Busy Month Here in Maine!

Hey everyone!

First I want to make an announcement: THERE IS A NEW MEMBER OF THE SQUISHABLE FAMILY! He is a regular-sized Squishable, unlike my three other mascots who are miniature-sized. He is a Palila bird which is a bird native and only lives on the big island in Hawaii. I thought about what to name him for a long time. I wanted to give him a name that would make sense in English but could be easily translated to Hawaiian. I finally thought of Hibiscus, as the yellow hibiscus is the state flower of Hawaii. "Yellow hibiscus" translates to "pua aloala" (PU-ah ah-LOHah-loh), and Aloalo is the perfect name for him I think. Thus, we have a new friendly Squishable who will be joining us from time to time. Welcome Aloalo!

Next I wanted to tell everyone how sorry I am for not posting sooner. Things have been a little hectic but are starting to fall back into place. I am not sure how long I will be in Maine for, it could be anywhere from three weeks to the beginning or January (more on January later in this post). I have posted pictures on some things I've been doing below. We've had some glorious sunsets, my fiance and I have been doing various activities such as apple and grape picking, we've both been working pretty hard, and I've finally been decompressing from being in Munich. Some cool things worth mentioning:

Podcasts - Awesome to work by. I may be a huge loser, but I love learning. Podcasts are a great way to find something that interests you that you can expand your horizons in. For example, I love cooking. I searched for "cooking" in the search box, found the America's Test Kitchen Radio show, downloaded all the shows for free, and only have one and a part of one left to listen to. It's awesome (and free)!

Speaking of cooking, we (my fiance and I) have finally been doing some home cooking. I cooked a roast chicken with veggies served with wild rice that had been cooked with vegetable broth (yum) for my birthday (with homemade halva for dessert!) but a recipe that I will share with you below is actually one of my mother's favorite dishes and it turns out I love it too! No picture is included with this one, I hadn't thought to take a picture and if I took one now it wouldn't look as good... been sitting in the refrigerator for some time...

Holly's Homemade Baked Ziti!

Ingredients:

2 pounds of dry ziti or penne pasta (gluten free works)

3 large jars of pasta sauce (about 20 ounces per jar or so depending on how much sauce you like)

1 medium onion, chopped

2 smashed cloves of garlic

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 fresh large mozzarella balls, cut into about 8-10 round slices per ball

1 tablespoon of butter or olive oil

1 cup chopped mushrooms (optional)

Directions:

1) Melt the butter (or heat olive oil) in a large skillet over medium heat. During this time also bring a large pot of slightly salted water to a boil.

2) When the butter has melted or when the oil is hot, place onions in the pan and saute until soft. When the salted water comes to a boil, pour the pasta in and cook until al dente.

3) When the onions are soft, place the mushrooms and garlic in the skillet. saute until mushrooms are soft then remove from pan. (If not using mushrooms, cook garlic with the onions and then cook onions until slightly brown.)

4) Heat the pasta sauce and Parmesan in the skillet until hot and slightly bubbly, then set aside.

5) When pasta is done, drain, then set aside.

6) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. In a large baking or casserole dish, layer about a third of the pasta sauce on the bottom. add about half of the cooked pasta. Top with half of the onion/mushroom mixture, then with another third of the pasta sauce and evenly distribute 8 of the mozzarella slices on top of that. For the final layers, add the rest of the pasta, the onions/mushrooms, the last of the pasta sauce, and then the final mozzarella slices.

7) Place in the oven for 30 minutes or until mozzarella is melty and slightly browned.

Thanks to Allrecipes for the baking time and temp.

And speaking of food even more, apple and grape picking was amazing! We got to go to a real orchard and pick organic Jonagold apples. When we first got there, we arrived at the store portion of the orchard. My finace had a caramel apple which he adored and I got a gallon of apple cider. We were directed to the area where we could pick apples, and when we got there and got our half-bushel bag and were surprised to find out that we could also pick grapes! We got an additional bag for that and spent a while walking through the trees and eventually the vineyard. I have never had a fresh picked apple and let me tell you: there is no comparison. None whatsoever. I thought I had taken a bite of heaven. It was so good I didn't even think it could be an apple. The grapes are to die for as well. We had a really amazing time. (Want to find an orchard to go picking near you? Check out Orange Pippin!)

