Settling In

It will be a week tomorrow that we returned to our land-based house in Maine. Any time we make the transition back to land it takes some time to get settled in. There is so much that is different here. Having a car at the ready, not really caring about the weather... But the biggest change is the space. There's so much space.

Dylan and Dee Dee have to rediscover all of the special spots. Possibly their favorite is the windows in the sunroom. It's a great place to wait for Mom or Dad to return from a walk to the post office or out to the trash can. But even more importantly it is the perfect location to stage their stakeouts for their most infamous of enemies - squirrels! So far the sightings have been meager but the crew is not deterred.

Dee Dee's biggest obstacle was the dreaded spiral staircase. Crew members all the way back to Tucker have had to learn to navigate this fearsome monstrosity. We've always considered it a rite of passage.

While she mastered them last summer, this is only the third time she has been at the house - and that's counting the 2 night stay when we picked her up as a puppy. So while we didn't exactly start from scratch, she still had to work up her nerve.

That meant 2 days of running up the front steps, through the house to the back, down the spiral stairs - for whatever reason down isn't so scary - where she would stand at the bottom and bark. Then... repeat, about 50 times a day. Eventually she saw Dylan ascend enough times to decide that maybe they where safe after all.

After nearly 7 days the kids are settling in to a new routine: walk around the block at 7 am, trip down to the town dock after lunch, romp in the back yard before supper, and cuddling with Mom and Dad in the evening. All that's left is to get the Whaler in the water this weekend so we can add trips to Indian Bar for a swim.

Now that's one hard working crew whether on land or at sea.