Christmas 2007 Boothbay Harbor

First of all congratulations to Caitlan and welcome to Isabella Noelle Maidlow. She is the newest member of the blog, but her Aunt Mariah will have to help with the typing. Aunt Mariah?????? I'm still working on that!


Happy Holidays To All!

On 12/20 I went to Bangor to pick up Dee so she could make it down here for the kids Christmas show at school, but it snowed and the show was postponed to Jan 3rd. To make up for it I stopped at "Don's Famous Franks" in Augusta and got her a couple of dogs to go. She did mention that it has been quite a while since she passed a snow plow on the highway or ate lunch on the go. We arrived safely and she did the trip quite well.

Sean flew in from California and arrived late Saturday night so it was nice to have everyone here for the holidays.

We do the Christmas dinner on Christmas eve because there is so much activity on Christmas day for Gerard, Heather and the grandchildren. They come back around 11:30 on Christmas day for their "tree" and later that evening we go to their house for dinner. Heather and Gerard have lobster stew and fish chowder that is a Christmas supper tradition with them. Dee was really looking forward to the lobster stew and enjoyed it very much. Sean had some kind of sinus attack on Christmas day so he could not make the stew supper, but made up for it the next day. His body needed time to adjust to breathing fresh air in Maine.

On the 26th there was a double birthday party. Scarlett's birthday was on the 21st and Maisy's is on the 29, but Gerard was leaving the 27th so both of their birthdays were celebrated on the 26th in the afternoon. Scarlett was one and Maisy is 6. For someone like Kieth who is far away I will explain the names. Cagney, Maisy and Scarlett are Heather and Gerard's children. Cagney is the oldest (8) Maisy is middle (6) and Scarlett is youngest (1). You can probably figure them out in the slide show below. Of course, the good looking guy in the blue shirt is me. :))

2 of Tom and Jane Miner's Grandsons

Happy New Year To All!

Don't they look like proud grandparents?? These are Gary's children Dawson Lee (almost 10 months old) and Cayden Thomas (2 years 10 months). We are blessed with these 2 boys.

The Newest Edition to the Maidlow Family

Isabella Noelle Maidlow
Born: Friday, December 21, 2007


Isabella with mommy Christine and Isabella

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SCARLETT ROSE O"BRIEN

Happy 1st birthday to Scarlett Rose O'Brien born 12/22/06 to Heather and Gerard O'Brien

hi everyone!
what a great idea Brian. Well my family is very busy with school work and all extra activities that come with kids. Morgan who is 5 does cheering and Nathan who is 8 just started tae kwon doe. they both love it. we are excited for xmas maybe we will see some of you over the holidays. Heather if you are in Bangor call me!!! Cant wait to hear from everyone.

Marcy

Reaching out

Hi all,

I think this is a wonderful idea. I so enjoyed reading the postings from everyone. It was especially nice to hear from Sean and Keith. I also enjoyed all the photos and think I've mastered the new handshake already girls.

I keep busy working with my vintage and antique items. I try to go to a least 1 auction every two weeks. I have 3 booths and 1 showcase to keep stocked at the The Old General Store in Hampden. I have always liked older furniture, jewelry and linens and feel lucky to be able to do what I enjoy so much.

Thanksgiving was great. It is always wonderful to see everyone. I want to send out a big Thank You to everyone for the help cooking, baking, setting up and the best dishwashers (Claude, Tom & Brian) Maine has to offer. Watching the little ones makes any day special and I am glad to not only know all their names, but to recconize them. It will be great fun to watch them grow in body, mind and spirit as the Thanksgivings add up.

Hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season; Polly

What's a Blog?

You know living out here on the west coast, we are kind of sheltered from cutting edge technology. Leave it to my dad, a true computer geek at heart, to get this off and running. Great idea. My last trip home, albeit under imperfect circumstances really helped reintroduce and remind me about how big my family really is. Hope to see many of you at Christmas.

Though I am off to a slow start compared to uncle Doug, I too have started doing some fund raising of my own. You can check things out at www.seanmckenna.org This was my first year of being involved and through the help of friends and strangers, managed to raise about $11,000. It is never too late to donate, so if you need that final tax write off of the 2007 year, please add to the cause!

Sean
Pics are available through my site and out on Flickr.

You should know

If you read Keith's post below you will notice a reference to his dad, Doug Miner.

Doug was one of the original eight charter members of the Blue Knights International Motorcycle Club
If you click on the link you will read that:

As of January 1, 2007, we have 586 chapters and almost 20,000 members in 28 countries. Twenty Thousand members from the original 8 in 1974!

As of 30 September 2007 Blue Knights have donated to numerous charities; contributing time in the amount of 162,289.5 man hours (@ $20 per hour), goods with an estimated value of $562,572.37 and $5,154,603.73 in cash for a total of $8,962,966.61

Pretty awesome when you think about it-----Almost 9 million dollars for charity. Tough act to follow. That's something everyone in the family should know and be proud of. The international headquarters is still located in Bangor at 38 Alden Street.

