Taylor and Shelby's Christmas

 The coolest hat EVER!

 Shortbus just chillin' out and enjoying the day

 Taylor keeping warm and cozy

Here are a couple pics of Taylor and Shortbus enjoying their Christmas gifts.  I absolutely love Shortbus's hat!

Gingerbread Houses

Jude and Jett also made a gingerbread house this week

St. Mary's Christmas Pageant 2010

Sunday, this past weekend,  during the 10 a.m. service, the children put on their annual Christmas pageant.  This was one of James' favorite holiday traditions, if not THE favorite. There were many tears amongst all involved from the cast and congregation because we were doing this without him, but oh so many laughs too!  The children were so cute in their costumes as they told the Christmas Story and the choir!  What can I say--one of the most beautiful singing groups ever, added plenty of music to the affair.  Here are some of the pictures Julie and Alex took of the children. 

The Old Homestead aka "The Money Pit"

Remember the Tom Hanks movie the money pit?  Well, here is the Millinocket version of that.  It is also the home I grew up in and while I have very mixed feelings about selling this, I find that my loss has been greater with the sale of the camp a few years ago.  I think this is simply because Dad remodeled the house after I left home in1973 and the camp always remained the camp...with only minor changes.  This is where all my money has gone for the past 3 years....

Justin fights with a Tree

As many of you know, Justin had a fight with a tree Friday night on his way to Presque Isle....thank God that the truck was the only thing that was hurt....

Adam (Paulie) and Sadie (Juno) go trick or treating

Adam and Sadie went to their Halloween Party in October as the movie characters from "Juno". Sadie made their costumes....what a riot!

Off to see the Red Sox



 Championship Wall inside Fenway

 The girls just outside Fenway

 The clan

Fenway

Getting ready for the game



No!  I'm not car sick!

Carla and the "Peanut Gallery"

Boston

Fenway

Steve and Taylor at the Landsdowne Restaurant

Shelby and Theresa before dinner

Even though the Red Sox didn't have a wonderful season this year, we are still staunch fans.  So, in August we packed up the Lanes and Mama and Papa Birt and headed to Boston for the day to watch the Sox play the Toronto Blue Jays.  What a day we had!  The drive down was without incident (yes, Shelby kept her breakfast down), and we devoted the whole day to doing nothing but getting to Fenway, having a nice meal, and just walking around the Fenway area shopping.  Here are a few pics of our trip.




Where has the time gone?

I've been telling myself for weeks now that I have to get out here an update this site with pictures from our trip to Boston for the Red Sox game in August, from our fall adventures, and any other cool pics that we have but every time I sit down to update I think that I should be doing something else--most often school related.  Since I've picked up teaching an extra course this fall, and Nancy and I have started this learning community at SMCC in an attempt to retain students, I really have not had two minutes to call my own this fall.  We've had a great late summer and fall.  Our family has been blessed in so many ways that it will take me awhile to update everyhing, but I'm going to give it the good old college try over the next few days.  So stay tuned for all the upcoming news from Birtville.

Old Orchard Beach

We had such a wonderful time the two days we went to Old Orchard (in spite of the fact that I was dumb enough to get a severe sunburn).  We played in the water, swam, shopped on the pier and in town, and all in all just had a wonderful couple days together.  The girls did find a couple of t-shirt shops that they especially liked, although I think they were much more attracted to the young man selling the t-shirts than they were to the actual shop! 

Surf was very high and rough while we were there and a number of swimmers had to be rescued from riptides.  In just the first day we were there, 48 swimmers were rescued which is a lot.  Most often 48 swimmers are not rescued in a whole year, let alone in just a day. 

Shelby and Taylor's Summer Visit

Shelby and Taylor's Summer Visit

Over the past few summers, Shelby and Taylor have taken a week and come to spend it with "auntie".  We have a great time and this summer was no exception.  Here are a few pictures that they took while they were here. They also edited the pictures for some great "special effects".  Enjoy!

Daughtry Concert

DaughtryCavoDaughtryChris DaughtryLifehouse

Shelby and Taylor

And the curtain goes up?  Or does it come down?

Theresa and I took Taylor and Shelby to the Daughtry Concert at the Cumberland County Civic Center on the 17th.  The girls had a great time as did Theresa and I.  I'm not if the musicians actually have gotten louder as I've aged or if it's just because I've aged, but over the past few years I've started wearing ear plugs to these things.  While it doesn't muffle the music to wear them, it does cut down on all the background noise.  And at times it actually hurts if you don't wear them.  For those of you that don't know who "Daughtry" is, his name is actually Chris Daughtry and he came in third a few years ago on American Idol and has actually done quite well for himself along with his group.