High seas hijinx....

 A couple of weeks ago, Sequoia and I took our sail boat out for an over night rendezvous on Rhode River. We met my brother Mark and his son Chris. They brought their new boat over from Tilghman Island.

 Sequoia has been enjoying the fact that we have a sail boat and has even been swimming off of it before. That is big brave stuff for a 3 year old I think.

 We all had a great time visiting and swimming and just visiting. It was our first over night on the boat and I was very impressed with how easily Sequoia adapted to the whole experience. She really had a feel for the unique things that make up life on a small sail boat and she took to it like a fish to water.

 This is a great development in my opinion as it marks the continuation of a very, very Newberg tradition of spending quality family time on small sail boats. The fact that we were able to share her first overnight with her cousin and uncle made it even more special.

In the morning Sequoia was sad to see Mark and Chris head out on their boat, headed to St. Michael's and a slip close to their house. Hopefully before long we will head across the Bay to visit them on their own cruising grounds.

Happy Fourth of July....

 OK, let's get serious here, it is time for a Fourth of July Parade, so let's put on our game faces. Or in this case, our tired and contrary face.....but it got better.

 We are loving our neighborhood with all of the active families and community events. Today we got to participate in the annual 4th of July Parade.It is a fun time with all sorts of costumes and floats making up the field.

 It was a hot and humid July morning, very different weather than Colleen and I experienced 10 years ago in Oregon. I am certain of this as today also marked the 10th anniversary of the day that Colleen and I met. It was a typically chilly and breezy evening in Newport where I was the only person around wearing shorts. Colleen was wearing jeans, a heavy sweater and sitting under a blanket with her dog Chessie. Granted she had to remind me this morning that it was 10 years ago today, but I will never forget any of the details.

 Anyway, back to the present. I got to pull sequoia's pretty wagon along the 4 block parade route.

 Colleen and Sequoia did a great job of decorating the wagon and Kelli did a great job making Sequoia her custom t-shirt that fittingly says "I'm a Firecracker".

 Sequoia did a fabulous job waving to all of the spectators and wishing them a "Happy Fourth of July".

 There were patriotic pups.

 There were crazy cars.

 And there were monumental floats.

 After the parade everyone got free snow balls, lemonade and pop-corn. The snow balls were very refreshing on such a hot and humid Chesapeake morning.

 Luckily there was a light breeze blowing along the river that helped dissipate the humidity while we relaxed after the parade.

Sequoia looked quite satisfied as she sat in her wagon back at the house and finished off one of her free lollipops. It was a wonderful morning and the start of a fun tradition.

Measuring up....

 We are doing the ubiquitous parent thing and keeping track of Sequoia's growth on the door frame to her room.

 Sequoia believes that what is good for the goose is good for the care bear, so we also are keeping track of Friendship Bear's growth.

I think even Sequoia realizes how very funny that idea is....

Clowning around and Brooklyn in town....

 Sequoia and Mommy participated in a Baltimore Mommy's event a while back where Colleen helped to organize a donation drive for a good local cause. The event was a fun time for everyone.

 These pictures of Sequoia absolutely crack me up.

 Evidently they cracked her up too....

 This is what she looks like with big lips and pearls....

 This is what she would look like if her name was Mona Lisa....

 Skipping around in the story a bit, Sequoia went to visit her friend Brooklyn for some skipping around of their own.

 These two girls have always enjoyed each other, even though they have not been able to see each other very often recently.

 Fortunately we now live close enough for the occasional day together.

 Sequoia enjoyed Brooklyn's new house and playground.

 Brooklyn enjoyed Sequoia's new house and beach.

 Colleen assures me that although these pictures are all smiles and laughs, there were definitely moments of three year olds not knowing how to share stuff.

 I think that might be evident in Brooklyn's expression as Sequoia walks away with something that I can only assume Brooklyn wanted...??

 But all of that being -a-kid stuff behind, it is obvious that they enjoy being around each other.

Hanging with Grammom...

 One of Sequoia's favorite people to talk about is her Grammom. She absolutely loves her, and I feel pretty confident in saying the feeling is mutual. It is unfortunate that we are not able to get over to Grammom's house more frequently than we do, but at the same time we all feel very fortunate to live close enough for fairly regular visits.

 Being close enough to family for Sequoia to develop close ties to her relatives is a big part of why Colleen and I decided to stay back on the East coast for a bit longer than either of us initially anticipated. It is fun and rewarding watching Sequoia swinging from the various branches of the old family tree.

I definitely treasure watching my little girl playing with Grammom. I have so many wonderful memories of similar moments spent with Grammom back when I was Sequoia's age and Grammom was simply mom. It has to be one of the most rewarding parts of being a parent, the simple yet poignant accidental moments when your child allows you to remember the subtle shading of your past, adding depth to your life and a smile to your face.

