Bye bye 2010

Hello 2011!

This year I am going to TRY to participate in Project 365 and take a picture each day. I'm going to try and post them each day, but lets face it...that's unlikely! Hopefully I'll be able to share with you the highlights (I anticipate a lot of Stryker pictures).

Christmas is where? Here? Already?

Where did December go? I feel like it was just Thanksgiving and I blinked and here we are at Christmas. I love love love Christmas, always have. When I was a kid there was no way I was sleeping on Christmas Eve. I can remember laying there awake and often asking (way too often) if it was time to get up yet. I would often sneak to the bathroom to peek at the tree and see if Santa had arrived yet, but I never looked at the gifts. Ever since I can remember I've always loved the surprise!

When I was in second grade my teacher, Mrs. Thomas, asked us to write a story about our family traditions for Christmas. I'm not sure if I didn't think mine were good enough or what, but I flat out lied. I wrote this story about how we woke up, held hands and sang carols around the tree. Seriously? I have no idea what I was thinking, but it's been a standing joke in our family for the last 25 years.

I hope you all have a fabulous Christmas and I hope to blog more in 2011. In that regard I am going to *try* and take part in Project 365 to take (and share) a photo every day. My life is pretty boring, so don't expect too much!

Merry Christmas!

What a great early morning on our pond!

22. Take a Random Road Trip

Today was certainly a random road trip. We left the house at 8am without a plan. We knew we wanted to spend most of the day on back roads in the middle of nowhere. We did just that. Eleven hours and 425 miles later we were home again. Such a fun day though.

We ended up having lunch in Greenville on Moosehead Lake. It was an absolutely gorgeous day and it was fun exploring such remote areas of our gorgeous state. Our route:

Halloween recap

We have such fun on Halloween! My parents turn their entire front yard into a Halloween masterpiece. People from all over make the drive to see it. What's harmless in the daytime turns quite scary at night when the torches and lanterns get lit and the thunder and lightning gets turned on! I need to get the pictures of Halloween night from my Dad (I forgot my camera!), but until then here are a few.

NaNoWriMo

I'm a little (a lot) behind schedule.

Friends

My Mother always told me: "The more friends you have, the richer you are." While I understood this as a child, it has been more and more relevant as an adult.

I love my friends.

It seems that all my friends fit into a different niche in my life. I am still very good friends with people that I've known so long I can't remember not knowing them. I also have new friends, that are awesome in their own way.

I guess I just have really come to appreciate all my friends and I feel truly blessed to have so may fabulous people to share my life with.

Creativity

I've always considered myself a fairly creative person.

When I was kid I would spend countless hours cutting pictures and words out of magazines to make the perfect collage. I once spilled a whole set of paints on my bedroom floor while creating a masterpiece. I'm sure my mother could tell you more horror stories.

Well, as a kid that's great. But as an adult, how do you express your creative side while still managing your professional side? I've struggled with that and I've often found myself missing that side of me.

I'm taking steps to try and merge both worlds. By the end of this weekend I hope to have my craft room totally finished (I've been painting it for about three or four months now). I've always needed a space that was just for me and I'm very much looking forward to having it.

I'm also going to participate in the National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo for short). The concept is that you write like crazy for one solid month with the goal of at least a 50,000 word novel. You don't worry about editing etc, just get the ideas out there. I think it sounds like a ton of fun and I've often thought of writing a book. I guess now is an alright time to try.

I hope with this creativity I can start updating a blog that has long sat dormant. It was a blog I started during wedding planning to show off my projects. Well, who says it has to stay wedding related? I still create things and I still DIY so I'm going to try and get back into that as well.

So many ideas! Now I just need to stop working 60 hours a week.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy 2nd anniversary to us!

This is inspiring!

I had tears!

Scotty's getting married!!!

My "little" cousin Scott (who's well over six feet now) is getting married today and I couldn't be more excited or happier for him!

Here we are when we were so little. Seriously, how cute can you get?

Here is the happy couple at our wedding almost two years ago. To the left is my other "little" cousin, Corey, the groom's younger brother.

