Val's post

Alright, Mike is making me do today's post. He wants to get back to the cottage as soon as they can tonight so we can go out for dinner for our 15 year anniversary. Nothing fancy, all 4 kids, but it'll still be fun. I hope you don't expect too much because I am not nearly as creative as he is. Mine will also be short because the younger ones are becoming impatient about going swimming.

We came up to visit the boys and watch them work on the kayak today. It is neat to see them working together and getting closer and closer to a finished product. Brenna informed Mike that she wants to do this with him some day. We'll see if that remains true in a few years or not. She definitely enjoyed watching Drew work on stuff.

An update from the girls and Braden's end. We are enjoying driving around Deer Isle and checking out different little shops. Alex looked at the map and picked out a few she thought would be neat. We haven't made any big purchases, just mainly window shopped. We don't do many of the pottery or antique stores because first, we aren't sure how we would get that home, and 2nd, the little octopus is with us. We would do a lot of "You break it, you buy it" shopping. I'm not interested in that! We have a few other store we plan to visit yet, though.

Swimming has been very interesting. No one has gone deeper than their knees. The water is very cold. I heard one dad at the beach yesterday after being in for just a short time say his knees were frozen. The beaches are definitely a lot different from the few we have been in at North and South Carolina. The girls wanted me to be sure you understand that the water is COLD! :)

Mike has a few pictures loaded from supper Monday night for us to share. The kids enjoyed the corn for supper. I wanted to include some of the kayak, but I can't get them to download from the camera. Mike will have to help with that. I keep getting error messages and illegal program activity that is forcing the program to end and send error reports. I hate figuring out new things!

The final thing I will include before we go to Antarctica Beach as Alex is referring to the beaches is a picture of the Lighthouse on Pumpkin Island that we saw. You can't go out to the island because it is privately owned, but we could look at it from a distance. Alex wanted to drive out to see it because Mike calls her his "little pumpkin spice," so seeing the Pumpkin lighthouse was neat for her.

Hopefully the boys can include work pictures tomorrow.