Winner of the Best Caption goes to Nana!

"Hurry, James. I'm due at Balthazar in five minutes."

Children of the Forest Unite! Bea's Three...

It's been simply ages since I've posted, but there's no better excuse than Bea's Third Birthday Party. The theme was woodland creatures. The decorations included stumps and twigs. The cake was a modified Bûche de Noël. Fun was had by one and all...

Turning 40 in Quebec City

Tom did an amazing thing and surprised me for my fortieth birthday with a trip to Quebec City. This is an amazing city - I felt like we were in France; everyone speaks French, and some folks don't speak English, and all we did on the way back to ME was ponder how we could possibly move there...

Here are some snaps from the trip:

Bea at a playground located in the Plains of Abraham Park

Tom and Bea on the boardwalk under the Hotel Frontenac. We stayed two blocks up from this beautiful hotel in the walled city.

Le Temporal - my favorite cafe, on a side street in the walled city. Wine and beer is appropriate any time of day - my kind of town!

A beautiful mural we came across on one of our many meandering walks around the city.

Bea and Tom in the wee park just up the street from us - tres charmante!

This is where we stayed in a little flat with a kitchenette - we will definitely go back to this place and this city.

Bea with Pox, Hello Kitty, and Pez

We had a bit of a hellish time this winter - seemed like we were suffering from a number of plagues, one of which hit miss bea pretty hard - good old chicken pox (warning: graphic photos to follow) - since most kids get a cp vaccine, it's becoming a rare sight - one our young doctor had unfortunately not seen enough to diagnose correctly, but we were pretty sure what those red, scabby spots were - lucky for that! Bea also sports a HK hat and experiences her first Pez dispenser in this posting...

If any of you care to add to Bea's Pez collection, please do - she seems a born collector, just like her mammy!

We're still here!

It's been months since I've posted anything - since my last posting, Tom has switched jobs, I've gone back to work, and we takes turns watching Bea, which means we rarely see each other, but one of us is almost always in sight of our daughter. Another major accomplishment - Tom completed his Master's and is now licensed (conditionally until hours are met) as a therapist (LCPC, to be exact) - long journey's over! Here are a few images from the last six months...

Row Your Boat

My parents recently came to visit - they drove from MN with this Sunflower sailboat strapped to the top of their car - a present for Tom direct from my childhood. Their was never an excursion on the water with my father that didn't end up an adventure. Ask Tom about his addition to the tales...

Littoral Bliss

I've always wanted to use a word-of-the-day in a caption!

When I'm feeling blue about my life AND if I can manage to get myself up and out AND if the sun is even remotely shining (after 3 or 4 pm, of course,) I'll grab Bea, stick a swim diaper on her (if she's lucky,) squeeze her into last year's suit, and hit one of the many really lovely beaches within twenty minutes of our house. Here are some shots from two of our favorites - Kettle Cove in Cape
Elizabeth and Ferry Beach in Scarborough:

The Lobster Shack - pre-tourists!

Bea and I just got back from a weekend in Cambridge. We were helping out with and attending a 40th birthday party for our friend Laura Doty and managed to have a great time, but came back with wicked colds. Unfortunately, I have no pictures from the weekend, which is a shame as I would have loved a snap of Bea's friend and Laura's nine year old daughter Lucia acting as junior babysitter extraordinaire, but I was too busy making mojitos and making sure Bea didn't eat chocolate cake to take pictures.

What I can offer are a few photos I took the day we came back to Maine. It was cold and windy and we headed out to see the crashing waves at Two Lights via the Lobster Shack. It's a beautiful spot and only about a 15 minute drive from our house.

Here we have Bea sitting in one of the cool stone chairs they have erected as functional sculpture.



In this one see if you can spot one of the lighthouses in the background:




While it was a challenge to dissuade Bea from picking all of the tulips in bloom, I looked on lovingly as she picked some Dandelions.




Who can resist the allure of a baby's hand (and wrist roll)?



Here's a very sweet shot of baby Bea...

Some Durn Cute Snaps of The Girl

This may qualify as self-indulgent and the equivalent of whipping out the accordion file of photos of our little darling, but bear with me and realize that I haven't been as good about documenting our peanut's early life as I'd have hoped, so, if that means that every month or so you have to scroll through a bunch of bea photos, lucky you (and enjoy!)...

A Trip to the Beach - Lee/Kubasik Style!

Truth be told, Tom and I are not sun & sand type of folk - we like our beaches off-peak - after 3 pm during the summer, and all day during the sunny winter. We had a bit of spring in the air last weekend and took full advantage, packing the girl on a back and walking over to our local beach where there is a pretty good play structure and, more importantly, a lot of kids and a lot of dogs - Bea was in heaven. We ran into our friends, Catherine and Samuel, and grabbed some nice slide shots of those two. Here's a peak at our day at the beach...