Day 11.202: Cemetery stories

After our enjoyable exploration of the Laurel Hill Cemetery - reported most fully on Day 11.117, we were keen to visit this new temporary exhibition at the Saco Museum, telling the stories of several of the people who are buried there:

Buried In Time: Hidden Stories from Laurel Hill Cemetery.
June 23 to October 21, 2018 - Saco Museum

We visited on Saturday (except for Exile #3 who was busy with her dog-sitting duties), and although the content required a bit more reading than E5N1 was keen to do, we thoroughly enjoyed our visit and reading about some of the colourful stories from the past of our recently adopted home.

Day 11.201: I think she approves

I don't remember exactly what prompted this:

but I'm sure she is expressing profound approval of whatever I just said.

Day 11.200: Exile #2's Sunday Column #214

Exile #2 writes...

Today, we were substituting for the regular pianist at church. This makes for a long morning for the kids, as there are two services, one at 9 am, and another at 11 am. E5N1 can find it particularly challenging to be still and quiet through two services, so we’re never quite sure what will happen, but today he totally rose to the occasion. Having amused himself quietly during the first service, he then ended up hanging out with one of our toddlers during the second, playing at the side of the room.

Nice job, E5N1! I’m obviously out of musical shape, however, because after we got home, I had a lengthy nap! I think I’ll find the energy to watch the replay of the final stage of the Tour de France though - yay!

Day 11.199: Morning walk on the beach

Exile #2 and I went out for our morning walk again today, but instead of walking from the house, we drove to the beach and walked there. It was rather nice!

Day 11.198: Don't get land-sick!

Google Photos creates some excellent auto-generated animations (like yesterday's), but as for this one - I'm not sure what happened here:

Day 11.197: Recovered

Here is Exile #3 modeling the new couch:

It isn't actually new, but Exile #2 has recently finished recovering it. I'm sure she notices the slight imperfections but I am in awe of the result and the hard work that led to it!

Day 11.196: One of the signs of patriotism

Spotted by Exile #2 and me on our walk this morning:

Day 11.195: Mr. Hummingbird

We're always happy when the hummingbirds visit our little feeder. At first it's always the females - some seasons we rarely see a male at all - but recently we've had several visits from this fellow with his eponymous ruby throat:

...not when I've had a real camera to hand, but we can't have everything!

Day 11.194: Scam Alert (a public service announcement)

I'm a fairly internet-savvy person. I read technical articles, undertake regular internet security training at work and I'm generally pretty careful.

Today, I received a very convincing email scam that had me wondering for a while. I recently heard that two of my also-fairly-well-informed friends got hit by the CEO scam and were nearly taken in.

Be aware of what is going on out there and don't be an easy mark!

The email I received was more convincing because it included an old password I had used in the past. Presumably this came from one of the many hacks that have occurred over the years.

If you are using the same password across multiple accounts associated with your email address or a password you have been using for a decade or more, please consider changing them all to independent, secure passwords. Perhaps like me you will consider it's time to use a password vault like DashLane, 1Password or LastPass.

Take care out there!

Day 11.193: Exile #2's Sunday Column #213

Exile #2 writes...

So, the weather has turned rainy, for which we are actually a little grateful. Fortunately, it waited until E5N1 got home from camp, and as a result he has come home looking surprisingly tanned, and with a cute, raspy voice from all his singing and talking!

Meanwhile, Exile #3 is discovering that the dogs she is watching are actually cats, and fairly unimpressed by the wet weather. We’re told they look at her with a “you have got to be kidding” expression, when she tells them it’s time to go outside. It’s understandable. They are dachshunds and don’t have a lot of clearance. They modify their gait when walking in the wet grass. When one of them walked into a puddle earlier, he apparently just stood there as if he wasn’t sure what to do about the situation.

Oddly enough, Exile #4 had a similar experience the other day when what she had assumed was wet tarmac turned out to be a few inches of water. I successfully navigated this obstacle, only to hear a small, plaintive voice from behind saying, “Oh, I’m in a puddle”. Fortunately, unlike, our doggie friend she did seem to manage to extricate herself.

