Sunday Stash - BEST Vacation Souvenir EVER!

If you've been wondering why my somewhat-quiet-for-summer-family-time blog has been even more quiet the past two weeks, then this post will provide your answer. I had a lovely souvenir stash part deux lined up for last Sunday when instead we got the surprise of our lives and everything quilty and blog related went quite out the window!

Two weeks ago we took our kids camping in Bar Harbor, Maine, and spent time exploring Acadia National Park. If you haven't been and you love national park hopping, then you really must go - I have never seen a view as breath taking as I did standing on top of a mountain surrounded by ocean, and every other vista in the park was a close second. Truly gorgeous and unforgettable. 

view from Gorham Mountain, Acadia National Park, ME

While we were there, I looked for a local quilt shop, and happily stumbled upon Fabricate, a neat little quilting and scrapbooking store in a hexagonal building with a small but diverse and modern selection of textiles. And thus I planned a souvenir redux post to show you these three little goodies I picked up to remember our trip:

(l-r) A Day in the Life by Mummysam for Robert Kaufman, unknown, Orchard in White by Jane Farnham for Camelot Fabrics

On Friday morning we got up extra early to break camp so we could make our Diver Ed's Dive-In Theater boat tour before leaving for home. If you go to Bar Harbor and you have kids, you MUST do this - we almost skipped it because of the price, but it was so worth it for our girls who are obsessed with all things sea creatures. They got to see and touch crabs, lobsters, seastars, sea urchins, scallops and moon snails - plus we saw seals and a bald eagle flew by! But all that pales in comparison to what happened next...

touching the creatures Diver Ed brought up from the sea floor!

When we returned to shore, we discovered we had three missed calls from our adoption agency. With a car packed to the gills and two little kids whining from the back seat about lunch, we listened to the message that a baby boy had been born the day before and we had been chosen as parents! The agency wanted to know if we were we on board and how soon we could get to the hospital. (As fate would have it, we'd be driving right through the town on our way home that afternoon and we were much closer coming from our trip than if we'd been at home.) 

With just the short drive to make a decision and launch a plan, we knew immediately that we were headed to meet our son and told the girls the amazing news. Our oldest summed up everyone's reaction when she replied: "Wow, I didn't think THAT was going to happen today!"

the kisses begin!

We were all overwhelmed and excited when we met him that afternoon. My husband and I thrilled at the chance to hold our child, and the girls enjoyed the opportunity to smother their new brother with hugs and kisses!

The rest of the week has been a blur of grandparents rushing up to visit, bringing our baby home and settling into a nice sleep deprivation routine, and getting ready for the first day of Kindergarten tomorrow. What was supposed to be a very productive fall for me with kids in school and me quilting nonstop will probably have a different tenor now, so bear with me if my summer blog pause extends a little longer than originally planned. I owe you a finish post of my Sunbonnet Sue and a nod to my stash bee mates for all the lovely blocks they've sent the past few weeks while I was queen, but in the meantime, I'm just really really busy loving and cuddling the absolute BEST vacation souvenir we've ever brought home!

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~ Sarah

Linking up with Molli's Sunday Stash!