Family Day

We woke up to rain yesterday morning, but we weren’t going to let it ruin our plans.  Thermoses were filled with piping hot [homemade]chicken noodle soup and hot chocolate, woolen socks and flannel shirts tossed on and a couple of mugs of piping hot coffee made for The Man and me.  We were off on our first ever family hunting adventure.

There’s something calming to the soul to be out on the dirt roads in the middle of the woods, no cell phone service, just surrounded by trees.  The leaves are changing over beautifully in these parts.

The rain stopped and we had only the occasional shower for the rest of the day.  We stopped frequently to stretch our legs and just breath in Fall in Northern Maine.

We saw a couple of turkey vultures hanging out together.  (Look just to the left of the center of the picture – 2 black things on top of the dead tree)

 

Those are some pretty big birds.  I’ve never seen them so up close before.

I can’t end this post without giving you a chuckle at my expense.  Yesterday was the first time in ten or so years I shoot a gun.  We came upon a partridge on the road I could have hit with the door of the jeep.  It was maybe fifteen feet away – and I missed my shot.  Really?  Perhaps I should stick to Gatherer and let T keep the Hunter status of our home.

I did redeem myself on a soda bottle later in the day.  We found one on the side of the road he set up for me to have some target practice.  I took one shot.  He wanted to know where I was aiming before showing me I was spot on.  Spot on.  We should have done the target shooting first, perhaps?

Alas, we came home empty  handed - courtesy of my blunder.  That bird should have been dinner!  But, we had a wonderful day together so the day was most definitely not lost.

We’ll be going back out tomorrow.  I am determined to add Huntress to my Jill of All Trades accomplishments.

Throwing a Party

My aunt and uncle recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.  My cousin decided to surprise them with a party.

He booked a party room at a local restaurant but wanted to make the cake on his own - with some help from me.  Neither of us had any real experience using fondant, but he had his heart set on finishing the cake with it.  After a couple of trial runs, we felt we were prepared to make a nice looking cake.

I ended up out of commission on Friday (getting over either a 24 hour bug or food poisoning – I’m not sure which but it wasn’t fun). 

PANIC!  We need to make cake!!

T saved the day by baking two of the three layers for us.  My cousin came after work  to bake the third layer, make the butter cream crumb coat and make the chocolate ganache filling.  By that point in the day, I was able to peel myself from the couch for small spurts so I was able to show him what he needed to do.  The day ended with 2 layers filled and crumb coated when we were supposed to be finished! 

EEEEK!!

We somehow managed to pull it out in the end on Saturday morning.

I found ribbon in my ribbon stash (I think it was from my wedding six years ago, even).  The leaves (dipped in melted beeswax) and roses were a last minute touch.  I felt it looked too plain and you could see any imperfections in the fondant (and that the ribbon was a little too short.  Shhhh.)

About a week before the party, he started to get nervous about decorations.  I went rummaging in my craft supplies and came up with a game plan – maroon and orange (not shown) fabrics on the cake and gift tables, a couple of potted mums off my front porch and mason jars filled with sunflowers from my garden for centerpieces.

It all came together perfectly and we had a fantastic evening celebrating a wonderful couple.

The best part?  The surprise didn’t get out.

Here’s to at least 25 more happy years!

Backyard Camping

Look where we slept last night.

 

It was a long night crammed in between my 2 best buddies in 2 sleeping bags zipped together (Temps were forecasted to go down to 49 – I was worried they’d get cold – hence sharing a sleeping bag instead of each using our own). 

I will say, you get to hear a lot of pretty cool things in your backyard at random hours of the night, though.  I’d never heard deer “talk” to each other before.  Too bad they were talking to warn of the foreign object in the yard while they were helping themselves in our garden.  ;-)

You don’t need to go far to show your kids a good time!  Mine are already asking when we’re going to do it again.

Taking Advantage

T’s been working the past few days.  We don’t get any family time when he is so we were more than happy to take advantage of the beautiful weather today.  Unfortunately, duty called and we both had far too much to do around the house.

Ahh..  but an early dinner proved to be just the ticket to sneak in a hike before bed.

The Falls were pretty as always.

The kids even got an after dinner snack when we found some ripe blueberries.

Nom.

Enjoy summer while you can!  It seems like it’s already almost over – and it just began.

Momma’s Got a New Ride

We’re in town now – close to everything. 

I told T I’d be willing to run errands on bike this summer. 

Obviously, we needed a way for me to bring the kids along.

The trailer finally arrived yesterday.

Monkey loved it (Little Man was having his nap when T put it together and has yet to try it).

*cue Wicked Witch music*

We’ll be able to leave both vehicles parked much of the time (he mostly uses his motorcycle in the summer months – weather permitting, of course).  The kids and I don’t really go very far.  I think this is going to be a great thing.

(I love that I’m wearing my painting clothes – but had on nice jeans to run to the grocery store.  HA!  Real life, people.  Real life.)

PS –Yes, we have helmets.  This was an impromptu quick turn a few houses down to give it a try.  They’ll be finding their way into the kids cubbies by the door  in a few days  - when it’s warm enough to take them both out. 

World Cup Biathlon 2011

Fort Kent was dubbed years ago as The Little Town that Could. 

