O Christmas Tree

While Mom and Dad were here, we decorated the apartment for Christmas!

 Mom and I fluffing the tree

Dustin and I decorating our tree with the ornaments we have collected over the past six years.

Our beautiful Christmas tree with our stockings hanging behind it. 

A week with Mom and Dad

Hello Everyone ! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and were able to spend lots of time with those you love. Although we were unable to be in Seymour for Thanksgiving, I was blessed to have my parents spend the week with us in Maine. Mom and Dad arrived on Monday with the Trailblazer in tow!

My parents helped us unload the Trailblazer and organize our apartment. Then, Monday night we took Mom and Dad out to Napoli's a local Italian restaurant in Caribou. On Tuesday, we finished organizing the apartment and we went shopping ! Mom and Dad bought me my first pair of snow boots.

For lunch, we went to Ruby Tuesday. It is so nice to have a East TN restaurant all the way up here in Maine. That afternoon we did quite a bit of grocery shopping. Tuesday night, we had our first Maine lobster dinner. We ordered soft shell lobsters from a local store, and Mom made baked potatoes, broccoli with cheese sauce, and garlic knots. It was delicious !

For dessert, we had whoopie pies !

On Wednesday, we did lots of cooking, Mom and Dad helped me make pot roast, a husband's delight casserole,  and chex mix. Dustin got off work early, and we went to see Skyfall, the new James Bond movie in Presque Isle. On Thursday, we headed over to Canada to see Grand Falls and enjoyed lunch at the 787 Bistro. It was hard not being in Seymour for Thanksgiving, but we enjoyed spending time together in a different country! I wish Scott and Sam could have been here.

Mom and Dad left early Friday morning, and they arrived back in Seymour tonight. I am so glad they were able to come to Maine to help us settle in. We are truly blessed to have all their love and support. It has  been a great first week in Caribou!

Thanksgiving in Canada?

We had already had the traditional Thanksgiving meal with both of our families before we left for Maine.  Her parents came up on Monday so we decided to go on over to Canada for Thursday.  We headed northeast toward Grand Falls, NB, Canada or Grand-Sault.

Trip map provided by maps.google.com

It was a beautiful community and small town.  We headed over to the actual waterfall which is in town.  It is dam controlled so the falls were not majorly impressive but the views were gorgeous.

Part of the fall

Deep gorge

Picture upstream toward dam

Zoomed shot of upper picture

Melissa's parents Don and Dianne Reed

Melissa and her parents

Me and Melissa

All of us

Melissa and her mom

Another shot of us

Melissa and her parents

After a great visit in Grand Falls we got on 2 and headed south to Perth-Andover.  We saw some beautiful country on the way.  Melissa's mom had found a neat bistro called 787/Waterfront Bistro and Cafe.  They had some great fresh food and were so hospitable.  Below are pictures of some of the food we had.

Picture at entrance

Yummy!

My AAA Prime rib with salad

Melissa's club

We missed having the traditional Thanksgiving meal and spending time with family, but It was great to find something different and fun to do local (I never thought Canada would be local for me).  We look forward to visiting more places in the area.

Chasing my dreams

Well my first week of work is over.  I have finally completed most of the paperwork related items that I needed to accomplish.  I have been spending most of my time doing online training and some basic operational training.  I have been shadowing which has helped me understand the normal operations at this office.  I was featured as one of the new meteorologists at the office which was neat which can be found here http://on.fb.me/XLpQJL.  Also here is a picture of the office from the outside and me in the office.

National Weather Service Caribou

Me working sorta

Maine meal

This is my second day at work and Melissa's Parents second day here.  We decided it was time to have a more Maine like meal.  What else could you have but a Maine lobster.  There is a local store about 2 minutes from here that will steam the lobster for you.  We ordered up 4 lobsters and Melissa and her parents made seasoned sliced baked potatoes (potatoes are big here in Caribou), some broccoli with cheese sauce and garlic knots.  Then for dessert we had whoopie pie which is also popular here.  This was a great meal and time to visit with family.  Looking forward to our southern meal tomorrow.