The Maine event....

 This year our family took a beautiful 10 day vacation to the northern coast of Maine.

 We rented a small ocean front cottage in the fishing village of Corea.

 The trip was wonderful and I could write about it for a long time, but I will just try to cover a few of the basics in this posting. I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

 I am posting 100 pictures from the trip ... we took almost 500.

 Although the scenery was absolutely stunning, these pictures are mostly all of Sequoia as she was a phenomenal traveler on this trip.

 The cottage was completely private and had a spectacular 180 degree unobstructed view of the water and surrounding islands.

 Every morning, shortly after sunrise (at 4:45) Sequoia would walk into our room and wake us up by saying she loved us.

 At that point she and I would go out front and climb all over the rocks looking to add to her collection of sea shells. After that we would go back inside to organize the collection and make a relaxed breakfast and enjoy the peacefulness of the setting.

 We spent a bit of time driving around exploring the beauty of Acadia National Park.

 Sequoia proved that she is a very capable and accomplished hiker.

 She loved her "blue dot trails". The blue dots refer to the blue painted blazes that marked the trails. She quickly became very adept at following the trails and led us most of the time.

 She was also good at locating and following the rock cairns that marked the paths along the rocky parts.

 Sequoia exhibited great rock scrambling ability, a skill she used on the rocky trails and along the coast while tide pooling and shell collecting.

 Here is a lobster shaped pancake I made for her....my masterpiece.

 Some of her many shells. it was fun to watch her organize them by shape and size and color.

 Every day we added to the collection.

 It was fun watching the lobster boats work their traps in front of the house.

 Acadia's Schoodic Head Peninsula was only 5 miles from our house and offered beautiful tide pooling opportunities as well as great hikes.

 The picture above is of one of the many fairy houses we built while we were there. This one is on Blueberry Hill.

 A highlight of the trip was our stop at the very small and visually unimpressive "oceanarium" on Mount Desert Island. We wanted to see it because it has a lobster hatchery there.

 It turned out to be a great stop and one of my favorite memories from the trip.

 We sat through an amazingly wonderful talk with a retired lobster man who had a great way with kids. Sequoia had so much fun there ... even getting up to sit on his lap and sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while he played his harmonica.

 She really got a kick out of getting dressed up in the over sized Southwester and boots.

 These shots are simply pure joy.

 Here is Colleen and Sequoia at the beach at the end of another hike. They are sitting next to a very elaborate fairy castle that Sequoia built.

 We spent a fair amount of time just relaxing at the house, and with this view, why wouldn't we?

 But of course there is so much to do up there, we never sat still for long...and came home thoroughly exhausted because of that.

 We all enjoyed our boat ride out to see the seals and lobsters.

 Sequoia's personality was in full bloom during this trip.

 We asked a lot of her, from the 13 hour car ride each way, to sleeping in a strange room all by herself, to long hours every day (5 am to 10 pm) that covered many things that are plain boring for little 3 year olds, to long hikes and many meals out in restaurants, to well, just a very busy and tiring schedule with a lot of stimulation for a little girl to absorb.

 She handled it all with grace, charm and humor.

 I constantly had to remind myself that she was only 3.

 One thing I can say that really made us happy was that, although the house had satellite TV, we never once turned it on. Better yet, Sequoia never once asked to watch TV.

 In the picture above, she is touching a small butterfly that she found in the yard.

 Our family portrait on the rocks in front of the house.

It proved to be challenging to run across the rocks fast enough to beat the timer.

 We were definitely in the land of lobsters.

 And took advantage of the chance to get a picture of our own little lobster Newberg.

 This series of pictures is very typical of the whole vacation.

 We thoroughly enjoyed Bar Harbor's beautiful town park and found ourselves relaxing there after dinner a few times.

 One night we thought we would play some miniature golf as a release for Sequoia's 3 year old personality.

 We finally found something that she is not very good at....but I know she will figure it out.

 But anyway, back at Bar Harbor's town park, Colleen taught Sequoia how to log roll down a hill.

 Her enthusiasm made up for her technique.

 Here are two pictures of mommy, taken by Sequoia.

 Gram Mom might appreciate the finger in the picture as there is a 3 year period of my childhood that includes Gram Mom's finger in every picture.

 And who can go to Maine without getting some Blue Berry Ice Cream?

 On the drive home we needed to stretch our legs, so we stopped at LL Bean to see their main store.

 The mud puddles were the best part of that stop.

 

Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed our trip and were sad to pack up and head home. We took it easy and drove slowly down the coast as we were reluctant to say goodbye.