Both of us have also been going around Maine doing some other things as well, going to Whole Foods, visiting local organic/all-natural grocery stores, going to fair-trade places, vising the Maine Mall... but we do expand our horizons from time to time. We have talked about going mineral hunting which I think is a great idea and we still may do that. The Fryeburg Fair, which is a huge deal around here, is happening on the 30th of this month and I have wanted to go ever since the end of my first summer here. I'm so excited! And the best idea I've had in a while which we will be doing on Saturday: indoor rock climbing! We found a great place just north of here and we're going to have a blast! We've invited some friends who may go with us but either way we will have a great time. (Want to find an indoor climbing facility near you? Check out IndoorClimbing.com!)

The weather has been cooling down quite a lot so working outside (which we all pretty much have to do) is not so much fun anymore. But we do get some amazing sunsets and have fun watching various animals. We saw a garden snake slithering along the parking lot the other day and not so long before that we had seen a beaver in front of the cabin! It's really neat to be in a place with such cool animals.

Now on to the pictures!

This is the beginning of a sunset we saw while we were on a hill near where we are staying.

Monarch butterfly... my grandma grows them and I wish I could do that again with her.

The apple orchard! I loved this entire trip.

A section of the vineyard. I thought this was a beautiful picture to take. (My favorite grapes are the ones that are fat and round and dark purple with kind of slimy insides... tart and sweet! Yum!)

I thought this picture was hilarious. Let me describe this to you: this is an apple I found on the ground near the vineyard. There is an obvious tear where it is rotting out of the side of it. Now, this hornet you see is not stupid. It does not want the rotting flesh. It wants to make its own hole and dig inside this delicious apple and get as much of the fresh juice as possible. So this little guy was tail-deep in this apple just enjoying the fruit to the fullest. So funny!

This is our final harvest. It was just under $40 for a rather large half-bushel of organic apples and about a half peck of grapes. I think it was worth it. (By the way? Boggle? Not ours. It was left in the van we were using. Never really liked Boggle. I'm a Scrabble girl all the way.)

This was the sunset over the lake tonight. Definitely one of the prettiest I've seen... and I've been here for four summers!

So... the million dollar question everyone's been asking me: what am I going to do next? Well as of today the ball has been set in motion for my next adventure... working on an organic farm in Costa Rica! I sent out four mini messages today to see if any of those four farms would be willing to take me from January until May. I now can afford it officially plus on my birthday I realized I'm not going to ever get younger years back again, so I'm going to go for it. I'm very excited about it and my fiance has backed me 100%. (Japan is still on my list for 2014!) If you'd like to check out the WWOOF Costa Rica website to learn more, just click on the link!

And by the way... my best friend Justin said that he may have purchased me another Squishable... so I may have a Squishable Quintet soon! We'll have to see!

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll write again sometime after we go rock climbing! I'm so excited!

Arrival to Portland, ME, Brought to You by the Squishables Trio!

Julius - This trip was awful.

Yulysta - Julius, you're so negative.

J - Am not. It's the truth.

Peanut Butter - It may be the truth but you're still pretty negative.

J - Yeah well this time I'm right to be negative. And how come you guys aren't more upset? We were stuffed in a bag for over 30 hours.

PB - I'll admit, that was a little uncomfortable.

Y - To be fair, Holly had it worse than we did.

PB - Holly arrived at the Munich airport at about 8:30am local time. Her flight wasn't until 2:00pm or so, but had to be there early because her host father had a flight at 9:15am-ish and there was not other way Holly could have gotten to the airport with all of her bags without injuring herself.

Y - The first problem was she had to wait until about 11:00am or so to check in because the departure boards weren't even showing her the gate number she had to go to.

J - When Holly did check in, she noticed her bags were tagged to be sent to JFK airport. When Holly asked if the bags would make it all the way to Portland, the lady said yes and Holly didn't think any more about it.

PB - The first flight was about 3 1/2 hours long to Iceland. Smooth flight and Holly got some great pictures of Iceland during the decent. (Pictures below.)

