Maxx's Maine Camping Blog

Book your campsite early!

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Hey Maax here!

Don’t worry, Tami doesn’t know I stole the blog back.  She’s too busy doing this  . . .

Poor, poor Tami.  She’s been soooooo busy taking new reservations and processing deposits to hold existing ones, that she fell asleep at her desk!   I took a little peek over her shoulder while she drooled all over her lap top and I saw 28 confirmations ready to go out in tomorrow’s mail.  Yesterday, she processed 22 and the day before that 25!

Sites are going fast I tell you . . . fast!

So I visited with Ben instead.  He’s more fun anyway.  We  wrestled jumped on the couch celebrated the beginning of February vacation, and I asked him if he had a clue what theme weekends were booking the quickest.

“Well,” he said, while digging into a carton of ice cream,  “I heard Mom grumbling about Memorial Day almost being booked and wishing she had double the sites.”

“That one has fun kid’s activities” I said.  “Remember the  awesome Pots and Pans Parade!?  There was red, white and blue all over the place.  They decorated wagons and bikes and clothes  . . .”

Ben waved his spoon at me, splattering my antlers with ice cream.  “Oh, and she said there were three calls, back to back,  for Super Hero weekend too.”

“Da, da, da-DA!  Mighty Moose!”  I said.  “Good times, good times.”

Ben nodded.  “That one’s pretty cool, but I like Halloween best. You know, all those games and prizes and 132 sites to trick or treat at.  Hey!  I still have some candy under my bed!”

We were just unwrapping our fourth mini snickers when the camp phone started ringing.  Ben threw his candy bag  back under the bed.  “Fun’s over.  Mom’s gonna wake up to take that call.”

From down the hall we hear Tami snort, stretch and answer the phone, “Poland Spring Campground, can I help you?   Labor Day?  Three families?  Sure!  I can do that . . . ”

Take it from me . . . this is no time for a siesta!  Book your camping vacation early!

Can You Help Us “Think Spring”?

Hi!  Tami here . . .

A little bird told me I’d better check out the blog, and it’s a good thing I did!  That Maxwell!  He’s always sneaking on  to post something.  Even when I ask him to do the posting, he never does it like I tell him to.

I say: Tell your camping friends, the Calendar of Events will be out in the mail soon.

He posts: Hey!  Guess what?  I kind-of-sort-of- got a sneak peek at the 2010 Calendar of Events and here it is!

I say:    Maxx, post a little blurb about our Medieval Weekend.  Throw three or four pictures in there too.

He posts: Twenty pictures and two pages about all the fun medieval recreation games we had that weekend.

I say: Don’t post that picture of me in a gas mask!

He posts:    That picture of me in a gas mask.

Sigh.

This week, Maxx was really worried because one of his facebook camping friends told him they couldn’t “Think Spring”, no matter how hard they tried.

“Tami, Tami, what do we do?” he asked.

“Did you mention the cracklin’ campfire?  Remind her of the sad loon calls?”

“I did, I did!” he said.

“Really, Maxx, she’ll be fine,” I said.

Maxx wrung his hands.  “No, no she won’t.  She needs some spring NOW!“   And he ran off into the campground to find spring.

I don’t think he’s going to find it, do you?  Even the groundhog insisted there’d be six more weeks of winter, no matter how hard Maxx tried to get him to change his mind.

But maybe these pictures that the Snowdon’s sent in will help.

They camped with us last August and caught these beauties

There’s three generations of fisherman there!

So what about all of you?  Can you help poor Maxx out?  If you have any pictures from your stay at Poland Spring Campground that can help us all start Thinking Spring, e-mail them to us and we’ll post them here!

Guess What??

Today, I accidentally on purpose,  kind-of-sort-of,  peeked at the papers on Tami’s desk while she was helping David do some outside work.  And you know what?

I got a really, really good look at the Theme Weekend line up!!   Tami hasn’t even given it to David.  It’s not on the website. It hasn’t been mailed out to anyone.  That’s how new it is!!

You wanna know what’s happening?  Huh??

Do you??

Huh?

Here it is!  Just for my little camping buddies.  But don’t tell Tami I showed you . . . okay?

Apr 30 – May 2     Clean Up Weekend

May 7 – 9            Mother’s Day Champagne Breakfast

May 15th            Bouncy House with ME!

May 21 – 23        Ice Cream Party with Pot Luck Toppings as an entrance fee

May 28 – 31        Memorial Day Weekend (3 night minimum)

June 5th             The Bouncy House with YOURS TRULY again!

June 12th           Ice Cream Party with Pot Luck Topppings

(Hey!  Why aren’t I going to the ice cream party?)

