November BINGO!

We were very THANKFUL for a exciting November BINGO this month. We held BINGO on Thanksgiving Eve in hopes we would have all those visitors who came out to the island for the holiday join us for some fun! And boy, did we have a spectacular crowd!

Not too shabby for November on Monhegan! BINGO was the place to be.

We had some special "summer folk" guests!

And of course, Billy B. was there with his whole family, including TWO Monhegan school alumni! Very exciting.

Big D calling some winning numbers.

And the proud parents with their newly won holiday decor... hey, is that a mini carpet?

Billy was beaming ear to ear because not only did he win around, but BOTH of his daughters did as well. As Billy put it, "It is the next generation of BINGO champs."

Quinny's turn to call.

The ever important Maya shot of the night. Sooooo cute.

Awww, some puppy love in the kitchen.

AND LOOK! It is our favorite high school freshman! He says he likes being on the "other end" of BINGO much more.

And before we knew it... the last round was played! We heard a screech and a scream coming from Norma's table...

You guessed it. Our November BINGO champ is NORMA! She is now on our Wall of Fame twice! You better watch out Billy B.

Gabbers!

You know what we really love about the holiday season... all of our Monhegan School alumni comes home to the island! We were SOOOO excited for Gabe to return home for Thanksgiving that we just HAD to head down to the boat to greet him!

We were prepared with our signs... although it was very windy so it was difficult to hold onto them in the wind!

Maya was so excited for Gabe to come!

Then right as the boat came up to the wharf a huge gust of wind came and blew my "I love Gabbers" sign into the ocean! Oh man.

LOOOK! It is Gabe!! He looked like a high school super star!

Greetings from Maya! She missed her BFF.

I tried to give Gabe a hug but Maya kept attacking him!

Lots of hugs and "welcome home!" from everyone! We were all so glad to have him back for the holiday!

And obviously Gabe was glad to be back too. He spent one whole afternoon at school with us.

He taught us how to do really complicated Mendal Squares.

Yikes! That boy is smart!

Then he stayed and did his homework while we had math class. It was such a treat to have him in school with us again.

Lots of love for Gabe! We loooove him.

Busy weekend... wait weekend?

As if we did not spend enough time together on Islesford... I got to spend some extra time with the boys this past weekend. I was honored to attend Dalton's swim meet on Saturday; something I have been wanting to do ever since he joined the Camden Y's swim team this October. He has been extremely dedicated to swimming, going in every weekend and having to make up school work when he gets stuck inshore...

but I think all his hard work paid off!

Here is Dalton in Lane 8 getting ready to take off for his first race, the 100 yard IM.

And he's off!

Good form, good form.

Go! Go! Go!

Almost there!!!!!

As you can see, Lane 8 placed #1 in this heat! HE WON HIS HEAT! And not only that he won the other two heats he competed in! He was nervous that he may have gotten disqualified for one of his races, but he didn't! He was awesome!!!

To find out more about his races you should check out his new blog:

The Waffle Iron

And while Quinn and I waiting around to see Dalton's races we headed to the awesome rock climbing gym at the Y.

Maybe Quinn can join a rock climbing team!

He was like a little monkey up that wall!

And down he comes...

Not too shabby for a Saturday inshore!

Our week at the Islesford School!

We took our Monhegan School Bus (also known as my little green ford focus) to North East Harbor last week in order to begin our adventure attending the Islesford school for a week! We had been looking forward to this field trip ever since our October trip to Bar Harbor where we got to be with Islesford and all our other island friends!

We had to BOOK IT to NE Harbor! We got off our boat in Port Clyde and only had two hours and forty-five minutes to get to the boat to take us to Islesford... and we still had to grocery shop and pick up lunch! Thank goodness we made it there safe and sound!

On our drive Quinn lost a tooth! Very exciting.

We arrived on Islesford (after a ridiculously short boat ride) and were greeted by the entire Islesford School! That night there was a potluck with all the school community to celebrate our arrival! We felt SO welcomed!

There was so much delicious food!

And this fabulous cake!

The kids were pretty pumped about the dessert table.

I had to take this picture in honor of Maya. The Islesford School uses tennis ball on the bottom of their chairs and tables to protect the floor and make the school less noisy... My dog would NEVER relax in a school with this many tennis balls!

Speaking of dogs, this is Ruby... the Islesford School dog! We adored her and luckily we got to stay at her house!

Our first full day on Islesford was very productive... we worked on writing persuasive essays together in Language Arts class...

And then we took a trip to the Mount Desert Island Elementary School where we got to have lunch, visit a fourth grade classroom (where they interviewed us about what it is like living on an island), and then we went to a chorus class!

Tuesday night we got to visit the home of the glorious author and artist Ashley Bryan... this may have been a highlight of the trip for all of us!

We started every morning at school off with dance! It was fun to watch my boys enjoy goofing around with lots of other kids!

Time for some reading! Man, I wish this cute little monkeys could attend the Monhegan School!

During our school day on Wednesday the kids worked on a presentation about our TLC project that they were going to present to the Islesford community on Thursday night. They did video interviews of one another about what they thought about our project and what they enjoyed about collaborating with other island schools.

Did I mention that our favorite island fellow came with us to Islesford!? Yay!

Time for art class. Islesford was working on building the topographical map of their island and since Dalton and Quinn were already experts in map building they were a huge help in the process!

Dalton helping out with some end of day duties at school. Good thing he is an experienced sweeper!

Thursday we headed to the Neighborhood House early in the morning to begin setting up for the community potluck!

The boys were right at home preparing for the community event! What good little worker bees!

Oh... and another highlight of being Islesford students for a week... they have a super sweet playground!

Thursday afternoon we had a final rehearsal at school of our TLC presentation we were giving at the potluck.

And of course we did some more work on our computers!

And before we knew it... it was time for our presentation at the potluck! It was awesome.

Our good looking group at the pot luck being silly!

Our last night on Islesford... the kids were trying to make Dalton stay forever!

Our very sad last morning at Donna's house! We loved staying with her and we had some EXCELLENT meals at this table.

Quinny with his delicious kiefer smoothie made by Donna!

I think the puppies were sad to see us go!

Of course we started our last morning off with dance!

We got the kids set up with their own school gmail accounts (thanks to our terrific island fellow) so they could keep in contact even when we went back to our island.

Lots of gchating happening that morning.

And lots of love and hugs.

Before we knew it... it was time to head to the dock to catch our boat.

It was a sad walk.

More hugs!

The teachers and first graders! They are GREAT lap warmers!

One final farewell to Islesford!

We had the best week ever and are so grateful to the school and whole island for being SO welcoming and hospitable to us. We LOVED being students (and teachers) on Islesford and we hope to visit again soon!