Nylander Museum, Caribou, Me

Today we went and explored the Nylander Museum here in Caribou. It is about a 5 min walk from our house. Mr. Nylander was an imigrant from Sweden and came to the United States to work in the late 1800's. He was a detailed house painter by trade but his real love was of finding unique things in nature, fossils, shells, wildlife, etc. He shared these many finds with museums and universities of the time. He eventually was hired out to do field work and long story, short, now all of his work is here in Caribou in a building that was built just for him in 1938. He was the currator of the museum for 5 years until his death in 1943. So, I took some pictures of the amazing things we saw today! Enjoy

first is the native black bear, this one is a cub, apparently they roam around the town and are all over the place.
Nick, apprehensive of said bear? Nah, just a great expression I caught of him!
A local red fox, unfortunately you see them on the side of the road all the time, kindof like racoons in Utah
And this is the only Moose I have seen yet....It was ENORMOUS!!!! I could stand under his chin and the lady told us if he wasnt mounted on the wall he would have been TALLER!
A coyote
an albino porcupine
Amythest
abalone shells
variety of coastal crabs found here in Maine
And lastly, the kids on the way out...about to walk back home!

farmer olympics/ potato blossom festival

I decided we needed to get out of the house, so I took the kids up to Ft Fairfield or "fort" as it is called here, to go to the Maine Potato Blossom festival. I thought, "Wow, this should be fun, activities, lazer tag, and the farmer olympics" Can't get much better than that right? Well, we did bow out rather early, but did get a few shots of the funny things going on. The picture above is all the bounce houses they had, but of course my kids were 'too big' so we moved on
Nate was incredibly bored and listened to the ipod the whole time, but at least he was there with us!

Out here, Red hot dogs are the big thing. I dont know why. I think they are kind of gaggy personally, the skin is tougher and they taste different, but you can buy "red" or "brown" hot dogs...I will stick with the brown. But here is Caitlyn getting ready to take a bit of her red dog. Notice the bun? Not what we have in the west. It is sort of like a piece of wonderbread shaped into a bun, those are good! :)
Nick taking the first bit of his red dog
Ahh, the red dog...let me know if you find that appealing?????
And now...the farmer olympics. Let me just say that I was hoping for a big field, bleachers to sit on and watch and lots of farmers out there racing each other....I was sadly mistaken. This is more of an obstacle course than anything and anyone of any age can compete. This girl did it like 10 times. This is where she was just getting ready to roll the wheel barrell down a balance beam to the other side
Another girl having a go with the wheel barrow
This lady was the first contestant... she was about 60. First you have to heave a bail of hay into the back of a truck bed, then gather all the potatoes into the basket, then scoop the mulch into the wheelbarrow and drive it down the balance beam and dump it on the other side then carry two 5 gal buckets of water back up to the starting point. She did really well until the water, which she fell carrying and ended up soaked! Poor lady!

Before it starts. Oh, they also had to stack firewood. So I guess that is the Maine Farmer Olympics.
We also had sno balls that day which were snow cones....another first! :) (not that we had not had sno cones before, just not sno balls)
I will keep taking pics and posting them! love and hugs to you all!

4th of July

So this has be one of the strangest 4th of July's ever....
We didnt know where to go, or what to do, so we asked the locals. They assured us that this lake up in Limestone was the happenin' place to go. Games, food, dancing and fireworks over the lake. Well, when we got there about 5 pm, this was the scene. Now granted it is pretty and it was peaceful, but I am more of a party til you drop on the 4th kind of gal. So we hung out.........the biggest fun was skipping rocks into the lake before it started pouring!! There was a band playing behind us and about 150 people there including one very drunk man who was dancing with a broom. guess I should have taken a picture of him to include. I kept Caitlyn very close to me though...such a protective mom! No lifeguard on duty and apparently leeches in the lake. You don't need a life guard, the leeches will be there to save you. Although Nick assures me that leeches are lazy and if they have to work to find you , they wont...meaning move a lot in the water and you are fine.