Day 11.192: A visit to the circus

The focus of today was an early morning trip to collect E5N1 from camp. Of course, this wasn't just a normal camp pick-up - first we watched the fruits of their musical theater labors - an original musical learned in just four days about a circus:

E5N1 was type-cast as the leader of the clowns!

complete with newly honed kazoo skills:

As expected, he was tired and a little sad to be leaving - but he had a great week and is already talking about going back next year!

Day 11.191: Sunset at the beach

The three of us that still live in this house full time* went for a walk on the beach this evening.

* Tomorrow we will collect E5N1 and Exile #3 is around at mealtimes on a fairly reliable basis!

Day 11.190: With only one child in the house...

...this is how we're spending our time:

Artwork by Exile #3 during the 2017/8 school year (Drawing Class).

Day 11.189: Before he left for camp...

...E5N1 disppeared for a couple of minutes and then this happened:

It's like it's 2007 all over again

Day 11.188: Morning walk

Here are some of the things Exile #2 and I saw on our morning walk yesterday:

A little mist on the river

The view from the tiny Jubilee Park

Professional looking checkers pieces turned out to be bottle caps

On the way back across the river - what looked like a dead koi floating downstream

Day 11.187: Children's Garden at Fort Williams Park

As promised, some photos of our visit to the Children's Garden at Fort Williams Park on Sunday - including - "Disappointing crop in the hand garden", "Yes - the polished stone slide is open this time!" and "Exile #4 in the bushes" along with some nice photos of flowers etc.:

Day 11.186: And then there were three

We left this young camper about to go for his waterfront orientation (or - as it is more commonly called - the swim test) at the beginning of his week at theater camp.

With Exile #3 back with her doggy friends, that leaves just three of us in the house. Very strange!

Day 11.185: Portland Head Light - together!

Astonishingly, our plan to have the four of us currently sleeping in this house, up and out in time to collect Exile #3 at 8:30 am and head over to have a walk around and enjoy some outdoor time at Fort Williams Park actually came together this morning.

Here are the pictures of us at Portland Head Light:

Garden photos to follow.

Day 11.184: WEDGiTS rediscovered

After recent rediscoveries of various other building toys, it was no great surprise to see E5N1 arrive with a pile of WEDGiTS the other day - he was stacking them in various ways hiding the small ones inside constructions of the larger ones. It took me a minute to remember how to wedge them together to make strong connections - although I remembered that it was the secret to more advanced construction. I showed him the principle yesterday evening and today, while I was at work, he mastered it:

It inspired me to go back and find the previous posts about this construction toy and sure enough there was a much smaller but similarly enthusiastic E5N1 some seven and a half years ago.

Day 11.183: Prayer Wheel Garden

This small garden was a nice surprise as we walked through Topsham on the Androscoggin Riverwalk:

I found this article about it.

Day 11.182: A good distraction

No sooner had the final whistle blown on the end of a glorious World Cup run for England than it was time to take Exile #3 to start her dog sitting duties. The distraction was probably exactly what I needed.

Day 11.181: Androscoggin Riverwalk

Although we've visited Brunswick on a number of occasions for a variety of reasons, and although on many of those occasions we've found ourselves eating at Frontier and enjoying the view over the Androscoggin hydroelectric dam, we'd never walked the loop trail around the dam until Saturday afternoon.

We started by crossing the bridge below the dam - I enjoyed spotting the potholes among the rocks:

From the Topsham side of the river, there is a nice view of the mill:

and a nice easy trail:

The highlight of the loop is the Swinging Bridge - which is old (1892), notable and quite wobbly!

The 1.3 mile loop might not qualify as a hike, but it helped along our appetites for a very tasty dinner at Frontier. We got one more view of the river after dinner from the 250th Anniversary Park:

and then headed home for a piece of Exile #2's birthday cake!