I am so happy for them and excited to welcome Autumn to the family! The other super cool thing about their wedding and reception is the location. I kid you not, there is a path from the location to our road. So we're making sure to put some sneakers and flashlights in the car and we plan on walking home tonight! Fun!

(Click picture to enlarge)

Summer in Maine

This has been one of the absolute best summers in recent memory. Pat and I have been doing our best to soak it all in (despite demanding work schedules).

Today I had the pleasure of introducing Pat to a true love of mine. Sebago Lake. While I didn't technically grow up on this lake, my road did dead end at the lake. We also spent countless days at Cub Cove swimming, many days on the boat fishing and even some overnights at my friend's uncle's house.

Before today I don't think Pat understood my love affair with this lake. He gets it now. He totally gets it.

Today we drove around for three hours on the boat just soaking up each ounce of summer. Breathing in that lake air...I swear it smells different. Dreaming of living on the lake in all of those beautiful houses. Waving at fellow boaters as we passed them. Marveling at the wildlife (a Bald Eagle, Loons and Deer). Reminding ourselves that this is right in our backyard and we are so so so lucky.

Sebago Lake is the deepest lake in the state (316 feet) and is also the water supply for the greater Portland area, so it is incredibly clean and fresh. It's also 45 square miles making it the second largest in the state. I just simply love it.



If you click on the picture it should open up larger so you can see where I grew up and where I live now in relation to this fabulous lake.

The Rocky Coast of Maine

I'm sure most of us have heard the saying 'the rocky coast of Maine' before. But, have you ever heard of the wooden coast of Maine? No? Me either. But apparently the brilliant tourists that sat beside us at The Lobster Shack on Sunday had.

Seriously, this ridiculous man was telling the four other people he was with that the rocks were really wood. It was all I could do not to correct him, but it really wasn't my place. Instead I sat back and laughed.

I also took some neat pictures. It was a great day.

The waves came in on Pat's feet in this picture! Luckily it was a warm day!

The restaurant sits on top of these rocks and it's just a stunning place to eat lunch. We enjoyed some delicious scallops and shrimp!

Lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer...

Oh what a fabulous summer we've had in Maine this year. After a few years of rainy, cold summers this year is fabulous and we're taking full advantage of it!

We've had boat time on the lake, walks at the ocean, visits from relatives, weddings, family reunions and more! Here's a taste of our fabulous summer so far.

I hope you've all been enjoying your summer as well!

100. Try 5 local restaurants

Pat and I love to go out to eat, but we always seem to go to the same places over and over. In an effort to try new places, I wanted to set a goal to try 5 new local places, which was accomplished quite quickly!

Pat and I met my very good friend Erica and her boyfriend Jamie here for dinner one night. It was a great meal with great company! I've been wanting to get back there, pulled pork is one of my all-time favorite meals.

This is a new sandwich shop that opened in Portland. I had heard good things and their food was quite good, but I felt that it was overpriced. I'm not interested in paying over $10 for a sandwich (pulled pork again).

Gauchos was a very interesting dining experience. The first thing is that it's on the first floor of my office building, so I've known about this restaurant for a long time. It's not your normal steakhouse, that's for sure. You get constant table-side service with all different kinds of meat. I found it quite enjoyable. It's not a place to go for a quick bite to eat, you must be willing to relax and spend your evening there. I think this place would also be great to go to with another couple. The salad bar is also fabulous. We'd go back, but definitely with a gift certificate from restaurant.com. Kind of helps with the fixed $29.95 per person price.

MAINESTREET GRILL

Not the best webpage to copy logos from. This is a new-ish restaurant in Standish (a town not really known for it's restaurants). I was pleasantly surprised with our meal there in a renovated old house. It's cute - a bunch of little rooms, it feels like private dining.

We love going out for breakfast and there's not much better than a breakfast buffet. Not too shabby, definitely worth going to again (although I may wait until the summer people leave the area).

So that's a piece of what we've been up to lately. We're still trying to make progress on my 101 things to do list and blogging about them really helps!