cool maine air... awesome things in nature... family time... turkey!

8:34 PM

happy new year! cheers to what will be a great year! we're looking forward to all that 2013 will bring. the season was so busy that i took some time off blogging, but we're back and will be bombarding you with our 2012 weddings, functions and all things awesome!

maine thanksgiving 2012

my family spends the weekend before thanksgiving in maine to celebrate our own thanksgiving with some extended family and new friends. we hike, play games, cook... eat & drink, laugh, play with flowers and so much more. ryan, luka and i stay with my "floral engineer" cousin heather (who makes an appearance in the shop designing on busy weekends and holiday's) took me took my first farmer's market, (to read the original post) and her little family... safe to say, my favorite place ever!

i think most of us can say they have their own "little slice of heaven on earth". for some it's paris or a tropical beach somewhere. maybe it's horseback riding in the mountains through a freshly fallen snow... for me, it's coastal maine (preferably in the fall). we are a bit spoiled and have family along the coast in maine we have the chance to travel and stay with often. this trip we our family took us to this great trail on some conservation land owned and maintained by bowdoin college in brunswick, maine. it was full of stunning moss covered rocks, hemlock, crazy cool bark, seaweed and more!! i took soooo many pictures of all the fabulous things in nature (this city mouse, in the country) i'd love to use in arrangements or in table scapes at the shop.

nothing wakes you up after a thanksgiving meal like a hike along the ocean... uphill... in november... in maine :o)

i'd love to grow moss along our stone wall and pathway at the house like these ones here. this is all naturally grown in the woods... i was green with envy (little quip) when we came across this wall!

other mosses and lichen were all over the trees, rocks and ground throughout our hike.

the sweetest little vine was growing through the moss... it looked alot like peperomia plant, but we were unsure of the species.

game time!!

let's play what am i?

sometimes we'll come across flowers, accents and plants that we don't know to make heads or tails of. it's fun because through the discovery of the new item's we add something special and unique to our repertoire.

#1.

hint: with age i crack & curl, i come in white & brown... what am i?

#2.

hint: every ring tells you how old i am. what am i?

#3.

hint: i am home to someone (or something). what am i?

#4.

hint: slippery, like spagetti. what am i?

adrian and baby avery aren't part of this game... but they are guarding the answers below, hehe. and seriously the cutest picture of heather & adrian's sweet sleeping baby avery!!

answers...

1. birch tree bark

2. tree trunk

3. bird's nest

4. seaweed

and back to our nature hike... if i could be so bold to say, everyone should find somewhere local to them, doesn't have to be along the water to get outside (even in the winter) and get some good hearty exercise and fresh air. there are snow shoe trails all over our area for the winter months when we're snowed off the hiking trails. bundle up and get outside! enjoy all the beauty nature provides to us!

some beautiful fir tee boughs from our hike!

a few years back over our thanksgiving maine weekend, on one of our walks i discovered these little hemlock pine cones. they are approx. 1.5"-2" and about the cutest pine cone's i'd ever seen. so my wheels started turning and before you knew it i had my mom, aunt, 2 cousins, sister and husband collecting the fallen hemlock pine cones into bags for me to make wreath's with. we collected hundreds and hundreds of pine cones... no one let's me forget that great idea. when we came across these little guys everyone let me take the picture, by the time i stood back up my family was wayy ahead... as if they knew if they stuck around we'd be repeating the same activity.

sooooo... INSTEAD of collecting hemlock pine cones this year, i found a new forest must-have. beech tree leaves. i saw this photo on pinterest of place cards made from dried leaves and thought we'd do the same for our thanksgiving table. i didn't need hundreds of leaves (unlike my pine cone project), but i still spent my dear sweet time picking out one's that were just right.