The joys of home ownership!

Over the long weekend, we were enjoying a lazy breakfast looking out into our backyard. Joel so calmly says "Kelli there is a raccoon in our backyard." I couldn't tell if Joel was joking as he often does or if he was being serious. So I look for myself and there it was just taking its time walking through the backyard with a mouse in its mouth. Joel grabbed the camera and went out on the back porch and it slowly moved up the ginormous tree (that needs to be removed) and on to our roof. It then proceeded to climb down the chimney to apparently feed the rest of the family. Did I mention that we have a family of RACCOONS living in our house? Oh well we do!

Kristin comes to visit

My friend Kristin came to visit for the Labor Day weekend. We enjoyed a lazy weekend with a few adventures in DC. We visited the memorials Saturday night and then the National Harbor on Sunday. The National Harbor had weird sculptures children could play and climb on, so we did!

Harbor Island, ME

Joel, Scout and I were scheduled to leave Saturday morning but tropical storms did not want us to leave. So we had one more rainy, windy day on the island with Dad Carter, Abigail, and David playing games and keeping warm by the stove inside!

The last crew on Friday night.

The biggest lobster I have every seen and Granda Jean cleaned it up very nicely! I've never seen someone enjoy lobster with such throughness like she did!

On Friday Grandma Jean came to HI. I felt very honored to be there with her. She Loves the island and shared lots of knowledge and memories that she had with her kids and the Carter family. We also surprised her with a lobster feast.

Joel and I spent Wednesday night alone on the island and had a big adventure. Quickly I will share...Scout, our wonderful dog, decide all week that he wanted to chase porcupines and play with them. After 3 attempts he still didn't get that they didn't want to play with him. So the night we were alone we were walking back from swimming at a spot on the island called Merry's Bath. Scout following close beside. It was around 3pm so we weren't worried that he would find any Porcupine friends at such an early hour. But Scout has a great sense of adventure and smell that it didn't take him long before he was off in the thick of the forest barking and we couldn't get him to come back. So Joel, in flip flops and bathing suit, goes running in after him to save him from more quills in the face. I run back to the house and try to call for each of them and no answer. Then I hear Joel yell and I see him running up the Foreshore path yelling BEES BEES. So as Joel runs with bees chasing him, scout comes prancing back to the house with tail wagging and 10 quills in his nose and face! Joel got stung 10 times and we had to use plyers to remove the quills from Scout. Needless to say Scout was grounded to the leash for most of the rest of the week!

The first Carter Crew (Mom Carter and Dorthy left Wednesday so Dorthy could start school Thursday SENIOR YEAR!)

Emily and I looking croquette cool and Joel expecting a little carter?

Ladies on Guitar

The mammas

The Wolf Family

Scout LOVES to swim.

Then all decided to swim a bit except me...way too cold!

The clam flats at mid tide

The crew watching Little Isaac swim in freezing cold water!

Emily and Isaac Wingfield drove from RI with mom and dad to meet us for 4 days!

Where do I start...One week on HI is an experience that leaves me speechless every time. It's hard to describe to anyone how wonderful it truly is. I can honestly say that it is one of my favorite places on Earth. So with that said we left 8pm Friday night and arrived 8am Saturday morning. We anticipated that we would meet Hurricane Bill in our travels or once we arrived but thankfully, and with lots of prayers, that was not the case. The first 3 nights on the island we had quit a crew. Starting on the Left: Daddy Dixon, Momma Dixon, Joel, Me, Lenay, Emily, David, Isaac Wingfield. And upfront Left: Isaac and Dylan. Our first lobster feast!