The lobster dwarfs the plate

Some whoopie pie

 

Lots of Fun to Come

Hey ! This is Melissa again ! Today, we were blessed by the hospitality of Calvary Baptist Church here in Caribou. We met some very nice people and shared in a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. The interim pastor at Calvary Baptist Church is from Sweetwater, TN. He helped bring Tennessee a little closer to Maine. This upcoming week is going to be full of exciting events. Tomorrow is Dustin's first day at the National Weather Service, and my mom and dad will be here tomorrow afternoon.  Mom and Dad are bringing our Christmas decorations, so we will post pictures of our apartment decorated for Christmas. On Thursday, we are going to explore Canada. We will keep the blog updated with lots of pictures from this upcoming week. We hope you all have a wonderful week !

The Apartment

We are temporarily staying in a furnished apartment in Caribou about two minutes from the National Weather Service. The apartment is part of a large house which has been converted into multiple apartments. The apartment has 3 different levels with narrow stairs. We enter on the bottom level, go up the stairs, and the kitchen, living room, and bathroom are on the second level. The two bedrooms are located on the 3rd level. The apartment has been recently refurnished, and we are thankful to be able to stay here while we looking for more permanent housing.

Master Bedroom on the 3rd Floor (yep my blanket is already on the bed)

Extra Bedroom on the 3rd Floor for all of our visitors :)

Narrow steps that are way scary in the middle of the night 

Kitchen and Dining Area 

Dining Area

Steps to the entry way with our Parkas hanging next to the door 

The Living Room 

Another View of the Living Room
(Dustin has already claimed this chair )

First Full Day in Caribou

Hello ! This is Melissa. Dustin has been writing all of the blog so far so I thought I would write an entry. I wanted to start off by thanking each of you for your thoughts and prayers as a began this journey. We have been blown away by all the love and support we have received. We have felt your the effects of your prayers, and we are so thankful we made it to Caribou safely. This morning we slept in and relaxed in our new apartment (See our next blog entry for pictures of the apartment). For lunch we went to Cindy's Sub Shop, a local deli in Caribou. It was delicious. We  explored Caribou, and we went to the local grocery store. The food prices seem to be cheaper than in Tennessee and sales tax is only 5%. In the afternoon, we ventured out to Presque Isle (which is about 15 minutes away), and  we visited the local Walmart. Caribou and Presque Isle are both pretty small. We are excited to explore more of the local hot spots. Tonight, I cooked Tacos for our first meal in our apartment !

Welcome to Caribou

I found a  Caribou !! 

Cindy's Sub Shop

Dustin's BLT from Cindy' Subshop

I made tacos for our first supper in our apartment 

Final leg from Freeport to Caribou

We began the morning at the LL Bean outlet in Freeport grabbing our first parkas.  Then we headed up the road.  We made it to Bangor for lunch which is the closest larger city to Caribou.  It was a nice town with all of the stores you would want.  After leaving there is gets more and more remote.  We began to see Moose warning signs on the interstate.  The best part was the increase from 65 to 75 mph speed limit.

Large boot outside of LL Bean main store

Moose signs (from laureningall blog)

After that we finally made it to Caribou at around 4 p.m.  The crazy part is the sun begins to set at around 3:30 to 4 p.m. and it is dark by around 5 p.m.  Therefore will have to post pictures of the town tomorrow.  We will also post pictures of our temporary apartment tomorrow.  Thanks for all the love a support from everyone.

From New York state to Maine on the 3rd leg

Started off in Newburgh, NY after a decent nights rest after the 12:30 a.m. fire alarm.  Luckily the hotel was not on fire, but fire response wasn't on fire either.

Fire department after alarm had gone off for 15 minutes

The morning began with a walk up to the Orange County Choppers shop.  Got some great pictures of some of the choppers there.

nice ambulance

Military bike for fallen soldiers

OCC building

Then we headed out for Freeport, Maine just north of Portland.  The traffic was stressful with construction on top of toll stations.  We were able to snap a picture at the Connecticut border.

Rest area

Finally we made it to Freeport late this afternoon.  We decided to go eat at the Muddy Rudder which has seafood and steaks.  It was great Melissa got crab cakes/lobster bisque and I had a lobster roll.

Yummy

Great food

We made our way over to the LL Bean which has a giant shop here.  The last leg of the trip will be tomorrow.  We look forward to finally making it to Caribou.

Christmas time right around the corner at LL Bean