Two Mornings in Maine

 In the interest of time and wanting to be done blogging about vacation before school starts, I figure I better start combining some of the places we visited all into one post.  Here is a glimpse of the rest of our time in Maine, so I can get onto blogging about Canada.  We only spent about 2 days in Maine in total, but writing it all out I see that we jam-packed a lot into those two days!   See here and here and here to read about our other adventures in Maine.  

Shout-out to whomever correctly guesses which children's book I based my title on today!  


5--Whale Watching--a couple of the kids were mildly obsessed with seeing some sea creatures in the wild, so we splurged for a 3-hour whale watching cruise based out of Bar Harbor.   We saw a dozen or so whales, some finback and some humpbacks.  We also saw a blue shark, a molamola sunfish, and a jellyfish.   The kids were mostly bedazzled by it all, but we learned that one of our kids has a little tendency towards seasickness.  It was only when the boat stopped moving and rocked side-to-side, but poor Adam was looking a little green by the time we got back.

4--Ogunquit--a cute little town just over the border in Maine, we  would have liked it a lot more had the traffic not been a complete and total nightmare.  Reminiscent of  rush hour in DC, traffic barely crawled well into the late evening and had it not been for the charming beach and delicious dinner at Cornerstone Pizza, we would have vowed to never return.  As it is, I think the experience soured us on  taking Route 1 through Maine!

traffic looked pretty much like this the whole time we were in Ogunquit

The food at Cornerstone Pizza was amazing!

3--More Tide Pools--I already blogged about the tide pools we saw at one of the beaches, but we discovered them in a couple of other places as well and they were just as fascinating every time.

2--The beautiful rocky shoreline--although the kids were initially sad that we didn't stop at the overcrowded Sand Beach, they ended up totally enjoying  exploring the rocky shoreline between Sand Beach and Thunder Hole.  Discovering tide pools, enjoying beautiful views, and just plain old exploring and climbing turned out to be just the kid-friendly/energy-burning activity we were looking for that day.

1--The Scenery--Even the hour-and-a-half drive from our hotel in Bangor to and from Acadia was filled with gorgeous little spots like this where we could  pull over (at my request) and take a few pictures!

Biggest Bummer:  Thunder Hole--when one of Emma's friends raved about how it was her favorite site in all of Acadia, we had high hopes for watching the crashing thunderous waves that made it famous.  We knocked ourselves waking up quite early to be able to be there an hour before high tide, but even still it turned out to be quite the dud for us.  Apparently we happen to be there on a very calm wave day and instead of thunder we got sweet little waves quietly lapping into the inlet with a funny belching sound.  Oh well....now we'll just have to go back another day.  

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Exploring Crab Beach

With the combination of rocky shoreline, ocean vistas, and the highest mountains in the eastern US, Acadia National Park truly is a remarkable place.  In the two days we spent exploring the park, we saw enough to know that we barely touched seeing all of its glory.  Glen and I are already planning another trip in a few years where we spend longer and finally get to do some hiking.

One of our favorite parts of this trip was this beach we passed right next to the road on the way from Thunder Hole heading toward Jordan Pond.  During high tide it was just another pretty pebbly beach....

but during low tide it becomes a wonderland of rocks, kelp, and thousands of little puddles of seawater left from high tide.

My family stayed here for over an hour exploring the tide pools that were teeming with little creatures that are normally out to sea.  

Their favorites were these teeny little crabs, which Ellie begged to take home as a new pet.  I opted for a pet-free car ride to Canada though, so the cute crustaceans stayed behind.  

Even my squeamish Cami got brave enough to hold one...

Adam especially was enjoying this time to explore out in nature and his find of the day was a sandworm getting eaten by one of the mini crabs.  The sandworm was still alive and trying to escape, but the crab had its tight grip on it.  It was much too wriggly an event to get a good picture of unfortunately, but Adam (and Daddy) were fascinated with the whole thing.

The kids also enjoyed finding seashells.  They mostly found shells like these that Emma is holding, but there were also some pretty cool mini swirly shells as well.   

