How we spent our East Coast vacation

Started with the red-eye flight to Washington, DC. This was a much better time-saving idea in theory; we ended up sleeping half the day after we arrived. Next time, we'll just fly out in the morning.

Josh and Jessica got to take Nic and I around DC to see the monuments that they have been to no less than one million times. What good sports.

We got up the next day at 4:30 a.m. so we could make it to Boston in time for our Segway tour. Totally worth it.


Made it to Maine where we were greeted by the rest of my family, bearing gifts of L.L. Bean totes, whoopie pies, and blueberry jam. Thanks Dad!

I freaked Nic out within the first ten minutes of being at the lake house. I was just really, REALLY excited to see that loon. It's not my fault he thought my frantic yelling meant I was in trouble.

I usually try to act tough and do whatever Nic does, but I never jumped into the lake. It. Was. Freezing.

Lest there be any further questions: This is how I really feel about lobster.

Everyone else, however, thoroughly enjoyed a daily helping of this Maine delicacy.


We visited Rockland and all the Wyeth museums. Here we are at the house that's in a ton of Andrew Wyeth paintings.


We also saw puffins and seals and lobsters and all sorts of other sea creatures. One of my favorite parts: all of the awesome antique stores.

On our way from Maine to New York, we happened upon Connecticut. Here, we were trapped in gridlock like I've never seen, got dumped on from the sky, and were rear-ended in our rental car. Our poor Yaris didn't even see it coming!

Safely out of Connecticut, we spend the day in New York City to make sure that we were completely exhausted by the time we got home--and we were.

I'm going to go ahead and say that this Wilcox family vacation was a huge success. Thanks to everyone for being so great and especially Mom and Dad for putting it all together.

Maine

Growing up, my dad would go to photography workshops in Maine and would always take us along. What could be better than the beach, seals, puffins, crazy raccoons, loons, and Maine Coon cats? To me, nothing.

I'll be reliving this all next week while spending the week at a lake house with the fam. On our way we're going to also hit DC, Boston, and NYC, and I. Cannot. Wait.

This will also be Nic's first Wilcox family vacation. Four years of marriage and we've finally pinned him down.

"It's even better than I'd imagined"

After nearly a year of dreaming about this day, Nic informed me that his now-fully-painted Coronet beats what he could ever come up with in his head.

The only problem? Now when he asks to buy stuff for his car I can no longer hold him at bay by saying that it isn't even painted yet.

Safety dogs

We took Sup boating the summer we got him and quickly realized that he was not a typical water dog: as he tried desperately to climb up on the boat, he all of the sudden realized it was futile, gave up, and started sinking. That's when I invested in a doggy life jacket. I bought a second life jacket when we came home from the lake and thought Moxie's tail was broken. Turns out that Labs can get something called "cold water tail," meaning that it pretty much looks like their tails are broken (all limp and sore) for a couple days. Weird. But we hoped that if Moxie wore a life jacket, it would require less of her tail and avoid any future cold water tail issues.

So that's why my two sporting breed dogs wear flotation devices in the water.

This weekend we took them and the jet skis to the lake. They. Loved. It.


The most entertaining part is how worried they get when Nic takes off on a jet ski; they try as hard as they can to save him from what in their minds could only be an imminent watery demise.

Once they realize that they are not as fast as jet skis, they nervously watch and wait on the shore.

The best part? When Nic is all done and safely back on dry land. Take a look at these three. How lucky can one girl get?

My temptation

I've located Hobbes' long lost brother. He's serenely waiting for me to adopt him at the American Fork Petsmart.

When I sent this picture to Nic's phone, his first question was whether I had this cat in the car with me at the time. He always asks these sorts of questions with a particular tone in his voice: part supportive, part annoyed, 100 percent apprehensive. I'd be lying to say that it doesn't give me a particular sort of thrill.

But the truth is that this little kitty will have to find a different home for no other reason than I can't give Nic his own reason to come home with a surprise--which is almost always another car. Although I have to say, Nic did give me the green light when he said I'm going to do whatever the hell I want anyway. I like him so much.

Lately

No new cars. No crazy kitty drama. No new foster Labs. None of the stuff I usually blog about has been happening lately. Which, when I think about it, is actually a good thing. I did just get some of the pictures off of my camera, so here's a little bit about what we've been up to the last little bit.

Summer means more car shows. I'm markedly less supportive this year and only stopped by the UVU car show for a few minutes on my way to the gym. I did hang around long enough to give away Stewart Specialty Services' award for favorite car. I chose this beauty. I only wish you could have seen the look on the people's faces who owned the white car next to me. They were super pissed that this car didn't even have a real paint job and won an award over them. I say it has character (plus a sign that said "please touch").

Nic spent a LOT of time after regular work working for the Corsa race team. He painted their hybrid race car and did an excellent job, plus he even got a brand new paint gun out of the whole deal. This picture is from the race car's first race at Miller Speedway. It looks great right?

I asked nicely and Nic took me to baby animal days at This Is The Place state park. I will never tire of looking at small, fluffy animals.

Most exciting is that Nic is finally painting his Coronet. It's been nearly a year of body work and repairs to get to this point. His car looks AMAZING. I don't know if you can see in the picture, but I'm holding up a drawing of what the finished car will look like. Nic is scheduled to paint the rest of it on Saturday and I'm pretty sure that he gets actual butterflies in his stomach every time he thinks about it.