Countdown to Christmas!

Today's Project

Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas will soon be upon us. We get lots of requests for donations of trips this time of year and this morning I worked on the most recent one. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Midcoast Maine is having a fund raiser where local businesses decorate wreaths and they are displayed locally for people to bid on them. You can find our completed wreath at Camden National Bank alongside many others. Any wreath with a donated value of over $100 will be in a live auction at a later date.

I picked up my undecorated wreath on Wednesday and I spent this morning decorating it.

First I had to locate and assemble all my tools and decorations...blue ribbon, silver ribbon, starfish, mussel shells, floral wire, wire cutters, scissors, mini glue gun and glue sticks. I glued pieces of floral wire onto each shell and each starfish.

I made the bow, hung an Isaac H. Evans ornament in the center and added the starfish.

Then added the mussel shells.

The final step was adding the brochure and gift certificate for each boat.
Here I am with the finished product!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday (photo credit Meg Maiden)

The Evans c. 1972

I love Facebook! I've reconnected with lots of people I went to school with as well as connecting for the first time with people that loved the Evans long before I even knew her. Christina Parker "friended" me and sent along this great picture. She was involved in the rebuilding of the Evans back in the early 70s. Thanks for sharing the picture, Christina!

Our Paint Retriever

Izze just loves to help.

And, no, we did not encourage him to pick up the paintbrush, he did it on his own.

Of course, that was because he wanted to chew the wooden handle!

Halloween - 2009

As you may know, a commonly asked question is "What do you do in the winter?" By the end of October both of our big boats and all three of our little boats (four, if you include the kayak) are under cover and we turn to our winter work and winter fun. This post is about some of our winter fun.

My friend Tracy (who was the best maid of honor in the world!) lives in a small town where there are not many trick-or-treaters on Halloween night. This is a sad state of affairs as Tracy's favorite holiday is Halloween (trust me, this girl's got it bad!) When I moved into a new house in Rockland, she saw the potential for turning my porch and front yard into an awesome haunted pirate ship. We did it two years ago for the first time but last year Brian and I were on our honeymoon. Here are some pictures of what we created this year (despite the strong winds we had to deal with...we almost had to tuck a reef in the house!).

We draped old sails from the Evans all over the porch and decorated with old boat parts. Neddy made the India Trading boxes (one of which this year was used to conceal a scary pirate that popped out as kids walked by). The boxes near the house cover our shrubs. We told trick or treaters that they would be safe if they stayed on the path but many were still very scared.

We were a crew of very scary dead pirates. From the left that's Brian, Kira, Mark, and Neddy with me in the front and Tracy behind the camera. Some pirates from Pirates of the Dark Rose (http://www.darkrosepirates.com/home.htm) joined us for the fun and at one point we had as many as 11 dead pirates and one vulture scaring our visitors.

Captain Crudbeard and his turkey vulture Ziggy joined us for the evening. It was very cool having a real live bird of prey and it was interesting to see people's reactions...especially when they realized it was real. That's the closest I've ever been to a bird like that!

My favorite parts of the evening were when kids were leaving after visiting the treasure chest on the porch. They would start walking very slowly, looking straight ahead as they walked on the path lined by some very scary pirates. By the time they made it to the end of the path and into the driveway (where I was waiting!) many had picked up the pace to a near run. That's when I, in my best pirate voice, would say, "That's rrrrrrright. I'd be runnin' if I were you." And I was rewarded with screams and kids running away. One hopped into the car screaming, "Drive, Drive!" before he even closed the door! One threw candy at me. We toned it down for the younger visitors but, even still, many couldn't make the trip up the path to get a piece of candy. Those received hand-delivered treasure at the end of the path.

Izze didn't really know what to think as this was an all-day event. We finished prepping the house Saturday morning and then Tracy spent three hours doing everyone's make-up. Izze was chillin' and saying,, "Hey, mon. We be jammin'. " a lot. Maybe next time we can get Rasta Izze to join our band of pirates. Arrrrrggh!

Winter Crew

Here's a picture of Izze taking a break from being our winter crew. We're painting our porch after rebuilding the front and side steps and he was "helping". It looks like he's saying, "What? What did I do?" I'm happy to say at least he didn't lick the paint! Brian says he's a "paint retriever"!

Wordless Wednesday (photo credit Hazel Mitchell)

Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, squash, family, football.....

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