Our orientation day was today.  It went well, though I didn't learn anything earth-shattering, or even interesting, really.  I still don't know what time my classes are next week.  I guess I should probably get that figured out before too long.  

It was really good to see everyone today.  I didn't realize how much I missed some of those girls until I saw their faces at orientation today.  Tonight we're going to Shakespeare in the Park (they do two plays every summer; it's the Three Musketeers tonight!).  I'm roasting up some honey glazed peanuts to take with us.  They're not doing so well.  I didn't measure (I never do and it often gets me in trouble) and I think I put on way too much butter because they're getting a little soggy.

Kevin and I are going away for the weekend, just not together.  He's going to Arizona and I'm going to Maine.  I think we'll both have fun.

I've had a lovely week of vacation, not doing much besides quilting and watching movies.  I did go to Shakespeare in the Park, which was better than ever.  They're putting on two productions this summer: As You Like It and The Three Muskateers, so I need to go back sometime soon and see the other.  This year they added singing and dancing to Shakespeare's work, which I thought really captured the spirit of the play.  It was enchanting.  

School starts up again on Wednesday.  I've got mixed feelings about it.  On one hand, who wants to get up early and deal with the stress of studying and homework?  On the other hand, there's something exciting about starting a new semester.  I've got all kinds of resolutions to be studious and organized and even though I know I won't keep them, I enjoy them just the same.  I'm especially excited about starting my specialty year because I feel I will spend more time learning about things that are interesting to me.  I have one class called "Principles of Aging" which I am looking forward to.

I'm hoping to finish up the top of my quilt befeore classes begin, but I've got some loose ends to tie up the next few days (dentist and hair appointments, etc) while I still have time, so we'll see how it goes...

My trip home was wonderful.  I got to see all my family (especially that little stinker nephew of mine who refuses to stop growing when I'm not there).  Over the weekend, we drove up to St. Louis to go to a wedding.  Almost all of my good friends from college were there, some of whom I hadn't seen since my own wedding.  Our little mini-reunion was fantastic; we met up after the wedding a reprised an old favorite - Apples to Apples.  

I've added some pictures below - the goats (there were 11) are from my sister's ranch.  

       

Amber and I had an awesome trip.  Our first day was probably our best day.  We drove into Portland, ME and ate at a delicious chowder house before roaming the streets and checking out the cute little homes.  We then headed down to Cape Elizabeth to our favorite spot of the whole trip -  Fort Williams Park.  There were hardly any people and it was gorgeous.  We dipped our feet into the northern waters for the first (and last!) time.  It's like ice!  We hung out in Cape Elizabeth for a while, checking out a few lighthouses before headed into Brunswick for the night.  Brunswick is a tiny town that is the home of the state's best lobster roll - yummy!

Our second day was pretty good, too.  We were driving to Bar Harbor when we noticed a botanical garden sign, so we took a detour to Boothsbay, where we explored Maine Coastal Botanical Gardens, which was lovely.  After spending a couple of hours walking through, we were hungry.  They had a great little cafe where they served food grown in their garden.  It was the best veggie wrap I've ever had. We continued onto Bar Harbor, a really cute coastal town with unique shops all along the water.  We ate there and checked out the stores.  We booked a whale watching tour for the next morning where they guarantee to see whales.  We were extremely excited.  We headed to the hotel after dinner exhausted.  Around ten, a huge storm came through.  Maine storms are different from midwest storms.  It's defeaning and then it's deathly quiet and then defeaning again.  There was a bout in the middle of the storm where there wa sno thunder and rain, just lightening and lots of it.  About half an hour after it started, the power got cut from our room.  First Amber got scared, then I got scared, then she got more scared because I was scared....  It was a vicious, scary circle.  Fortunately, we had our cell phones to use as flashlights and also to use to call people bigger and stronger than we are.  Eventually the power came back and we were able to settle down to sleep.

On our third day, we were supposed to be at the boat dock at 8am for the whale tour.  The weather had cleared up nicely, and we were really excited.  We arrived at the place early and found out the tour had been cancelled because the storm was still out on the water and the boat tour goes thirty miles out into the ocean.  We were pretty bummed - we had anticipated the whales to be the highlight of the trip.  We piled back into the car and headed over to Acadia National Park.  We thought if we saw a moose, it would make up for not seeing whales.  Thus commenced the Great Moosehunt 2007.  This, too, was unsuccessful.  We went down tiny little gravel roads to deserted marshlands, far from the populated areas of the park.  We walked down to ponds and waited, but we did not see a single moose.  

We gave up and returned to Bar Harbor to eat at the Thirsty Whale and console ourselves with some ice cream.  We did a little souvenir shopping and then decided we had seen what we wanted to see in Maine.  We hopped onto I-95 and took off for our next destination - Salem.  Amber had been interested in seeing it while she was over on the east coast so we figured we might as well hit it up on our way home.  I am so glad we did.  The Witch Muesem was kind of beyond words.  It was the strangest meusem I've ever seen.  There were no historical artifacts of any kind - just wax figures that they used to put on a production with scary music and lighting and voice overs.   It was melodramatic, as we had been warned it would be by our guidebook, but it was also so much fun.  Salem is a cute little town, with all kinds of specialty shops and cobblestone streets.  We wandered around until dark, and then drove back to New Haven.   

All in all, it was a great trip.  I posted some pictures below.