple of light switches to change out, and a faucet to install, but I think we (and I use the term loosely) can pull it off!
Yes, tis true,

Life in Lancaster is good.
It’s very good indeed!