going a little bit green

My introduction to recycling came in the fall of 2000, when I moved to Portland, Maine. They encouraged us to use our recycling bins by requiring us to buy their special blue trash bags that cost about 5x what the other bags cost. Naturally, I tried to recycle as much as possible to keep from filling up my trash bag too often.

Having gotten into the habit of recycling and continuing to do so here in Mass, J and I started looking at small changes we could make to eliminate waste. We started by putting reusable grocery bags in our cars for the trips to the store. It feels good not to throw away all those plastic bags that used to fill our trash bin each week.

Earlier this year, I discovered a reusable sandwich bag on Amazon called the Wrap-N-Mat. I picked up a few for our household. Since J takes sandwiches to work and we make them for picnic lunches, we've gotten a lot of use out of them. They wipe clean and are machine washable. An added bonus is that they make a nice placemat too.

Then, a couple of months ago I was on Etsy, and I found that there's quite a number of people selling reusable snack bags, lunch bags even produce bags there among other reusable items. I picked up a few snack bags (large and small) and we took them out with us this past weekend:














These bags are da bomb. Like the sandwich wraps, they wipe down easily and are machine washable. They have a generous strip of velcro to keep things like our trail mix contained. And they come in lots of fun and interesting patterns too. We have a baseball one, a sushi one and one with a cute bug pattern.

So out of our whole picnic lunch, the only things we threw away were the fruit bar wrappers. While we may not be able to complete rid ourselves of plastic bags, we're using them a lot less now.

It really is easy being green!

Shelby

beach time

This has been one of the worst summers ever weather wise. How often do we get 13 inches of rain in June and July around here? NEVER! (And hopefully never again...)

Despite the rain this beach loving family has spent some quality time at the shore. We'll skip the verbiage this time and go straight to video...

We love the beach!


Jonathan

what we've been up to...

We haven't done much blogging for the last few weeks. Busy times. So I'll fill you in on what we've been up to.

Gramma Betsy's House

Another day without daycare meant an opportunity for Riley (and his parents) to spend some time at Gramma Betsy's house. Betsy lives on Plum Island, which in itself is a cool thing. She has a really cool house with a beautiful garden, a patio, a built in sand box (it's a beach house...) and Jessie the wonder dog. Riley spent the afternoon and then Shelby and I came by after work to hang out and have dinner. Some pictures:

The "built in sand box"














Riley and Jessie checking out the neighborhood














Riley loves Jessie














Pretending to feed Jessie














Playing on the patio














A fort in the cushions
















Fourth of July Weekend in Maine

We finally had some decent weather on the weekend of the fourth. We headed up to Maine for a weekend of sun, fun and hanging out with friends. There are so many pictures from this weekend that I put most of them in a slide show below. There will be a couple of exceptions...

Friday we went to Portland and made our first stop at Gilbert's Chowder House. Riley wouldn't eat french fries, chowder, or grilled cheese (all of which he loves.) He had a small sip of beer to which he said, "More, more!" Daddy said no.

We then went out to the Eastern Promenade where there is a fun playground. Riley has enjoyed this spot once before. When our friend Riann was visiting from South Africa we did some sledding on the hill there. This time around the weather was very different. With the wind chill the temperature differential was close to 90 degrees. A contrast picture:












And it felt the way the pictures look... Shelby took a video to send to Riann showing him that things aren't always so frigid here.

Saturday was our beach day. Riley hadn't been to Popham Beach which is one of our (and especially Shelby's) favorite spots anywhere. The day started with fog, but it was still nice enough to enjoy being there. Then the sun came out and it was absolutely glorious...until the thunderstorm hit. Beach and island pictures are in the slide show, here's some video and a panorama of the beach looking from the island:

Chasing a Seagull

Running to the water (One of my favorite videos ever!)

Popham Beach







That night we took a trip to Naples to see the fireworks over Sebago Lake. After a little initial nervousness Riley loved the fireworks, always wanting, "More, more!" Here's a video of the Grand Finale:

Sunday we went to church with the cousins and then it was off to Bintliff's for a fantastic brunch with the Bliss family. We haven't gotten to see Jen, Adam and Carter since Labor Day weekend last year. It was nice to catch up and see how different the boys were. Here's a shot of the Bliss crew:















After brunch it was time for us to take a trip to Two Lights. Two Lights is a piece of quintessential Maine seashore. Rocky coast with waves sending up spray. It is a sweet spot and another of Shelby's faves. It's also the first spot on the Maine coast Shelby shared with me when we were dating. Riley has been there before, but this was the first time he was able to go on foot. He enjoyed walking and climbing on the rocks. Pictures from Two Lights are in the slide show. Here are some videos too:

Riley likes the rocks

For those rainy days, here's some Maine beauty

OK, so this post is getting a bit long. I'll end with the slide show:

Jonathan