Y - From there, Holly had only one hour to go through the passport checkpoint and get to her gate which was also the place she was told to pick up her ticket to get from Iceland to JFK.

PB - Holly made it, of course, but she was carrying two fairly heavy bags plus a pillow that had her special blanket and the book her host family gave her before she left. At the gate the lady gave her her seat number and she got on the plane nice and safe.

J - It was a long 5 1/2 hours to get to JFK. Once there Holly had her first experience through American customs. There was a really long line but it went faster than she had anticipated. This is where things got rocky. Holly's bags were not sent all the way through to Portland. Instead, she had to collect her bags from the baggage claim, then take all of the bags (which probably weighed the total amount that she weighs herself) to the JetBlue counter.

PB - Holly thought that because JetBlue has an agreement with IcelandAir her baggage would just be taken in free of charge. Instead, she had to pay for her second bag because there was apparently no record of her transferring from IcelandAir.

J - By the time she made it to her gate, she was totally exhausted and overheated from carrying all the luggage. Even worse, her plane to Portland was late but she still managed to get to arrive just about on time.

Y - Her fiance had to work therefore could not be there when she was picked up but she was still picked up on time by someone. She finally arrived at the resort at about 1:30am Wednesday.

PB - Due to time changes and travel time, Holly didn't sleep well the first night and someone actually had suggested she work that day! She didn't have to and she did manage to take Thursday off (which also happens to be her fiance's day off) so she got a little rest.

Y - Holly hit the ground running starting Friday though and has worked every day and evening since, except Thursday again where she managed to get out with her fiance. All of this is why she hasn't posted a blog entry until now.

PB - It was a relief for all of us when we finally made it here safe and sound... and out of the bag. Holly actually will type a little summary below.

Y - Although we all had a rough trip, we are very grateful to be here, even Julius.

J - Yeah, yeah.

PB - We even were brought along to babysit!

Y - That was fun!

PB - Anyway, we'll let Holly talk now. Bye!

***********

Hey everyone,

So it's been quite the week and a half over here. I have included some pictures and descriptions below but first some basics on where I am:

1) There is barely any cell service here. It's choppy at best.

2) Maine produces 99% of the nation's blueberries. There's nothing like picking them fresh from a field.

3) Internet is a little weak. Not so easy for me to get on all the time.

4) I work A LOT here. Mornings, evenings, and nights... evenings and nights only when babysitting.

5) Pine trees are everywhere. Living in a forest means high oxygen content, high oxygen content means sleepy. I am very sleepy all the time.

6) Where I work people sing a lot. It's actually kind of nice.

My day off is Thursday, which means that most of the fun stuff I'll do will be then. I went to the Maine Wildlife Park which is full of wildlife only from Maine, did a lot of shopping, went to toy stores, ate yummy organic food... it's been pretty nice. I am planning on going to see the performances they show this week. VERY EXCITED!

I didn't realize how picturesque Iceland is. I would really like to take a vacation there someday.

The rivers are also beautiful there. I'd really like to visit someday.

Turkey vulture! The best part about the Maine Wildlife Park is they only have animals that would not otherwise survive in the wild. I find that amazing.

This picture proves that frogs are not the only animals that hang out on lily pads. Turtles are fans too!

Black bears! Roar! They had a special dispenser for bear food so we got to throw food to them!

Wild blackberries here at the resort I work at. They're not quite ripe, a bit bitter, but they will be delicious in about 2 weeks or so!

Wild Maine blueberries! Their season for picking is about over; the low-bush variety is about finished for the season, but the high bush season still has a week or two. (The high-bush variety is sweeter and very tasty!)

This is Lake Kezar with the White Mountains in the background. I get to see this every day I maid.

We have an abundance of red squirrels and chipmunks here and I found this little guy in a blueberry bush snagging the ripest blueberries and stuffing them in his mouth. See his fat cheeks?

I happen to live in a forest at the moment. It's pretty crowded with pine trees.

When I clean guest cabins, sometimes they leave things behind for us (the chambermaids). This week I got a bottle of sparkling apple cider and these pretty sunflowers! (At least I think they're a variety of sunflowers... I'm not really sure.)

I think that's it for now. I'm going to try to post once a week. It'll be easier when August is over!

Talk to you soon!