Diet Coke art

Did I mention the piece of art I created in the freezer the other day? I was quite proud.

Not much news

Have been terrible about updating this, but life has been very quiet.

Last weekend was sunny and not too cold, so we went to Ferry Beach for the first time. The beach is nothing to write home about, but the children had a blast building sandcastles and digging holes. Mark wet himself, so we just took his bottom half off, and hoped his top didn't flip up too much.



This weekend I've been working a lot, so Mike has been a hero taking the children out. Yesterday they did the library, piano lessons, lunch at Bruce's Burritos and errands.

Today is Maine Maple Sunday, so he made the mistake of trying to take them for breakfast at a maple farm. After they froze to death at two farms, one with about 1000 visitors, the other with no food on offer, they went to Stones Cafe instead. It's a great place for breakfast.

I spent some time with everyone this afternoon - we went to Colette and John's for a huge amount of food, some playing on the Wii, a bit of croquet (as you do) and a natter. Then it was back to work for me. I have some big meetings coming up - I'm about to throw the shit at the fan as hard as possible, so I need to be sure I've done my research properly, and informed all the people who need to be fully informed. I look forward to it all calming down a bit soon.

Carl next door has a date for his heart bypass - April 12th. He wanted to do something special with each child beforehand, so on Friday he and Hannah went to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid then went to Bugaboo Creek for dinner. Saturday morning he took Ellie to Clay Play then McDonalds. Next week he's taking Mark to the railway museum. I wonder if they really appreciate how lucky they are to have such lovely neighbours?

Ellie's allergies

Ellie and I just got back from her latest allergy testing appointment. She was tested for environmental allergies for the first time. The sheet says she was tested for...

Dust mite
Cat
Dog
Cockroach (yum!)
Grass
Ragweed, goldenrod, cocklebur, English plantain, Mugwort (that really exists?)
Oak pollen
Elm pollen
Box elder pollen
Birch pollen
Maple pollen
White pine pollen
Shagbark Hickory pollen
Beech pollen
Willow pollen
Mould
Rabbit
She was also retested for...
Peanut
Brazilnut
Cashew
Hazelnut
Pecan, walnut

Her back looked like this...



...and she wasn't happy at all.

She tested positive to basically everything Mike and I are allergic to - dust, cat, various tree pollens, grass pollen. But not mould or any weeds, so I suppose we should be grateful for that.

So we're now going to work on reducing dust in the house. Mike's allergic to dust mites so we do quite a few things right but there's a few more things to do. Get some air conditioning units in so that we can keep windows closed at night in summer. And Ellie has a nasal spray to try.

Her peanut and brazil nut reactions were less than last time, and the doctor suggested that we do blood tests to check those. Might they be improving? I daren't even hope...

She was so good. It took well over an hour to do all the skin tests, then she had three vials of blood drawn. She sat on my lap, and I distracted her with photos on my phone while the needle went in. She only squeaked once. I was amazed!

So now she's eating two lollipops and watching her favourite Barbie movie, and I'm about to restart work.

Not such good news for Carl. His triple bypass is now going to be a quintuple bypass. The operation is on April 12th. The good news is that his heart isn't damaged - he hasn't had a heart attack. He just needs new plumbing, as Nadja puts it.

From skiing to lounging round in the sun

Since we got back from Florida we seem to have all the weather that it's possible to get.

First we had a sunny weekend where we explored Kettle Cove, and spent a fair amount of time just recovering from being on holiday.




Then we had an incredibly rainy and windy week where trees fell down all around us, including one round the corner on Hillside, bringing down live cables galore.



The rain in Maine turned out to be snow in the mountains, so then I got to spend a Sunday with Hannah at Sunday River, skiing in 14 inches of fresh snow. Hannah went from snowplough turns to skiing parallel in six hours. I realised that 168cm long skis are too long for me.



Then this weekend it's 50F, all the snow has melted, and we've been back on the beach. Yesterday we took the children to Winslow Park to ride their bikes, explore the rocks and play in the park. Today we explored the ruins at Fort William then ate at El Rayo Taquiero (mmmm fish taco). We've put the net back up around the trampoline, and we're even thinking about gardening.

Other memorable parts of the last few weeks (according to my Facebook status updates - does anyone else use Facebook instead of a diary?):

Mark looked gorgeous in a blue silk bridesmaid's dress, and said "Daddy you wettened me."

We had Mary, Philip, Jack and Sam over for dinner - and Hannah and Jack are obviously really quite keen on each other.

There was a burglary in the bank next to Ellie's school, resulting in the school being locked down for the afternoon.

The girls are thoroughly enjoying gymnastics on Wednesdays after school, and we're all enjoying going out for dinner at Uno afterwards, especially when they bring out the cocktails.

After all the trees came down they decided to close school for the day. School had power. Everyone (except a few people on Cousins Island) could get to it. But they closed it anyway. Meanwhile the flooding was so bad the Presumpscot River flooded right over the trail next to my office - but everyone got to work anyway, even if they had to try several routes to get round the floods.

I worked out how to watch TV on the computer while lying in the bath.