June 19th           Father’s Day Chicken B-B-Q

and Father/Child Horseshoe Tournament

June 25 – 27      Chinese New Year weekend

July 2 – 5             Fourth of July

with BJ Hickman magically appearing Friday night.

July 9 – 11           Pirate Weekend featuring The Magic of the Steelgraves!

July 16 – 18        Christmas in July with Santa!!

July 23 – 25      Super Hero Tryouts Weekend

with Mad Science and their Up, Up and Away show!

Jul 30 – Aug 1      Fiesta Weekend with Pinatas

and a big party in the playing field

Aug 6 – 8                 Medieval Weekend

Aug 13 – 22            Halloween Weekend . . . two times!

Aug 27 – 29           Adventurer Weekend!

Sep 3 – 6                  Labor Day Weekend

Debbie and Bryant have come up with some new games and stuff too!  And as always, all the recreation at Poland Spring Campground is free . . .

FREE!

FREE!

And you know what else I saw?  They have new discounts for campers who want to stay longer.

No, really!!

Stay one week and get 15% off.

Stay one month and get 30% off

Stay two months or more and get 35% off!

Can you believe it?  And it includes your electric usage too.

I fell over when I saw that . . .

Maybe all my little camping buddies can stay a little longer this year!

WooHoo!

HAPPY 2010!

Hey everyone!  Maxx here!

Did you all have a great Christmas season?  How about your New Year’s celebrations?  Things were crazy around here, what with Tami directing the church youth play, baking cookies, wrapping paper flying all over, and celebrations with family and friends.  Tami says it just wouldn’t be Christmas without a little bit of craziness, though!

And I’m sorry it took so long to post a blog entry, but you see, the laptop cord to Tami’s computer started to smoke one night, and even though she didn’t freak out for tooooo long . . . and they ordered a new cord right away . . . it was so close to Christmas that it took forEVer to arrive.

Guess what??   Tami and David invited me up to the house to celebrate New Years!  We had a blast playing a  game of double twelve dominoes.  Tami kept telling me how good she was at playing it . . .

but the rest of us were just a little bit better!  She came in last place!  HA!  So she made us all switch to Tumbling Tower

where Ben, David, Alex and Bryant stacked the tower so well, Tami came in last again.  She tried telling everyone that they’d ganged up against her, soDave suggested a different kind of game.

He put four chairs facing each other in the middle of the kitchen.   Then he told everyone to sit sideways on the chairs with their feet firmly on the floor,  and to lay their heads on the knees of the person behind them.  Then I pulled OUT all the chairs from under them, and Ben snapped this picture

It was wicked cool!  They all stayed up in the air for about a minute . . . till Tami fell on her butt from giggling so much!

THIS is what Tami says about her non-winning streak

After everyone FINALLY woke up this morning, I dragged Tami and Cookie out for a walk in the woods.  The snow was falling gently, and it was so quiet and peaceful.

Tami said it was just what she needed ’cause starting Monday, she’s got a lot of work to do!  There’s over 250 advance reservations to enter in the computer and letters to send to those campers.  Then she has to send her “Think Spring” letter to the seasonals and the 500 families who camp with us year, after year, after year.

Oh!  And she’s got to write up her 2010 Calendar of Events!  Tami said all the entertainment is booked, including Santa.

While Tami was out Christmas shopping, I took a sneak peek in her files.  All our favorite theme weekends are listed!    Pirate Weekend, Adventurer Weekend, Super Hero Weekend, two Halloweens and many, many more!

I can’t wait to see all my camping buddies again so we can make some 2010 memories!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

Hey everybody!  How’s your holiday season going so far?

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here!   Do you know how I know?

Well, it’s not because Cookie stole my Christmas hat

It’s not because we got 12 inches of snow this week AND had a snow day off from school

And as yummy as it smells, it’s not because Tami is spending more time in the kitchen baking things like banana bread and canning apple butter.

Nooooo, you know what tells me Christmas is near??

This!

Last Saturday, the Wight’s headed out to the tree farm for their perfect Christmas tree.

Like he has every year for the last 20, David tried to get them to pick the very first one they saw . . . the one closest to the car.  But Tami and Ben were having none of that!  It’s not a hunt for the perfect tree if you don’t hike all the way to the other end of the farm, is it?

The annual tree choosing agreement is that everyone has to like the tree for it to be considered perfect.

It takes hoooooooo-ours.   Okay, maybe just one hour.  But you know why it takes an hour?

Because Tami chooses trees that would never, ever, fit in their living room.

David chooses the smallest trees he can find

And Ben chooses trees that will hold the biggest, and the most-est gifts under it’s boughs

I always knew that Ben was one smart kid!!

