Elaine's Visit to Texas and Kent's Visit to Oregon

I spent the last few days of September and the first week of October in Houston. I was there to babysit Kiera and Savannah while Lissa and Jason went to Singapore. It was a fun, but tiring, week for me. 

After getting Kiera out the door to school I would load up Savannah to go to Adri's house so we could see her family.Adri had some fun outings planned, like going to the Houston Children's Museum. In the picture below Sophia and Savannah were shopping in the pretend grocery store. 

 We also went to the pretend cafe and played with the food there.

 We went swimming at the Firethorne pool. It was a bit chilly, so we had the pool to ourselves.

 Here's Savannah helping me make dinner. I took Savannah out to lunch with me one afternoon while big sister was in school, and I wish I'd taken a picture of us at the restaurant.

 Another outing Adri had signed up for was a tour of a REAL grocery store. The preschoolers got to sample some bread, cheese, vegetables and fruits. In the pictures below we're in the seafood department.

The kids could touch the live lobsters, but as you can see, Sophia preferred to view them from afar.

 I took Savannah to her dance class. I was in Texas for two Fridays, so I got to see Savannah's dance class twice. All the little dancers were quite adorable.

 The girls were happy to see Mommy and Daddy when they got home.

After Lissa and Jason got back we had Sophia's third birthday party. Adri did lots of cute food and decorations for the Daniel Tiger theme.

Jason, Lissa and Kiera enjoying the cake and ice cream.

 The birthday girl with her daddy and some of her party guests.

 While I was in Texas Kiera wanted me to make her a skirt, so I made matching ones for her and Savannah.

Sophia had her third birthday photo shoot at a park in downtown Houston, and I thought this was a cute "behind the scenes" view.

Besides the skirts, I sewed a cape for Savannah's Halloween costume, and made  Sophia's Halloween costume. I'd made Kiera's "Elsa" costume last spring.

Sophia's dress wasn't finished in the photo above, so I had her pose with me in the finished dress. I didn't have a pattern for the "Sofia the First" dress, so I used pieces from different patterns I'd kept from the dresses I sewed for Lissa and Adri, and put them together to make the dress. It turned out very well and looks pretty authentic, if I do say so myself!

Adri posted this photo of her two girls in their Halloween costumes. I made the mermaid costume for Kiera six years ago, and Grace is the third baby girl to wear it!!

While I was in Texas, Kent spent a week with his family in Vancouver, WA. He helped his mom shell some pecans she'd been given.

 I believe the three pictures below were taken at the lake property they own.

 Kent with two of his brothers and his mother.

 I believe this is a view of Mount Saint Helen's.

Kent must have been inspired to go to Vancouver at the end of September, because he was able to see his younger brother, Robby, who passed away less than a month later.

What do Downton Abbey, Segways, and Theodore Roosevelt Have in Common?

What those three things have in common is those are all part of the activities we did in September this year. 

First was a daytrip I took to Wilmington, Delaware to Winterthur, a mansion formerly owned by the Duponts. It's now a museum that was having an exhibit of actual costumes used in the show, "Downton Abbey".

 They mostly showed clothing from the wealthy family members, but below is an apron worn by the one of the maids. I thought the lace on it was very pretty.

 The clothing below was worn by Cora's mother, played by Shirley MacLaine.

 The two costumes on the right were worn by Maggie Smith. I don't remember which actress wore the green dress, but it's definitely more stylish than the dresses worn by Mrs. Crawley.

 This dress was worn by Cora, played by Elizabeth McGovern. The details on all the costumes on display were very elegant and intricate.

 This is Edith's wedding dress.

 These are the outfits that were worn when Matthew proposed to Mary. In the background they were showing the proposal scene over and over on a loop.

This flapper style dress was worn by Rose.It was very cool to see the actual costumes used in the show. It sure would be fun to wear clothes like these.

Later in the month we took a two-hour Segway tour of DC. We had so much fun on the Segways in Annapolis last year that we were anxious to have another chance to ride a Segway. I saw a groupon offer for a tour of DC and gave it to Kent for a Father's day gift, but we didn't use it until September.