Boy, can they ever.

A few weeks ago, Fort Kent hosted World Cup Biathlon competitions.  There were so many activities in town for the events.  We didn’t do nearly as much as town was offering.

We did very much enjoy the International Light Parade.  Our favorite float, by far, was roasting marshmallows and handing them out to the crowd. 

So much awesome.

An ice castle was built in the middle of Down Town.

Inside was a bar – also made of ice.

 

Then, of course, there were the actual races.  It was really cool to watch.

We did need to entertain ourselves (the children) a little while they were actually out on the course. 

If you’re in the area this Saturday, be sure to check out the Can Am Sled Dog Races.  There aren’t nearly as many activities, but it’s just as fun! 

This time, I’m packing a thermos of hot chocolate in the back pack. 

Leaf Peeping and Apple Dumplings

We’ve finally managed to get rid of the crap/cold/flu/whatever that has been plaguing our house for the past month. 

We decided to take a drive yesterday to do some leaf peeping and bring a picnic lunch for the kids.   In the Bangor area, the leaves aren’t very colorful yet.  However, just an hour north, the leaves are beautiful.

When we got back, I decided I needed to make some apple treats.  I was going to make an apple cream cheese cake, but then saw it needed to sit overnight.  I wanted instant gratification so opted to finally make T those apple dumplings he’s been hankering for.

Old Fashioned Apple Dumplings (recipe from Straight from the Farm)

I started by getting the insides ready.

4 tbs sugar

1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/3 cup Craisens (optional – kept to the side)

4 medium baking apples, cored and peeled ( I had small apples so made 6 total)

Then I prepped the syrup supplies.

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups water

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

Next, I started on the crust dough.

2 cups AP flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2/3 cup chilled butter, cut into cubes

1/2 cup 2% milk

1) Preheat oven to 375.

2) Combine flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.  Cut in butter until coarse crumbs form.  Pour in milk and stir to form a dough.  Add flour if too sticky.  Do not overwork.  Divide in half.  Roll one half on a lightly floured surface to 1/4” thickness.  Cut into squares.

3) Cut off top and bottom of each apple.  Rinse in cold water and pat dry with a paper towel.

4) Place 1 apple in center of each dough square.  Fill cores with Craisens and sugar mixture. Sprinkle sugar mix on apples.  Wet edges of dough and seal corners at the top of the apple.  Pinch to seal.

5) Place all dumplings in a baking dish, 1” apart.

6) Bring syrup ingredients to a boil, remove from heat and cool slightly.  Pour around dumplings and sprinkle 2 tbs sugar over top  (I used more sugar mixture from the insides on the top of the dough).  Bake for 45 minutes.  If browning too quickly, place foil on top for final 10-15 minutes.

Fresh from the oven:

We enjoyed them for dessert:

I opted for a small scoop of ice cream with more of the syrup drizzled on top:

Delicious.  

Wordless Weekend Rewind

Vacationing for Less

Last Thursday, T e-mailed me from work to tell me he was going to try to get Monday off and how do I feel about taking our New Hampshire trip this weekend?  How do I feel?  Let’s do it!

On Friday, he found out that he could, indeed, take Monday off.  So he called and booked a cabin at the Twin Mountains KOA campground.  We got the basic, no frills other than electricity (we only had lights) cabin.

Cute place, right?  It only cost $60 for the night where as the cheapest motel he could find in the area was $120.  If you know me, you know I don’t dig germs – and public bathrooms disgust me.  I’d rather pee behind a tree, thank you.  But you can’t shower behind a tree.  I was willing to give it a try even though it meant having to use the public bathrooms. 

We only have good things to say about this place.   Even the scary public bathrooms were really really clean.

My only complaint is this.  The pool and playground claim to close at dusk.  I don’t know about you, but at this time of year 7PM is NOT dusk.  After putting on our swim suits and heading to the pool, we discovered it had been closed in the 5 minutes it had taken for T to check it out, come back to change and the walk back up to it.  We were still able to entertain the kids fairly well with our very very limited supply of tricks.

Something else we do when we’re on vacation is avoid eating out.  Restaurants cost big bucks.  We packed all of our food in a fairly small cooler.   We decided sandwich fixings for lunch on day 1, dutch oven pizza casserole for dinner, mini-bagels and a small pack of bacon for breakfast and grab lunch at the park before heading out. 

This pizza casserole was really easy to make.   Once again, you know me.  I couldn’t leave it as was.  We added pepperoni, green peppers and mushrooms to it as well.  I would suggest cooking your green peppers ever so slightly because they were still crunchy.  This one will be pulled out for a BBQ some time later this summer.  It was that good.

You don’t need to spend big bucks to have a great vacation.  Normally, we’d do hiking and outdoors stuff but the point of this trip was to take our kids to Santa’s Village (and Storyland, but that didn’t happen.  Long story for another day).  So to Santa’s Village we went.  And it was worth the entire 4 1/2 hours it took for us to make the drive (with stops, of course – there’s no NOT stopping with 2 little ones!)

If you’ve never been, I’d suggest checking it out.  It’s a great place to go even with the younger kids. 

We’re already trying to figure out when we’re going to go back!