On to Portland!

Next stop on our whirlwind swing through New England --  Portland, Maine.  We traveled up the coast from Boston on through the very tip of New Hampshire and on into Maine.  One of my art buddies is from New Hampshire and knew the area well.  She lives in my hometown now and we paint together.  Sorry, I digress....  Anyway, she had told me that we needed to stop at Nubble  Light, or Cape Neddick Lighthouse.  We deliberately made a stop there to see the lighthouse.  SO glad we did!

Here is as far north as I've ever been, and it was windy and bone-chilling cold!!!  And it was October!   The little town of Cape Neddick or York was almost deserted.  You could really tell it's a summer town with all the cute little cottages and seaside flair~~~~

  

On to our next stop!!!  Now, let me set this up... A secret bloggie friend and I had decided that we should meet up on our trip through New England.  My dear friend chose a lovely place for lunch for Tony and I and   for her and her husband.  I won't tell you where because we like being secretive that way, but it was absolutely PERFECT - a lovely little New England town with churches, cottage homes, and the eatery was located ON the lake!

Oh yeah - and TONS of antique places all along the way throughout New England!!! I tell you what, my daughter and I decided that we should rent us an 18-wheeler and drive up there and make us a HAUL of antiques & junk to bring back home to Texas!

CA-YUTE little Inn below...

Behind the cafe, a beautiful lake - it was kinda foggy and misty, but it was still great!!!

I'll just let you look...

Isn't this a sweet place to eat???  It was so good.  I had a real live Reuben Sandwich - complete with sour kraut!  That's a rare thing in Texas and let me tell ya - I've got a hankerin' for another'n.  Wonder where I could get a real genuine Reuben around here?

Had to get a pic of this little house right next door to the cafe.  I love yellow cottage-style houses - my house is this color.  This looks so cozy~~~

Another shot of the lake - wouldn't you just LOVE to live here!

Now, you wanna know who my bloggie friend is that met up with me???

VEE  ~~~  THAT'S WHO!

Vee, from A Haven for Vee

She and I have been buddies for about 4 years now.  She was one of my first blog friends and has been attentive and faithful to check on me and stay in touch.  If you know her, you know that she's a real sweetheart, a dear Christian woman, wife, mother and Nonni.   Now I get to love her smile, too!  I lost count of how many hugs we gave each other.  Her husband, John, is a dear man - He's so FUNNY!  He and Tony, my husband, really enjoyed visiting with each other, too - together, they solved all the nation's problems and mysteries of the universe.  

I dearly would have loved to spend the whole day with them and I hope they'll get to visit us here in Texas someday!  Vee & John, are you listening???  

I must gush for a minute... Vee is exactly the person she is on her blog - that's the person that became my dear blog friend, and just meeting in the flesh sealed the deal!  You get to know someone online and you fall in love with that personality, that spirit, the essence of that online friend, and so when I met her in person, all I wanted to do was just give her a huge  hug!  So good meeting you, Vee, at last!

She came bearing gifts, too - a beautiful handmade-by-Vee table runner that is perfect for my kitchen - she picked out fabric with apples on it - it's perfect!  My kitchen clock has apples on it and I'm phasing out the pink stuff and bringing in more RED.  I now am the proud owner of one of her hand-stitched-with-love sewing needle keepers, too!  I have a card of needles that belonged to my Nanny, and they are now lovingly protected in the felt-lined interior.  A cute magnet for my fridge that she made, too!  And a couple of items that were totally New England - a balsam filled pillow with a Lobster on the front (smells SOOO good) and TWO HUGE CHOCOLATE WHOOPIE PIES!  Yum!  My new favorite dessert!  Thank you, thank you, thank you, VEE!  Promise to do a post about these little gifts and show you pictures!

Well, I guess I'll end here for now...  spending the night somewhere in Maine!  Next on our agenda, we head west into the White Mountains of New Hampshire!  Absolutely gorgeous!

Keep yer dress down!

Stay Faithful!

Yes, I am sad and disheartened today like many of you.  I don't know what's going to happen and the human side of me fears for my children and grandchildren's futures.  America is not the place that it once was.  It is not the nation based on the love and fear of the Almighty God that was founded by our forefathers.  It's not the people here now that came here, fought and died for our inalienable rights.  One thing will never change --- that things WILL change.  They never stay the same.  And so we are off to another four years in a downward spiral, in my opinion, to the demise of our great nation.

After 8 years of this administration, is that a long enough timespan to change forever the way of the United States of America?  Is it time enough for people to forget the way it used to be?  When people had morals, and faith and Christian values and cared about their fellow man.  When people stood up for what is right and not for "if it feels good, do it".  When people listened and adhered to the teachings of the Word of God about homosexuality.  Before people thought they had a "right" to choose whether to kill the unborn and go on about their business.

I am amazed how scientists can find a one-cell organism on Mars and call it LIFE, and turn right around and say that a fetus does NOT constitute LIFE and provide a way for us to expel the offending unborn human being from our bodies because it's inconvenient.  Explain that one to me, will ya?  If memory serves me correctly, as a nation, we've killed about 55 million unborn babies to date and more are being aborted even as we speak.

Dear Lord in heaven, Forgive us we pray.  May we STILL turn to you and may it not be too late for you to Bless America.

Regardless - I am filled with hope for our future. I trust that God has a plan and that He knows best.  I will mourn, and then I will go on with life, loving those in my life, trusting in the Lord, and I will continue to pray for our president as he leads our country.  He needs our prayers.  Desperately - every single day.  He has a very difficult job and I sure wouldn't want to be in his shoes.

