End of summer

I don't appear to have blogged all summer. Ooops. So what have we done?

It's been unbelievably hot, and is only now finally cooling down a little. It feels like it was in the 80s and 90s for a couple of months at least.

We had a week in Sunday River, which was fabulous. We rented a really nice house - brand new and completely dust free which meant Mike didn't spend the whole week sneezing ;-)

We went up to Step Falls and did a lot of sliding down really cool little waterfalls. We went to Screw Augur Falls and did some wading. Mike and Hannah did a few miles of the Appalachian Trail - me and the little kids went to see Moose Cave instead. We took a day trip to Santa's Village - always a bit weird in July. And we went to Frenchman's Falls - which involved me, Hannah and Mike all doing the big leap into the waterfall.

We stayed by Jordan Pond, and it was such a little slice of heaven that I started looking into buying a second home there. Obviously we can't afford it, but it's always nice to dream.

And we ate at the Jolly Drayman - an English pub in Bethel. Beef Wellington, Cheese Ploughmans, curry and cider. Excellent.

A week or two later we had a visit from Tiffany and Nicola, who arrived just in time for my naturalization ceremony at the courthouse in Portland. Yes, I am now an American. I even have a passport. Yikes! Tiff and Nic seemed to have a lovely time eating lobster, eating lobster and eating lobster, with a bit of drinking thrown in.

Our second holiday was right at the end of the children's school holiday. My friend Jay brought her family over from Devon, including her husband and three children who are all pretty much the same age as our children. We had a day exploring the Portland area, then we went up to Moosehead Lake.

I rented us a cabin owned by a colleague's ex-husband, and it was a fabulous location - a minute's walk from a beach, with lots of rocks for climbing on, and a jetty for canoeing from.

Moosehead is a spectacularly beautiful lake. The weather didn't really play ball for the first half of the trip, but we got outdoors as much as possible - we took an old steamship called the Katahdin up the lake, we ate at the Black Frog, and we even swam before the rain started. Meanwhile the children all had a blast playing together.

The best bit was seeing moose. We headed out one evening to a place called Casey Camps that I had been told was the best place to spot moose. Pulled into the carpark, switched off the engine, and out came three moose!

Later in the week the weather improved, so we got out in the canoe, took a floatplane ride over the lake, ate lunch on the deck of the Stress Free Moose, and generally had a wonderful time.

The rest of the time the children have done a variety of camps - rec camp, basketball camp, English soccer camp, lacrosse camp. They hung out with Carl and Nadja, and made the most of Carl's brother's pool. They went on day trips to places like Topsham Fair, and Yorks' Wild Kingdom, and Funtown Splashtown.

We've also been camping a few times, and even bought ourselves a swanky new tent that doesn't take an hour and a half to put up and take down. We went to Sagadahoc (possibly got the consonants in the right order there) which is on Georgetown Island down the headland from Bath ie not very far from here. The campground was nothing to write home about, especially the party people next to our site, but the beach was wonderful for the children. It is clam flats, so when the tide goes out it's hideous, but when the tide comes in it's unbelievably warm water.

We were there for 4th of July, so we saw the parade in Bath, in the searing heat. We also had to do the fair (or should I say midway?) which was torturous for adults.

Another camping trip was to Recompense Shores which is beside Wolfe's Neck, with John and Colette. They had their pop-up camper, we had our swanky new LL Bean tent. It was sunny, and we got to eat pie irons, and the men tried taking the children sea kayaking while Colette and I drank wine and napped. I know who got the better deal...

Now everyone is shattered, and also sort of ready for the structure of school to restart. 10 weeks is a long holiday.

Mark is about to start Kindergarten, which means my final child will be in school. He's so excited I can't feel sad in any way. The other two are also looking forward to seeing their friends again. Ellie is moving to the Elementary School, but she doesn't seem too nervous.

So that was our summer. When I've renewed my FlickrPro account I'll add some photos...