Pet Show

Today was the 31st Annual Children's Pet Show in Burlington. The girls entered Cabbie last year in the best costumed pet and owner. Last year they won first place. They were eager to enter again this year. I had been checking all of the community calendars that I could find over the past month to find the date and couldn't find it. I knew they would be disappointed to miss it. Sunday night I was checking my email after returning home from Maine. I opened one of my Front Porch Forum newsletters and there it was, listed from Parks and Recreation, the date. July 13th. Ugh a short two days away. The last day and a half have felt like a costume making frenzy, but I finished. The kids planned an ocean theme this year. Please meet:

Alexa the Mermaid.

Chloe the Dolphin.

And Cabbie, the starfish.

I am also happy to announce that even though there was a record nine entrants in the costume category.

The girls took first place a gain this year.

I, for one, will sleep better tonight. I spent half of last night tossing and turning dreaming of how to assemble a dolphin costume.

Launcher Trails

Tennis Ball Launcher

One lovely sunny day in Maine my charming daughter Chloe said to me, "Mommy, I want to make a tennis ball launcher." Really now, I don't know where she comes up with this stuff. I was, however, going to humor her and find her a plastic cup, yard stick, and a roll of masking tape. Knock yourself out I figured. Just test it out down in the field behind Grammie's house and please don't aim at your sister. But I didn't have to do even that. See my sister, Andrea, volunteered her husband Ryan to build one with her. Now what seven year old doesn't want her very own engineer to build a tennis ball launcher with her?

As you can see there was a lot more than cups and rulers involved here.

There were boards,

hammers,

and power tools.

There were moments of intense adult consultation.

Moments where the children became a bit... um.. distracted.

There was my job...

I held these for a good 20 minutes until I realized that it was just a pity task designed to make me feel useful.

In the end there was sucess.

One tennis ball launcher. Good for about 15 minutes of family fun.

Chloe's Swimming Demonstration

Singing Cousins

Running Away

So, I have been way. Have you noticed? I haven't written a word in over a week. It is kind of a record for me since I started this blog. I wandered off to visit family on Cranberry Island in Maine. It is good for me to unplug a bit, but I know my faithful readers (all two of you) may have wondered where we I have been. So I will, of course, catch you up with some lovely stories (and videos if the blogger site cooperates) in the days to come. We had our usual beach fun on the island. It was really hot for most of the week. So having a 50 degree ocean 1/4 mile down the street from us was really nice.

We first went to the 4th of July Parade in Bar Harbor (technically done on the 3rd of July this year). The kids really liked it last year and wanted to go again.

It had a few participants that only Maine could have...

The kids enjoyed it though and collected a lot of candy and trinkets that were thrown from the floats. Neither one of my kids are big candy eaters. Chloe is especially picky and wont eat most of what she collected. This led her to develop an interesting plan. Chloe decided to have a sale in front of Grammie's house and sell her unwanted candy to people walking by. She also decided to add collected seashells and sea glass to her sale.

I had my doubts about how this was going to go. I mean she is trying to sell tourists sea shells on an island with a beach 1/4 of a mile from us. I didn't want to see her disappointed, but I shouldn't have worried. She made $4 on her first day and was extremely excited. Turns out people are willing to give cute little pony tailed kids quarters. This only served to inspire her more, so that afternoon when her Grammy Eva offered to help her make dog biscuits to sell to people. She was all excited. Grammy mixed the dough, and Chloe rolled and cut them (with help from Alexa).

She headed out the next day with new merchandise. She sold her treats at 50 cents a bag.

We even sat a bowl of water out for the tired pooches. Over the three days of her sale, Chloe made over twelve dollars. She was pretty excited and is already making plans to expand for her next visit.

Dress Up

You can have a lot of fun playing dress up...

experiment with some new looks...

become a different creature all together...

of course your living room might look like this after...

clean up might take awhile.