I don't know what this beach is officially called, but we dubbed it Crab Beach and have it on our list of places to visit when we go back someday.  In fact it  was one of the few places my kids begged to go back to the second day we were there, but alas the tide was high and all of those little creatures were covered in several feet of seawater.  Next time....

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Stay tuned for one more Acadia/Maine post, then on to our visit to Canada! 

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Thunder in the Distance (a metaphor for life)

While we were visiting Acadia National Park in Maine, we set out to go on a challenging, but doable hike with our kids.  After researching some different trails , we settled onto the Cadillac North Ridge Trail, which was considered moderate difficulty over 4.4 miles.  We worried that it would be a difficult challenge, especially for Ellie, but we hoped that the thrill of reaching the trails' end at the top of Cadillac Mountain would be motivating enough for everyone to keep going the whole way.

We changed into our hiking shoes, packed lots of water and snacks, and drove to the bottom of the trailhead.  When we got out of the car to start our journey, I was relieved that everyone seemed to be starting the hike in relatively good spirits and with an air of excitement about the prospect of hiking to the top of a mountain.   While we were all grabbing jackets and making the last minute prep to go on our hike, we ran into a couple of people who were just starting the trail as well.  We chatted for a bit and shared some info about the trail that we'd found in our research.  Twice while we were talking Adam interrupted us to ask what the big booming noise in the distance was.  We hadn't noticed it but assured him anyway not to worry about it.

Shortly after we were done talking and Glen was locking up the car, we heard the booming too and knew without a doubt that it was the sound of thunder in the distance.  Although we could tell that the thunder was nowhere close to us at that point, we immediately worried about the prudence of starting on a 2 hour hike with a storm looming even within hearing distance of us.   I envisioned the panic that would entail, especially among the younger few of our kids if  a thunderstorm hit while we were on the mountainside and it became clear pretty quickly that perhaps it wasn't the wisest course of action for us to go on that hike.

After shlepping us and all of our gear back into the car, we drove to the top of the mountain instead.  Although I knew that it was absolutely the right decision given the circumstances, my disappointment was quite keen at not being able to hike, especially since I knew that we would unlikely to be able to do it again another time.

We got to the top and enjoyed the glorious view, made even more stunning by the billowing storm clouds in the distance.  Thunder continued to boom the entire time we were on the mountain, but never did the storm get any closer.  Despite the afternoon turning out much differently than we expected, we  thoroughly enjoyed the beauty of our surroundings and even satisfied our thirst for a little adventure by venturing out on a (very) short hike.

Later on I got to thinking that the whole experience was rather metaphorical for the way we live our lives.  Ever since our peaceful scene shattered around us the day that Spencer was diagnosed with leukemia, we have been living our lives with that everpresent thunder of uncertainty booming in the distance.

We try not to let thunderclouds in the distance affect our daily lives too much, but sometimes the fear peeks through and it's hard to see things as they really are....a potential threat. And one that we could surely weather again if we needed to.  Whenever Spencer has an unusual symptom or we hear of a young cancer friend pass away or another one that relapses, the thunder sounds awfully close.  It's in those moments that I have to struggle not to forget the beauty that surrounds us right here and now.

The beauty of time spent together.

The beauty of the world around us.

The beauty of knowing that God is over all,

....and that although we might have to change our course sometimes, 

 

He will still bring us peace...

....joy.... 

....and love.  

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Minor Details

What's better than finding a good deal on a hotel for your night in St. John's, Canada?

I'll tell you what's better....it's figuring out BEFORE you leave home that you're actually going to Saint John ("saint" spelled out and no apostrophe "s" at the end) in New Brunswick and not to St. John's, Newfoundland!

Whew!   That was a close one for us Canadian novices!

Because if we had rolled into Saint John about 11:30pm and realized that we were 650 miles away from our reserved hotel, we probably would have just kept on driving and missed this...