One thing I know.  I am His child.  He is my Heavenly Father.  No matter if the world comes to an end, it is well with my soul.  I hope and pray that you all are, too, my friends.

We're BACK From New England!

Yep, we finally did it!  Did the whole New England vacation in the Autumn!  Tony and I have ALWAYS wanted to do this and we finally just decided this was the year.  I'll say at the outset, it was BEAUTIFUL - just as BEAUTIFUL as I ever thought it would be!  "THEY" said it was a bit past peak foliage, and maybe it was in the northern regions, but the further south we got, the more color we saw.  And yes, some of the shops, restaurants and B&B's were closed for the season, but there were still plenty of places to shop, and places to eat, and places to stay.  Also, it meant less crowds of people to fight!  We decided it probably the ideal time for US to go to New England.  I will have to break this trip into several posts I imagine - just too long and lots of pics. I'm re-living our trip as I post.

We flew into Boston and stayed two days there.  Found a lovely hotel, Boston Park Plaza, smack dab in the middle of town and we could walk practically everywhere.  We parked our rent car and didn't pick it up until we got ready to continue onto the next leg of the journey.  Let's start with a few pics, how 'bout?

Walked thru the park on our way to Boston Commons area where the "Freedom Trail" started.  About 2 miles of really cool historical sites in our country's fight for freedom!  SOOO interesting - my husband loves history and he did some reading about this before our trip.

I see some Monet-ish paintings here, don't you?

Swans and ducks here at the park!  We got our first taste of Boston accents here at the park - we talked (rather listened) to a very friendly and informative Park employee here!  

The Park guy even offered to take our picture together!

This was a beautiful building - the State House.

Next up, we went through several burial grounds of past patriots along the Freedom Trail.  Very humbling experience to think that these folks were alive back then - some of them fought and died in the quest for freedom.

A monument for Paula Revere - this was cool!

I didn't know Samuel Adams was a patriot, but I also didn't realize he is the Samuel Adams they named the beer after!

Along the trail - I forgot the name of this church. I think this was the church where George Washington actually sat in one of the finer booths.  They used to warm the church boxes for the families with little containers of hot coals.  The boxes look quite cozy! The more money you had and the more you gave the church, the better location your family box was!

We saw and heard quite a few different street musicians in Boston.  This fellow had some really nice Latin-sounding music.  He was quite good!

Tony wanted a picture of this vendor cart.  And that's all I'm going to say about that.  :)

Quincy Market - a bustling, busy place with lots of shops, food vendors, restaurants, street musicians, etc. I would have loved to spend a little more time here - best done with another woman, I'm sure!

  

This place was pretty cool - CHEERS bar & grill - we had some huge hamburgers with swiss cheese and mushrooms.  Couldn't eat all mine they were so big.  The downstairs bar, we read, inspired the show, "Cheers".  I never was a fan, but I know folks that were.

Tony and I just loved Boston.  I had no idea that we would enjoy it so much!

This stop on the Freedom Trail was SO interesting - Paul Revere's house - It was very interesting inside - all that old period furniture, smaller people back then you know...

You know, Boston reminded us a bit of San Francisco in that there were definite areas of town that were designated as Little Italy and Chinatown.  Perhaps all big cities have that, but there were definitely even different building styles and decor - you could tell when you were in a different area... 

A monument to Paul Revere here at Quincy Market.

There were lots of places you could take pictures of Boston Harbor, but this is where we walked over the bridge to see the USS Constitution.  We also avoided an ANTI-Romney demonstration in this area.  We were the minority here and we did not linger!  They had on T-shirts all alike and were chanting and yelling and carrying signs bashing Romney/Paul and very pro- Obama!

THIS was so interesting - the USS Constitution - "Old Ironsides".  They were renovating this lady and will be launching it next summer again (I think that's what we were told).

Our feet were hurting after the 2 mile walk, and we luckily found the bus back to our hotel area.  They let us off at the Boston Commons area and we were able to cut thru the park again.  Made my feet quit hurting! Just look how beautiful it is!  Lots of people enjoying this beautiful park. I can imagine how lovely it must be in the winter with snow on it!

Just around the corner from our hotel was Maggiano's Italian restaurant.  It was delicious after a long day of sight-seeing and walking the streets of Boston.  They treated us right, we dined like kings and stuffed ourselves full of pasta and shrimp.  A great place with tablecloths.  We got to sit in a little booth, kind of a "C" shaped with our backs to the wall so we could sit together.  Felt like we should see the M*fia come in at any minute. Who knows?  Maybe they were there!  It was fabulous - nice and slow - I hate when they are rushing you to hurry and eat.  I love to just take our time and enjoy the atmosphere, linger over our food and talk without thinking about work and problems at home.  We had a great day!

Tomorrow, we would head to the Boston Museum of Art! Thanks for hanging with me!  See you soon!

PS -  Got to meet up with a blogging buddy - more to come!

New England in the Fall Trip!

I'm BAAAAAACCCCCKKKKKK!

Editing pictures of our fantastic trip to New England - Hang with me - I've got lots to show and tell!

Hello there!

Hello friends!  Hang in there with me ~~~  it's been SOOOOOOOOOOO busy around here, but I'll have lots to share when I get back to blogland!  Big hugs to you all!

This weeping angel has nothing to do with anything. I just thought it was so beautiful....  Hated to leave you without any pictures...     :)  See you soon!