What could it be that they are all looking at???? Really, nothing! They were just scouting for good rocks to skip. Caitlyn did see a small fish in the water though...hold me back...too much excitement!

Nick....so stinking cute! I love him!

Not sure what Caitlyn was doing with her flip flop....getting out a rock, sand, putting it on....who knows!

I like this picture of Kris and I. At least he was keeping me warm

Ok, they don't look TOO miserable. Actually, we really did have fun. The kids went up to the food booths after this and had lobster rolls. or as they say here "lobstah". It is lobster meat in a sauce on a hotdog bun. Actually, not a traditional hot dog bun, more like a bun that looks like wonder bread folded in half. But they were good.

So, all in all, we left this lake around 6:30, drove around and showed the kids some of the other towns around and went home. No fireworks, no family picnics, no parades, it was just like any other day. I think next year I will root for going to Boston for the 4th and watching fireworks over the ocean! Now that sounds fun!!!!

Hope you all had a great 4th

The house

Ok so I thought I would post some pics of the inside and outside of the house. Enjoy
This is the laundry/computer room. Love the stained glass window. The window looks north onto the front lawn oopss.....got two of the same picture...sorry

Master Bath. This is the shower and jetted tub! AHHHH This will feel good when it is 20 below

Master bath, vanity

Living room. Love the wood trim and wood floors. I can't wait to decorate for Christmas

Downstairs bath/boys bath

Boys shower

Kitchen. We are going to put some kind of island in for more counter space...lots of cupboards though and the sink is original to the house

Back of the house

Back again. we sit on a third of an acre, it seems bigger than that to me though

Lilac tree

Two cute doggies in the door. This is the screened porch off of the kitchen door.

Some flowers I bought to plant

This is the driveway, should be fun this winter

Trees that line both sides of the house...tons of trees

Sorry its sideways....front of house

Front of house, we just hung up flower baskets for some color

Kris hanging the flowers

Love to you all! Keep in touch

Our drive to Maine

I thought it was time to update the blog with pictures from our travels across country and our move to Maine. THERE ARE ALOT OF PICTURES....but hey it took us 8 days to get there. There were days we didnt think we would arrive, days we were SO tired are riding in a car, days when it was so miserably HOT we were just sweltering and days when we were seeing so many amazing things
Day one: We left from Utah, up through Weber Canyon and on to Wyoming. We drove across wyoming and into Sydney Nebraska where we stayed at the Cabella's campground. It was beautiful

Until the massive Thunderstorm hit! It was a HUGE cell and it lingered over us about and hour or so, complete with lots of swirling clouds, rain and thunder and lighting. Poor Zeus was shaking in his boots....or paws.....The storm toppled our tent and broke on of the crucial poles, but we fixed it with electrical tape

As we got up the next morning, we stopped for gas and Nick never came out of the bathroom, so Kris went in to check on him and he was throwing up and was SO sick!! I felt so bad for him, but we pressed on. He threw up about every 10 minutes for about an hour and then it started to taper off to every 30 minutes. I felt so bad for him. By days end, he was not throwing up anymore, but he did not look good. He was sick!

This next picture is after our long nebraska day, this is heading into Lincoln, NE. It took about an hour to get through the city and then into Missouri, or as we have named it MISERY!!

We we arrived in Missouri at the end of day 2, our KOA campground had been closed up, so we were so tired that we opted for a motel. With the heat and humidity it was about 108 degrees outside. WAY TO HOT!!!!!!!!!! So we found this motel....i use that term loosely! If you didnt have to look around inside or use your nose, I am sure it would have been pleasant. Just imagine, heavily saturated cigarette smell (it was a non smoking room) stained bedspreads, a cooler that turned on...and that was about all it did.....a shower that was cold and musty...etc. etc...but we came in and crashed. The dogs ate lots of ice and we finally got some chicken noodle soup down nick! :)

Then we headed upward to Illinois, to Nauvoo. This picture is crossing the mighty mississippi river. It is truely a magnificent sight!