Saint John, NB lies right where the Saint John River meets the Bay of Fundy.  The high and low tides create a funky set of events that makes the river change its course depending on the tide, giving it the name of "Reversing Falls".  As part of this odd natural occurrence the river/bay has a huge variance of water levels and experiences whitecaps and rapids that have nothing to do with flowing over rocks.   At my Uncle Buddy's suggestion, we decided that taking a jet boat ride in those whitecaps would be just the pitstop we needed on our way from Acadia to PEI.

We only received two minor injuries from the ride (Adam scraped his chin and Glen bruised his arm), but all in all it was a hit for the whole family....except Ellie...who was absolutely petrified the whole time, but later claimed it was her favorite part of the whole trip.  Poor youngest child.

Now we're in this lovely land (this picture was taken with my iPhone out of our moving car)....

where the internet connection is horrible, the gas is overpriced,  and the nearest grocery store is more than 25km away,  but even still we are in love with PEI's simple, but striking beauty.  The rolling farmlands, pine forests, red rocks, and seascapes makes for a truly spectacular backdrop to everything we do here.  Add to that that we ran into long-lost friends here and it has been a highlight of our trip.

Stay tuned for many more pictures to come....


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A Few Lessons Learned

Here are a few lessons we've learned over the last few days of our vacation:

Eating outside on a beautiful summer night is about the awesomest feeling ever.  WE've eaten our lunches and dinners outside for the last couple of days and love the flair of exoticism it adds to our otherwise pretty humble culinary experiences (like when we're just eating pb&j's).

Don't give up on something until you've seen it through to the end.  We toured a place (Wild Gardens of Acadia) that the kids quickly deemed rather boring, but then at the very last exhibit on the trail when they were racing back to the car, Adam discovered these cute little froggies in a small pond filled with lily pads.  It was the first time we'd actually ever seen a frog on an actual lily pad before and the entire family was enamored!

Going to church is good.   ....even when you don't know anyone there, you show up 10 minutes late, and half the family forgot to pack their Sunday shoes.

Don't drive by a store just because it has a cutesy name.  We discovered that "Udder Heaven" makes some udderly delicious ice cream, which after a day of sightseeing and driving was an udderly perfect way to end the day.  Sorry for the udder cheesiness.

Don't be discouraged just because something isn't working out quite the way you wanted it to.  Although I was initially disappointed when my family poo-poo'ed my idea of  waking everyone up early enough (which would've been about 3:30am) to catch a sunrise on Cadillac Mountain (the first place in the US to see the sun rise each day),  turns out that sunsets in Acadia NP are pretty darn spectacular too!   

Last but not least, don't underestimate the power of what can be accomplished while being trapped together in a car for hours a day.  I decided that my kids  needed to be introduced to the Anne of Green Gables movies before we went to Prince Edward Island and   I knew that I'd be hard-pressed to get everyone to sit down long enough to watch all 6 hours of them at home.  So I decided to take advantage of our time in the car and show them during our drive.  My family is now as enamored as I am (with the possible exception of Spence) and I couldn't help but smile whenever I heard them yelling at the movie screen, "No!  You can't marry him!  You're supposed to marry Gil!"  My girls were particularly smitten with Anne, but when I even heard Adam quoting a line from the movie today I knew that my methods were a success.   Perhaps next vacation we'll work on memorizing scripture verses.

Boston

My family is absolutely in love with Boston.  We visited there in 2007 and they've begged to go back every year since.  I'm not sure what exactly it is--all the historical sites, the charming architecture, the ease of walking everywhere--whatever it is, this trip did nothing to dampen that love and enthusiasm at all.   One of my kids even keeps talking about how he wants to live in Boston someday...something we wouldn't mind at all!  

I left my camera cord at home, which means that I'm blogging by iPhone for a while and the best photos will have to wait.  In the meantime, here's a glimpse of what's made us fall in love....