Backpacking In Yosemite

Hi Carol,

Great idea to start this. It's just too easy to lose track of everyone, and sometimes we forget how important family ties can be. I should know, since I haven't seen many of you for over ten years.

Your note about dad (Doug) really sparked some memories --- thanks for that.

Was backpacking in yosemite recently near the Hetch Hetchy reservoir; the main water source for San Francisco. Ten of us, including two guides, camped for three days after hiking four hours into the campsite. No toilets or showers and it got down into the teens at night, meaning I slept in my clothes while in the sleeping bag. But, it was a great experience, including a visit from a black bear Saturday night.




Went skydiving for my birthday last summer and have a video I'll try to post later. Yes, my mid-life crisis is in full bloom.

More later.

Keith M.

The Life and Times of the Maidlow Girl's in School

So, Brian just called us and I told him that we, the twins and I, would write about how we're doing in school and what activities(sports, musicals, etc.) so that you all would know. Before we begin, I would like Brian to know that I will get back at you and it will be SOOOOO much better than your lovely picture.
Now we can start:

Mariah- well, I think that you all would be proud to know that...I'm not failing anything.......yet. One my report card i got 3 C's, 2 B's and 2 A's, so I think that that's pretty good for me. Also, in the fall, i played soccer and we did pretty well, and considering we needed a goalie and I hadn't played in goal for a while, I think only loosing like 3 games is pretty good. But now that it's winter, I'm playing basketball. I'm on the JV team and our first game is Friday at Hampden @ 5:30. ALSO!!! Ally and I now have a new handshake...but you can't see it untill we record it and post on here...but untill then, here's Allison.

Allison- Hi people. I know, I know, OMG it's Allison. Well thanks I know I'm so totally awesome and so are you. Well in school I'm getting all A's and B's. So yeah I guess thats good. I'm on the A Basketball team but we lost our first game Thursday to Cohen. It was horrid the score was... gulp... 40- 9. But I got a basket so that's good. Then Friday we had a school dance and I had to work in the kitchen for fifteen minutes. My next game is at Ellsworth Tuesday, if we have school :), @ 5 pm. Next Sunday, the 9th, in Sunday school, St. Johns Catholic School aka All Saints. Christine and I are narrators in the play for Our Lady of Guadeloupe. And I'm in the mist of writing a story. Well have a nice week, life and day. Happy Christmas. P. S. I'm the coolest of the four Maidlow Girls. But... shh...don't tell them. It's our little seceret. :)

Christine- HHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Christine here and I'm very proud to say that on my report card I got 4 A's, 3 B's, 0 c's, D's or F's!!!!!! Yeah!!!! I did soccer this fall and we won 5 out of 12 games. Right now I'm in the Photography club and I want to do the play. Later on this year my French class is going to Quebec (Allie is in my French class too.) Oh yeah, and last night I had ice cream cake along with beans (not together.) Adding on to Mariah, Her's and Allie's new hand shake is totally AWESOME!!!!!!!! Well that's all that is going on in my life right now so , BYE!!!!!

Well, that's all that's going on in our lives right now but we will update whenever something new and exciting happens....which probably won't be very long knowing us...BWHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! that was just completely random but, HEY, that's how we roll....down hill and when we get up...we feel VERRRRRRRRRY dizzy....what an adrenaline rush!!!

-MARIAH, ALLISON and CHRISTINE

Krissy Miner's Blog

Tom notified us of a blog that his daughter in law had started and she has also joined our blog.
Link to her blog with some great pictures of the kids. I hope she will post some of them with information on here. Thanks Krissy and we look forward to information on you Gary and the children.

Girls doing handshake Thanksgiving 2007

Maidlow girls doing handshake and of course O'Brien girls had to copy.

Thanksgiving 2007

If you wish to download any of these pictures please go here. You will be able to download the individual picture but if you want the full pixel one for printing just go to my profile on the right to find my email address and let me know which one you want.

If you have pictures from the Thanksgiving Day feast please let me know so they can be added to this slide show.

Information for the next generation

With today's technology it's time to gather all the photos stories and information we can to help all those coming along to understand where they come from. The blog can be used for stories, events and pictures from the past, present and future events about your family. It's a great place to let everyone know what is going on with your family, especially when many are spread around the country.

Another good idea is to submit information on any deceased member of the family which would include pictures and a biography. Information submitted on all individuals should have the person's name as the title. As this blog grows it would then be easy to search individuals from any time. Once you have a individual posted the nice thing about the blog is that others can post comments that will expand the information on that person.

Example would be a post for Scarlett in the above picture

Post title: Scarlett Rose O'Brien

Scarlett was born 12/22/2006 at Damariscotta Maine and is the third daughter of Heather (McKenna) O'Brien and Gerard O'Brien of Edgecomb, Maine. At this time Scarlett does not have a job..... You get the idea.