Vinalhaven - Lane's Island

 A beautiful excursion on our bicycles to Lane's Island. It made me think a bit of Ruckle Park on Saltspring minus the farm and the sea life. A beautiful trail along the shore through the rose bushes overlooking the rocks and the ocean. Great scrambling for children young and old!

Happy Scrambelers

 Lily And Zack in the waves

I don't know where Zack is in this one, under the wave

Lobster Boat passing

 

Two friends again

Lily with her seaweed bracelet

Rachel looking (in vain) for sea creatures. There are lots of snails and crabs and limpets but not much else. The thing to study here would be seaweed which comes in all shapes and sizes.

Alice, keeping up with the boys.

The bike ride home, as pleasant as the walk. The boys are already well on ahead on their speedy bikes with Alice close in tow. Some of us travel at a more leisurely pace.

Lily with the Harbour

Lily and flag.

Vinalhaven - Larson's Quarry

We are just back from a delicious week in Vinalhaven, Maine where we met up with Jane Anna and family - John, Ben and Zack. A bit of an ordeal to get there - a long drive followed by a VERY rough crossing on the ferry - Lily and I spent a miserable hour and a half leaning over the railing into the driving wind and rain. But once there and settled into our comfy house, the skies cleared and we had a wonderful week of swims, walks, visits, explores. Here are some of them...

First stop, a visit to Larson's quarry where the swimming is delicious!

This was to be a theme of the holiday... Ben and Zack jump immediately into the water while Alice and Lily get used to the idea.

but eventually it is time to go...

and they are off!

and glad they went too!!

Meanwhile Zack has moved on to greater heights.

Fearless Zack!

A bathing beauty

and another

and the two long Taillefer girls

and a happy mama!

Vinalhaven Candy Shop

This is and essential part of the Vinalhaven experience and probably Zack's favourite. Temptation!

Such abundance. 

Zack seems up to the challenge!

Vinalhaven - 'The Basin' falls

Our first walk with a group of somewhat reluctant chilluns. Jane Anna was determined to take on 'the basin' circle walk. Zachary was determined for us to go to the basin falls. Where do you guess we ended up? The falls were lovely and the trail was enchanting. The circle walk was left to be discovered by runners and walkers another day!

Old friends doing some catching up!

So nice to have some time together while the little-uns explore...

and explore,

Of course some are more adventuresome that others, and less afraid of cold water!

The secret passage that the children found through the shoulder high ferns and bracken.

Lily's piano recital

Here is Lily nervous and ready for her piano recital yesterday... posing with the peonies who are in their full glory right now.

Alice, head cheerleader...

and long Lily.

The artists 

Art

The 'festival transamériques' has just finished in Montreal. Two weeks packed with dance and theatre both doing and watching for me but we did attend some off festival events 'en famille'.

Here we are at Peter's 'box Tape' instillation. This structure is made entirely of box tape by whoever wants to contribute to the project. It's shape depends on who is there and what they feel like building.  This structure has taken shape over the last couple of weeks. It seems to have held up so far. You climb (and let your children climb) at your own risk.

Then an in-situ dance experience. Performances for one spectator at a time created by Aurélie Pedron and performed by young women who have been in difficulty. Here is Lily as spectator (under the rug) with Alice and Eric spectating the spectator.

Gardening in the Laurentians

I lovely if rather hot sunday was spent at Marie-Claude and Alejandro's chalet moving plants and planting grand-dad's dahlias. I was the gardener in chef with three very keen helpers and one keen observer. Can you guess who was who?

We even had a very short dip in the lake at the end of our labours - my first of the season!

Alice and Marie-Claude made a great gardening team. Alice being the 'expert' of the two.

Alice and her god-mother and a well deserved glass of water.

Eric thought that Alejandro looked like an afghan peasant in his gardening attire.

B-Girls

This was a benefit event for a quebecois female gum-boot dance company who are going to Bali this summer! Here you have Alice (and a little bit of mummy) trying her hand at break-dancing... for a good cause! B-girls in the making?

Back Yard Circus

Today after school we had seven girls in our back yard, all trying out for Lily's circus. There were try-outs is gymnastics, hula-hoop, clowning and dance. They all had to present a number in front of judge Marylou. Thankfully all the girls did manage to earn a role. IT is not clear when or if Lily's circus has a further engagement but they had a very fun three hours of auditioning - not to mention Eric and I who enjoyed peeking out the window at the sight!

Duathalon

Lily competed on thursday in her first ever duathalon -  1km run, 3 km bicycle, another 1km run. She completed it all with a smile. We need to put those long legs to more use!

The happy finishers

Not a bad stride but it looks as if she is bouncing like her mother!

The school board that organized the event had bikes and helmets for all the kids. I don't know what they do with them the rest of the year?