We went on a  duck tour, walked the Freedom Trail, drove around, visited Boston Common, saw the "Make Way for Ducklings" statue, went to the top of Prudential Tower, and ended the day at Fenway Park for a Red Sox game.  Next we're heading to Lexington and Concord to see where the "shot heard round the world" was fired.  (click on all the links to see how cute and little the kids were last time we were in Boston) 

Ellie

When we first noticed Ellie's seizures nearly three years ago, we were reassured when most of the information we read about her type of epilepsy (Childhood Absence Epilepsy) stated that it was usually easily treatable with medication and that most kids eventually outgrew their seizures sometime in adolescence.  Three years and a couple different medications later though, we are discouraged that she is still having dozens of seizures per day.  They interrupt her day at school and there are many common physical activities which are too dangerous for her (biking, independent swimming, gymnastics, and even walking near busy streets, etc).

Despite all that, the hardest part for her is that the older she gets, the more her peers notice the seizures.

For the most part, her friends have been very kind and understanding of her frequent lapses of unresponsiveness, but by the end of last school year people well beyond her circle of friends were starting to notice the seizures and draw attention to them.  I had the school counselor and teacher call me several times this past year to explain situations when fellow students started yelling at her or getting upset during a seizure wondering why she wasn't responding to them.  Towards the end of the year, her teacher recommended that we just tell the whole class about them, so that, like her friends,  they would know to just be patient and wait for the seizure to pass before expecting a response.   Ellie takes it better than expected, but it still grew to be an embarrassment to her.

With the intractability of her seizures with medication and the fact that they seem to be affecting her life more lately, we recently decided that it would be best to take Ellie to a new neurologist.  We were very happy with the new doctor and I appreciated that she the fresh take on her treatments.  As part of the work-up at the new doctor, she got an EEG.  One had been performed as a part of her initial diagnosis almost three years ago, but she hasn't had one since.

I was shocked at the number of seizures she had during the 45 minute EEG.  Not only did she have several normal-length (10-15 second) seizures, but she also had numerous 1-2 second seizures.  Ones that we probably would never even notice in the course of a day.

It was discouraging to say the least.

One thing it did do for me though, was that it gave me a resolve that it's time to do something new with her.  We had already been considering homeschooling her this upcoming year, but that EEG gave me the surefire knowledge that it's absolutely the right thing to do.

Up to this point her teachers have been very attentive to her and her needs, but still we feel that she is not thriving at school and the long days completely wear her out.  She comes home exhausted and we very much worry about her getting lost in these upper grades as expectations for student independence increase. I figure that even a distracted mommy with two kids at home can do far more to teach and be in tune to her students than a public school teacher with a class full of 20+ students, several of which also have special needs.  I am a tad nervous about the lifestyle change it will entail, but it's comforting to know that I have two enthusiastic students who couldn't be more excited about it.  (Adam was insistent that he not be left out of the fun and I figured that having a buddy at home would probably be good for Ellie, so he is staying home as well.)

Now the books are bought and the school district notified....stay tuned for awesome adventures ahead!


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20 Hours < $1000 and other exciting tidbits from this week

Now that Summer is officially more than half-over, I keep expecting it to slow down its pace a bit, so we can have a few lazy days here or there.  Somehow it's not happening though.  This week flew by just as quickly as the weeks before did and when I reflected back at the week, I realized that we had a lot of pretty big things still going on that I didn't want to forget.  Here's a little glimpse at a few of those things:

• After showing zero interest for the last several months, Spencer decided two days beforehand that he wanted to go on his scout troop's high adventure to canoe in the Adirondack's that left early Monday morning.  His scout leaders were amazingly accommodating and even his doctor bent over backward to fill out his medical forms on Friday afternoon with no notice. 

• Glen drove 20 hours to pick Spencer up from his high adventure one day early so he could be present to win a $1000 college scholarship at a young adult cancer survivor conference that was held yesterday.  They required that all scholarship recipients be present to win.  