We headed to Carthage Jail first and let the dogs get out and rest and walk and drink lots of water. Kris took the boys on the tour first and then Caitlyn and I went. It was just she and I on our tour. I was so touched by the dark dungeon jail cell. It is where Willard Richards hid John Taylor after he was shot.
The spirit was very strong there for both Caitlyn and I

This picture of the Nauvoo Temple was taken at night, during a rain storm out the car window, but I thought it looked really cool! When we first saw the temple again, it took my breath away. It is spectacular and just so amazing to be there. It has been 7 years since were there.

A few pictures around Nauvoo:

Joseph Smiths grave

Nate and Kris in front of the Red Brick Store where the RS was 1st organized

Nate sporting a hat and spectacles from the time period: Pretty cool look for him

The kids in front of the Nauvoo Temple

Ok, so then we left Illinois and went into Indiana. We stayed in Granger Indiana and this little guy was found the next morning as we were packing up the tent

Also, we came across this most awesome store. It is a grocery store but at night it looks like some sort of haunted place. It was great!

I have pictures on Facebook of Kirtland, OH. My camera batteries were not charged for some reason when we got there, so the phone had to do, I loved Kirtland. I was saddened though as you go through the tour that the spirit is just not there. The reorganized church...or Church of Christ, as they are now called, owns the building. The did not elaborate of the great and important events that happened there, just that they did have a vision of the savior and they did talk abit about the construction of the building and why they followed Joseph Smith III instead of Brigham Young. It was very interesting

After Ohio, we got into Upstate New York. Nick really wanted to see Niagra falls. We thought we would save time by not taking the toll road and just going through town...BIG MISTAKE, it took us about an hour longer by not taking the toll road, so we learned a valuable lesson. But we finally arrived. We took the dogs down to the falls with us. They were going crazy, likely due to 6 days of riding in a car....but they had fun! People would stop and stare at them and want to pet them. It was like they had never seen a dog before. :)

Enjoy these pics of the falls

This is Canada, across the way from where we were

The American side of the falls

This is a tour boat you can take where you put on the rain gear and drive up to the falls and get all wet. Not really feasable without passports and with 2 big dogs

After Niagra Falls we headed to Palmyra and stopped at the sacred grove first. Caitlyn and Nick entering the grove. I hung out with the dogs and let Kris and the kids experience the grove. I have been 2 other times and felt like they needed to go. It was nice to stretch out on the grass and read and NOT DRIVE!

The next morning we got up and headed to the Hill Cumorah. We hiked to the top and this is the view


Below are Caitlyn, Nate and Nick up at the top of the hill by the statue of the angel moroni

We drove down through New York to Massachusetts and drove across the state from West to East before turning North to New Hampshire and Maine

Ok, this picture is out of order, but I couldnt delete it. It is of Kris holding a turtle we found in the grass by the Red Brick store in Nauvoo. He picked it up and it proceeded to pee on him.

This was driving into Maine...finally....we were greeted by the misty rain and lots of fog!

More fog. We were very close to the ocean

After we got to the KOA at old orchard beach in Maine, we got all set up and Caitlyn started this magnificent fire. It wasnt really that tall....the camera stretched it out, but we roasted hot dogs, marshmellows etc. We were really hoping for lobster, but it was so late and we were all SO tired!

Just a few pictures of how tuckered out we were...especially the puppies. Now when we said "do you want to go for a ride" they would just look at us like "you have got to be kidding"

Cute Caitlyn in the tent
Nate

One of the cute lobster restaurants near the beach

Nick and Caitlyn at the Atlantic ocean....so fun. They were so excited. Neither had been to the beach before

sorry this one is sideways....Caitlyn was pointing the way to the water

And off they went...in clothing, into the ocean!! Oh, so much of their mother in them! It was great!!!!

One last one of them playing in the water. Luckily we did have dry clothes in the car