We're Going on a Bear Hunt

There's a children's book called "We're Going on a Bear Hunt" by Helen Oxenbury and Michael Rosen.  The kids have always loved this book, but they especially appreciate it now that Jordan has shot his first bear.

Although admittedly cute, this year and a half year old bear has been hanging around at the back of our field.  And we're fairly certain that he's made some nocturnal visits to the house and chicken coop several times over the past few weeks. 

While little, he certainly would have been a formidable foe - look at those claws!  We gutted and skinned him tonight, and tomorrow we'll cut him up, wrap him and send him off to freezer camp. 

Speaking of send offs, I'll be doing my own hunting tonight in search of good bear recipes.  Wish me luck!

Best.Weekend.Ever.

We just had the best weekend! It all started with a free puppet show that a wonderful trio of siblings put on Friday night at the University.  It was a production that featured lowly pirates, lost treasure, Lobster Boy and lots of fishing.  Thane was thrilled!

 

Saturday morning we headed down to the 39th Annual Machias Wild Blueberry Festival where we indulged in a wonderful blueberry-themed buffet breakfast.

Next we headed across town, where the library was hosting a HUGE book sale.  The kids came home with over 25 books each (at .10 a piece, no less!), and Jordan grabbed "a few" books he'd been wanting to read.

With the family safely preoccupied with books for awhile, I headed off to work where we hosted an alumni reunion and lobster feed.  Dang - I just love living in Maine!

The Machias Chamber of Commerce and local businesses have sponsored free movies every Saturday night at the old rail station (which Jordan has been helping to renovate).  I got home in just enough time to pack the kids up to enjoy a free showing of "Horton Hears a Who."

To finish off the evening, we all got to enjoy an amazing fireworks show, which had been postponed due to the 4th of July hurricane.  A perfect ending to a wonderful day.

Thank God for quiet Sundays...

Family Room

I'll be honest - the family room in our new house was my least favorite.  Its features included shag carpeting (in a lovely shade of faded orange no less!), a rusty woodstove that took up half of the room and dirt-laden walls. 

Quite frankly, I couldn't wait to get my hands on this room.  First, we ripped up the carpet and started to clean up the walls and ceiling:

Then we used giant iron tools to hack out the brick hearth that was added in the early 70's (1970's, that is).  YES, demo work is as much fun as it looks on those HGTV renovation shows!

Then we textured the walls and painted them a lovely sky blue.  Here's a view of the same wall:

And here's another view of the left side of the room:

The wall behind the photo above houses the piano that we inherited with the house.  One of my favorite pictures looks over the room, perched on top of the piano:

Lastly, we found an old jelly cabinet at an antique place down the road.  Because boards from the front are missing, we got it for a song.  It's the perfect size for our entertainment center, and as soon as Jordan has time again in the fall, he's going to retrofit the cabinet door into two half doors to cover up all of the movies and junk below.

None of the trim in this room (or the rest of the house) has been put back yet.  We'll be reusing the original trim, but it will take awhile to put everything back in its place.  Oh, and we're still waiting for our new wood floors to acclimate to the house.  We're hoping it won't take all winter!