October Weekend in Maine

Last weekend was Thanksgiving, and so a long weekend (we don't say Canadian Thanksgiving, as why would you?). We took this as an opportunity to take a weekend away. We've been promising the kids some time at the beach, and to find some rock-pools all summer, but hadn't quite got round to it..

Mount Washington with snow.

We booked up a weekend in Maine for Thanksgiving weekend a while ago, thinking that even if the weather was rubbish, we'd still be at the coast. As it turned out, we couldn't have asked for better weather. Friday was raining and miserable, but we left Saturday morning, and Saturday, Sunday and Monday were unseasonably warm, with blue skies all the way. We may even have got a little too much sun, as we weren't quite prepared with the sunscreen.

This waterfall...

Being the start of autumn, the colours of the trees all the way down were spectacular. On the way down, we stopped off at some views on Mount Washington, and other parts of the Appalachians for some pictures. Unfortunately, at one such stop, my phone slipped out of my pocket and bounced into a (rather pretty) waterfall. Oops. Fortunately, I now have a new (upgraded) phone. The pleasures of paying through the nose for a contract!

The little house that K found and rented was perfect. Two rooms, and plenty of space, although we were only to use it to sleep in.

Once at the beach, the girls had a blast. We hit Old Orchard Beach (Maine's equivalent to Blackpool in terms of stores and attractions, but with a much prettier beach). where the girls ran around like fools, even though the water was 55oF (that's 13oC in real money, but you know those crazy yanks and their love of the Imperial measure), then moved on to find rock-pools full of crabs, little shrimp and even a fish.

Monday was an easy day of beach in the morning, then the afternoon wandering round Kennibunkport. The girls also ate loads of seafood. LP loving the mussels, and A getting stuck into the calamari (and also the chips).

Of course, this was but the last of a great number of travels near and far this summer. I haven't posted on them all, as I've got out of the habit, what with facebook being such an easy medium for sharing photos. But here's to more of this type of thing! I'm sure there'll be the obligatory Halloween post, with maybe another of the costumes, as they've been rather time consuming in their build, but more of that in a later post.

Easter Break Part 3

I've finally got round to writing up the rest of the holiday. Less writing it up and more collating the pictures.

In the morning, we were at the doors of the Empire State Building pretty much in time for it opening, since our hotel was in it's shadow. After that, we wandered off to see the NY Library and Bryant Park, where we found another carousel, then lunch, then off to central park to play while the sisters headed off to MoMA.

The last picture has Abi listening at the whispering arch at Grand Central Station.

The next day we went to the Natural History Museum. That took all day, as it should, and we still missed out the whole planetarium part.

 The kids touching a fossil egg, and LP with her favourite, a triceratops.

Abi and her monkey from the Empire Stare building with a Proganochelys, which is a favourite in the dinosaur train episodes we have. Yay for education through television!

That night, the grandparents looked after the kids, and the adults went our for a few cocktails, and a walk through Times square. Where we were mobbed by some famous people!

 

The last day of our stay in New York was spent wandering through Little Italy and Chinatown.

 

 

 

K organised a place in Brooklyn for two nights, our day in that part of town was spent going round the Brooklyn Children's Museum and the Transit Museum.

 

Then back into Manhattan for a last dinner with the rest of the family before they all headed their separate ways.

 

Festive update

The last few months have been rather hectic, and vacation free, so I was sorely in need of some time off come the Christmas break. We've managed to squeeze a lot into the time off, considering we've been dealing with gastro, and record breaking blizzards (45.6 cm in the city a record for snowfall in one day). All I can say is now that winter is here in earnest, my snowboard is primed and ready, although there has been a bit of a thaw the last day or two.

A video of Montreal after the snow storm here.

All this meant LP and I made a lazy igloo in the garden by blocking up the windows of the play house.

As always, pics under the cut. Click them to enlarge.

St Jean-Baptiste Camping weekend I: Wood-Peppers and Bleeches

The weekend before last was St Jean-Baptiste weekend, or Quebec's national holiday. K found a great way for us to go camping. It's called Huttopia, and it's basically pre-pitched tents. We went along to the site at Parc National de Plaisance, on the Ottawa river.  It was tremendous fun, the girls loved every minute, as did K and I. Definitely something we'll look into doing again.

The park is situated on a bunch of little islands, which is great for going on boats, wandering round the march, seeing beavers (although we missed them) and playing in the water. The only down side was the mosquitoes, although all our bites seem to be healed now.

I was rather thankful we got to see as much wildlife as we did. After multiple visits to zoos and nature centres, where you get to see all the animals all the time, I was a little worried it would be an anticlimax in terms of the number of animals we saw. As it turned out, there was no worry, as the park was rife with marmots (which both girls tried to sneak up on at different times). Some woodpeckers (or as LP called them, wood peppers) decided to peck on a tree just outside our tent, and we saw planty of other bird life. And during our walk in the marshes we saw frogs galore, some fish, and a turtle.

Pics after the cut, as always, click to enbiggen.