Sadly we are saying goodbye to our lovely fireplace because there’s an issue with the chimney’s foundation and we have to take it down… I’m very sad to see this mantle go too. Stay tuned for a new facelift in the living room.

It was pouring down with rain and chilly windy but the race is still on!

Chloe came in at 8th place out of 45 runners!!! SO proud of you!

Shane turned ELEVEN today! This guy asks nothing for his birthday besides a sweatshirt and a new headset for his games.

Hey Mammas boy, no matter how old you’re, you’ll always be my beautiful baby, a perfect gift from God and our biggest joy! I love you and daddy loves you too but God loves you most! Happy birthday my handsome son!

Today is also our church’s 20th anniversary so we are going to our special anniversary concert at GRC!

I’ve been working on upgrading our dining room since last November and it’s coming along nicely. After installing this gorgeous dark floral wallpaper from Ellie Cashman which I’m absolutely still in love with, I purchased a new Sanger chandelier from Aerin and got new set of chairs from One Kings Lane which was a lot of work to put together.

After those purchases, I had to save money somewhere so I made the drapery by learning from youtube tutorials on how to make French-pleat drapery. It was not an easy task and nowhere perfect but I’m happy with how they turned out. 🙂
More updates to come…

Loving my view…

It’s raining today but that doesn’t stop us from exploring Acadia national park on bikes.

Take 1

Take 2

Take 3

Take 4. Finally.

Sandy beach

We decided to hike the 1.4 mile Great Head Trail which is supposed to be  “moderate” and loops around the perimeter of the small peninsula called Great Head located on the east side of Sand Beach in Acadia National Park.  However, somehow we veered off from the path and ran into some difficult set of bedrocks on the way that you have to scramble up, so some of the “acrophobia” people from our group decided to go back down and wait for us (me and the kids) down by the beach.

We saw all kinds of beautiful views of Sand Beach and the Gulf of Maine from up here.

On the way down, it was pretty intense at times with climbing steep boulders and tough rocky hiking but kids did great. Only thing was the trails were not marked very well and we got lost for a while, kept on going around the loop up and down all over the place…  Finally after 2 hours of wondering, Chloe guided us with her google map and got us out of the woods.

I have to say while we were lost,  we were getting tired, sweaty and irritated that we kept on going around the loop not seeing the trail to the entrance to the beach where we started. I was staring to lose my cool and Chloe and I started bickering. I was blaming  her for keep going too fast ahead of me and leading us to wrong ways and she blamed me for my “stupid” idea of hiking this trail.
It was Shane who kept his cool and stayed calm the entire time,  kept us intact and tried to convince us girls to make up and stay together. Thanks Shane for being a great example today.

We got to play some tennis at the hotel club house after dinner.  I think I’ll take some lessons so I can keep up with these guys.

We took a little stroll around the town before hopping on the car for another 4 hours north.

Located in Walker’s Point is the Bush compound, the summer home of 41st President of the United Sates Gerge H.W. Bush.  Walker’s Point juts out into the Atlantic Ocean in southern Maine, in the town of Kennebunkport.