 We rode past, and posed in front of, most the famous DC landmarks. (We didn't go past the Jefferson Memorial, since it's more out of the way than the other monuments.)

We even rode in the bike lane down Pennsylvania Avenue.

 It was pretty warm as the day went by, so we ditched our jackets.

Below you can see the Korean War Veteran's Memorial.

I was surprised to see this small field of corn growing next to the Department of Agriculture Building, right in downtown DC.

We also rode past the Smithsonian Castle, the original museum before it grew to be soooo huge.

After the Segway tour was over, we went to Theodore Roosevelt Island, which is in the Potomac River in the heart of DC. I've been wanting to go there for years, but this was the first time we fit it into our schedule.

 The island is run by the National Park Service, and is mostly full of walking and jogging paths. Here's a picture of the monument on the island.

I really like the quote on the bottom of the monument below: "If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness." Do politicians today make statements like that??

September was a fun-filled month, seeing some new things and having some new experiences!

The MAINE Attractions

During the last week of August, Kent and I took a nine-day, 2, 900 mile road trip through Maine, three Canadian provinces, and New York state. I thought I'd start of with the highlights of our delightful visit to Maine. As you can see from the pictures, we had perfect weather! Temperatures in the 70's and sunshine.

The first day of our trip we just drove from Virginia to Boston, Mass, and stayed with my sister overnight. We headed out at 7am the next morning and drove to the southern coast of Maine. This was our day for seeing lighthouses and eating lobster rolls! The lighthouse below is called the Nubble Lighthouse.

We saw a sign for this wildlife refuge and knew we had to stop, since our daughter-in-law is named Rachel Carson!

We arrived in Kennebunkport, Maine, which we'd heard of because the Bushes have a summer home there.

We pulled in to town in time to buy a lobster roll at the Clam Shack. Since it was only 11:30am, we beat the crowds that were lined up an hour later.

 We saw the "Wedding Cake House" which is a landmark in Kennebunkport,

and below is a picture of the Bush home.

Our next stop was the Portland Head lighthouse,

and then on to the city of Portland. We drove to the harbor area and bought another lobster roll at the Portland Lobster Company.

This was my favorite lobster roll because I liked the bread it was on the best.

Our last stop on this first day was the "Desert of Maine", a freak of nature so that a large deposit of sand was left after the glaciers receded thousands of years ago.

We spent the night outside of Bangor, and day two of our trip found us at Acadia National park just as it opened at 8am. We were delighted to find out that it was a "fee-free" day!

We drove up to Cadillac Mountain, which is the highest point on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. We walked around the top of the mountain and saw some good views of the park.

As we were on our way to our next stop, we passed through the towns who started the "Wreaths Across America" program. Kent and I have helped to distribute the wreaths at Arlington Cemetery, and we knew the program originated in Maine, but didn't know where until we were driving through.

The lighthouse below is called the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, and is at the most eastern point in the USA. It was foggy as we drove to it, but it cleared up as we were looking around.

Here's a close-up of the marker, which you can see behind us in the photo above, with the two people looking at it.

The town of Lubec, Maine, is the easternmost TOWN in the United States.

Our last stop of the day was St. Croix Island, an international historic site, shared by both the U.S. and Canada. It marked an early settlement of the French.

As we headed into northern Maine, away from the coast, we saw lots of signs like the one below.

The friends we visited in northern Maine took us out on their boat on the lake just down from their house, and this is the view we had.

We had to check out the city of Fort Kent, way up north on the Canadian border.

That's where we saw the beginning of Route 1, which starts in Maine and ends in Florida. It runs through our county in Virginia just a couple of miles from our house.

And last, but not least, we visited the little town of Madawaska.

It's claim to fame is that it's the most northeastern town in the United States, and calls itself one of the four corners of the US. The other corners being in Florida, southern California and Washington state.

As you can see, we had a magnificent time exploring the state of Maine and managed to see lots of cool places in the four days we spent there. Now that the post is done, go through and count how many colors of polo shirts Kent was wearing in all the photos!!