• Last Friday Cami officially relaunched her cupcake business  for the summer (click on the link for details)  with a giant sample sale.  She made six different flavors (chocolate dipped strawberry, carrot with cream cheese, red velvet with cream cheese, double lemon, coconut lime, and greek yogurt raspberry) and sold them individually (normally you have to buy a dozen of one flavor).   She had some VERY happy customers who were thrilled to get a taste of Cami's cupcakes after she took a 10-month hiatus while she was in school.   Cami was also happy to earn some new fans at Glen's work when he purchased a couple dozen to share with his coworkers.  

• Emma finished up swim team for the summer earning PR's almost every race and being an alternate for divisionals yesterday.  We are proud of how hard she's worked this season!

• After a lot of prayer and deliberating, we have officially decided to homeschool Ellie and Adam this upcoming school year.  We absolutely adore our elementary school, which made it an exceedingly difficult decision to make, but we felt very strongly that it was the right thing for them this year.   Both Ellie and Adam are completely thrilled.  I am also excited, but a good bit nervous for the lifestyle change that it will entail!

• With summer half-way over we have finally decided where we're going on our summer vacation (a roadtrip of course!).  Now we're scrambling trying to pull together an itinerary and find places to stay that actually still have vacancies.  It is my goal that someday we'll actually figure out what we're doing in the summer before summer starts.

• They showed this video at the young adult cancer survivor conference yesterday and I bawled uncontrollably the whole way through as I remembered how hard it was to have our family life turned upside down for 6 months.  

Thrill of the Kill

Some families get excited about their sporting events.  Others get excited about Disneyland or seeing the latest movie.   We Goolds kind of like those things too, 

but if you want to get us really excited all you need to do is start talking about birds. 

Ever since Adam's second grade teacher interwove her love of birds into every subject he studied that year, we have been smitten.  We've made our deck into a bird haven and we regularly go on nature hikes just to see what birds we might see and seeing a cool or unusual bird is an event that gets the whole family excited!

So imagine our sheer delight when we happened upon this sight while driving home from a friend's house yesterday. 

It's  a red-tailed hawk just hanging out with what appeared to be a rabbit or a squirrel in its talons. 

We immediately pulled over, backed up and watched it hopping around the yard with its kill for well over 5 minutes.    Here's a video we captured of it.   

My kids felt badly for whatever little creature he was eating for his lunch, but in the end were thrilled to get a close up glimpse of a gorgeous bird they've only ever before seen from afar.

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Fields of Sunshine

Sometime last week I saw a picture in the Washington Post of a little girl wandering through a field of sunflowers that towered over her.  I was immediately intrigued and wanted to know where such a beautiful place in the DC area could possibly be.  Luckily the caption gave the location and after doing a little investigating I was happy to discover that not only was it not too far from our home but that it also just so happened to be right in the middle of peak blooming time.  I immediately started making plans to go.  

 On Saturday we drove to McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area in Poolesville, Maryland to  see the fields of blooming sunshine for ourselves.  We hadn't realized when we got there that there are actually several different sunflower fields, so we were a little disappointed when the first one we came to looked a little wilty already.  Luckily we could see a second field not far in the distance which was much perkier looking.  We walked onward and were officially entranced! 

Even the drive to the sunflower fields was a beautiful sight in and of itself!

We visited the field right on  River Road, which was the easiest to get to, but it was also the most crowded.   We also visited some on  Hunting Quarter's Road, but they were a bit of a walk to get to (and a little past full bloom).  Our favorite field of all was the one on Sycamore Landing Road.   There weren't any other people there and it wasn't a long walk from the car.  Most of our pictures are from that field.

We also enjoyed watching the bees, dragonflies, butterflies, and goldfinches that abounded in the fields of yellow.  

Now my kids are eagerly watching the sunflowers that Adam planted in our yard earlier this summer.  They're actually quite a bit bigger than this now, but not as photogenic since beetles have been eating up the leaves.

Here are my favorite two pictures from the day: 

My family (except Spence and I) soaking in the sunshine all around them. 

And our own little ray of sunshine totally in her element!

"Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. It's what sunflowers do."

~ Helen Keller