The Search for Miss Direction: Maine-ly, we haven't been there...

Phew, what a busy rainy Thursday! I started my morning with getting both kids off to school and then making my way to a meeting with my favorite lovely ladies for MOPS. In case there wasn't enough love spread this morning, let me say it yet again - I adore these ladies! I hope this morning was as re-affirming for each of you as it was for me.

I then snagged Kayla from school, came home to do some dinner prep and then headed back out the door for a PTA Board meeting - the last one with the current board. Wow does that seem strange to write. I'm thankful to Chuck, Julie, Stacia and Sue for putting up with my newbie status this year and helping me learn the ropes around Beechview. One more general meeting and then we're finished for the year. I have at least one for year to proudly serve as secretary.

Made it back home in time to go into work for awhile before sloshing down to the bus stop to get Noah. Seriously Mother Nature, I've had about enough of you lately - 80 two days ago and not even 50 and rainy today. Knock it off! After drying off the kiddos worked on their Maine map pictures. Any guesses as to what they came up with...

To appease my seafood loving Bean I made Mainely Fish for dinner tonight. I wasn't able to locate the haddock the recipe called for, but a quick internet perusal suggested it was similar in taste/texture to cod which is what I ended up using instead. So not only was this a new seafood, but the capers the recipe called for is also something new to the Gatchel household. I think you could cover it it slime and if you told Kayla it was seafood she would scarf it down. I found this one easy to put together, pretty to look at and overall pretty tasty - think we might be hanging on to this one. I paired it with a couple of the apple recipes I found on Maineapples.org. While not nearly as large as their blueberry crop, apples do bring in a fair amount of income to the state with roughly twenty different varieties grown there. I did a variation of the "Heaven and Earth" recipe from the site as well as the "Easy Fruit Salad." There are quite a few recipes on the Maine website to check out if you love all things apple like we do!

After dinner we put together the "We've Been There" state and munched on edible lighthouses. Yes, I said edible lighthouses. I was inspired by this picture I came across when doing my research and decided we had to make our own version. There are quite a few lighthouses in Maine (though, believe it or not, Michigan leads the nation in number of lighthouses. Check back in a few weeks and I'll tell you why!) including the Portland Head Lighthouse which is the oldest in the state of Maine and has the distinction of being the first lighthouse to be built by the United States government and is thought to be the most visited, painted and photographed lighthouse in New England. Anyway, in a nod to the lighthouses of Maine below you'll have to check out our edible version. Yet another reason to be bummed out that no Gatchel's got to put a sticker on Maine to show we've been there. After this week, another one to add to the 'must check out' list, though!

So, little 'programming' note for the next few days. Grant's Dad and brother are heading in tomorrow for the weekend to celebrate Noah's birthday. The plan for tomorrow night is to meet up with my parents and Scott for the Mud Hens game in Toledo. (So please, if you're reading this, say a prayer RIGHT NOW for the rain to stop and the temperatures to warm up tomorrow night) That being the case, not sure if I'll get pictures up or not as who knows when we'll actually make it home. We've been looking forward to this for week's, though, so keep your fingers crossed for us. I'll post when I can, so until then...

Maine Fun Fact of the Day: The state animal of Maine is the moose. An adult Bull Moose stands about 7 feet tall at the shoulders and can weigh over 1,600 pounds. The top of it's antlers may stand as much as 10 feet off the ground and may weigh 60 pounds. Moose can be found feeding in ponds with lots of vegetation on the bottom. They can eat around 30 pounds of food a day.