Quincy's World

I don’t know what the weather has been like around the rest of the country, but up until this past weekend, it was the year without a summer in Maine. It was cool and rainy most of June and July. This past Saturday, it was pleasantly warm and very sunny. Since we didn’t know when the sun would come out again, we decided to take Quincy back to Lamoine Beach. We went there last August too.

Before we made it to the beach, we stopped in Ellsworth for lunch. We ate at the Riverside Cafe. This cafe has been written up in both Down East and Yankee magazine. The food was good and the decor was nice too. Too bad it is that far from home.

We were surprised to see a lot of cars when we got to the beach – it isn’t that widely known of a spot, especially with Acadia being a stone’s throw away. It soon became clear to us, though, that there was some sort of large family gathering going on that day. They weren’t even on the beach proper, but up in the grassy area before the beach.

I think the term ‘beach’ is not completely accurate for Lamoine Beach. This area of Maine is not known for its sandy beaches. This one is no exception. It is mainly smooth rocks and crushed shells. Once you get out into the water, however, there is sand and it stays shallow for quite a ways out.

The water was cold, but not too cold. Quincy and I were in the water, but Dara was content just to put her feet in (southerner). Quincy had a great time splashing, digging holes, flying our kite, and watching labs thunder into the surf to “retrieve” rocks. Funny thing about the kite.

I had most of the line out and it was very high in a strong wind. All of a sudden, the kite did a nose dive. I mean, it came dive-bombing to earth. Did I mention that the kite was flying over the ocean? Heh. It did a splashdown quite a ways from shore and then promptly sunk. It was not possible to pull it to me. I had to walk to it. Like I said earlier, it doesn’t get deep very quickly, but by the time I reached the kite, I was fairly numb from about the mid-chest on down. The kite is nylon so it wasn’t damaged. I then decided that that was enough kite flying.

After we were done at the beach and headed for home, Quincy feel asleep in the car. I don’t blame him. He played hard on the beach and really had a great time. Hopefully we’ll get more great weather for more such outings. As I write this, it is 84 degrees out and sunny. Summer, it would seem, has finally arrived in Maine. Unfortunately, for some (not me) it leaves all too quickly. Bring on the snow!

Make sure to check out the accompanying pictures. Sorry that Dara is not in any, but since she is averse to cold water, she took all the photos.

I took the time to check out camera recently and discovered some pictures on there from the end of June and all of July. Rather than separate them out into different galleries, I just threw them all together under the “Random” moniker. You can find those pictures here.

It wasn’t until I actually typed out the title of this post did I catch the double-meaning there. What can I say, not feeling that sharp today.

It is hard to believe that there hasn’t been a post for almost 3 months. It won’t be long before Quincy can do them himself and I won’t have to worry about it.

Since some time has passed from the potty training weekend (started 4th of July weekend), I felt it safe to do an update on how Quincy has done. Basically, he went from wearing diapers during the day and at night to not wearing them at all. The nighttime being diaperless was a bonus – not something we expected him to be able to do at all.

Quincy had one accident the first day we tried underwear, and he was *very* upset about being all soaked. When we tried this a few months ago, he had a couple accidents and didn’t really care that much. For whatever reason, this time it was different. From that point on, he has been 100% reliable. We find it quite remarkable how easily he can do everything that is required. This is one of the benefits of waiting so long I do suppose.

We did get some prune juice to coax some action later on. He seemed a little hesitant in that regard, but once things got moving in the right direction he was just fine with it.

For those who are wondering, and you know who you are, his underwear has Cars theme, Thomas theme, and snorts, plus some plain colors.

Quincy is also closing in on his “big prize” for being dry for 2 weeks. I’m probably just as excited – he picked out a nice Lego set for me to play with, er, I mean put together for him. 🙂

So there you have it, Quincy is now officially off diapers. For those of you with boys, just wait til they’re almost 4, but your experience and mileage may vary. 😉

This past Saturday the 43rd annual Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race was held in our area. It says canoe in the title, but kayaks are welcome too. The race is 16 miles long and starts in Kenduskeag and ends in Bangor where the stream runs into the Penobscot River. We had never gone to watch before, but wanted to take Quincy along to watch the boaters.

There is a section on the stream called Six Mile Falls which is very popular for watching – mainly because of all the wipe-outs that happen there. We knew not to go there because of the large crowds, and we didn’t want Quincy to be too worried about everyone dunking into the water.

We staked out a nice spot along the lower stream near Bangor and waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. The race started at 8:30am, but the water was sort of low in places so the racers had to portage in many places. Things picked up where we were around 11am or so (we got there around 10:15 or so). The funniest part was that we were almost run over by a canoe. Yes, you read that correctly – run over by a canoe.

It just so happens that we staked out a place where racers were going to put back into the stream due to a part that wasn’t navigable. While sitting there, we suddenly hear, “Move the chairs!!!” Coming barreling down the hill towards us were about 6 people and a rather large canoe. Needless to say, we got out of their way. We also decided to move a bit more downstream so that we could actually see the boats in the water.

We saw only two boats flip – one happened while they were putting back in the stream and the other one was when a canoe tipped trying to navigate a stretch of white water. Note: don’t all lean in the same direction in a canoe at the same time. Bad things happen.

Quincy had a great time. Before we went, we told him that he had to clap and cheer the people on. So, on race day, Quincy clapped and said to the boaters, “Go! Go! Go! Yea!!!” People thought he was quite funny. The weather was perfect too. We took some pictures of the stream, us, and some boaters. You can check them out in the gallery.