Eventually, they all agree.  Or one of them gets their way, anyway.

That’s not the part that had Tami in a tizzy though!   No . . . it was the decorating part.  And that’s where I walked in last Saturday.   The tree had fit perfect in the stand  , . . and it had stood grandly in the great room, too.  Even David had declared it a great find before he’d said, “My work here is done.” and disappeared to let Tami decorate it.

She’d already strung two sets of lights, and had done half the third when  *POOF*  half of that third string went totally black.

She tried changing fuses . . . and bulbs.  Nothing worked.

And she had no spare lights.

Sooooo, the crazy obsessed silly person that she is, she headed out at 7pm on Saturday night to find five color lights, with random colored twinklers.   Because it was snowing, she decided to head to the Oxford Walmart.  They’d surely have lights, she said.

Oh, they had lights all right.    Just not HER lights.

And neither did anyone else in Oxford.

It was snowing pretty hard by then, so she bought some twinkling stars, brought them home, strung them up, poured a glass of wine and stewed all night with those stars twinkling and her tree half lit.

I told you she was silly.

Sunday morning, she went to church (she swore she didn’t pray for lights though) and then headed into Auburn.  After going to two stores, she finally found some five colored lights and the box said, “Random Twinkle”.  She was so excited, she bought THREE boxes!

When she got them home and plugged in the first set, they were half out too!

“Good thing I bought three sets,” she said, plugging in another.  It was then that I snapped the picture above.

Because it was then, that she realized . . .

only the pink ones twinkled.

The PINK ones!

Everyone in the house went to hide while she stewed some more!

I’m not exactly sure what she did after that, ’cause I didn’t come out of hiding until she declared it done.  I can tell you though, that I really don’t see a lot of pink twinklers and there’s two sets of lights by the back door ready to be returned to Lowe’s.

And don’t tell Tami, okay, because I’m afraid we’ll lose her to the funny farm if you do  . . . .

but I noticed a dark spot on the back side of the tree yesterday.

There’s a stretch of 10 lights out in the back.

She isn’t gonna like that!

Closing Weekend??!!

What?

Tami just told some guy on the phone that this is our last weekend!

Ack!

It can’t be the last one!  We just opened the campground yesterday, right?

No?

But . . .

but . . .

I never got in the boucy house!

I never got to drive the golf cart!  I never got to taste a half a chicken at the B-B-Q

or take a kayak ride . . . or get a tattoo

Tami promised me a tattoo!!!

Sigh.

I can’t just sit around and let them close my campground.  I need more relay races!  More water balloon slingshot!  More hayrides and magicians and ice cream making and arts and crafts and science guy and bubble play and volleyball and horseshoes and

Storytime!  Who’s gonna read me stories now?

Awwww!

Maybe Alex will talk to Tami and Dave for me.

Maybe not.

I know!  I’ll talk to Santa . . .

No, no.  Santa’s too busy gettin’ ready for Christmas.

Only 76 days left you know.

Debbie and Bryant and I  can round up the 2009 pirate crew!  Arrrrgh!

Or the PS Campground Justice League!

Nooooo, wait.  You’re all in school.  Sigh.

Oh!  Oh!  What about the Burger King!  He’d  fight for more cookouts and campfires!

Or a gorilla!  I bet he’d scare Tami so bad, she’d do anything to keep the camp open!

No, that won’t work.  Tami’s pretty scary too sometimes

she’d probably scare the gorilla.

That’s it!  I’m taking the golf cart and driving to . . . to . . . somewhere!  And I’m not coming back until Tami and Dave keep the campground open.

So there!

Buuuuut . . .  Bryant says I can’t do that either.

I don’t have a drivers license.

I can’t do anything I want to do!

Sigh.

Double Sigh.

Guess I’ll just sit here and pout till opening day on April 30th.

What?  Someone’s calling me . . . it’s . . . it’s . ..

Tami!

She wants to take a walk to the lake with Cookie!

She wants to check on the beaver huts and the eagles and the loons.  Do I hear the geese and the ducks??

Tami and Ben are dusting off their snow shoes!

Yes!

Hey!  Come back and check the blog this winter, okay?  I’ll post lots of cool stuff . . .

and maybe I’ll even think of a way to get in that bouncy house!

Help!

We’s bein’ overrun with pirates!

They’ve already played sink the ship . . .

and had a walk-the-plank contest . . .

and shot some pool.

What more can they do???

Weee-llll, I suppose.

If you can’t beat them . . .

join ‘em!

I’m off to the canon shooting contest!

4th of July!

There I was at story time last Friday, when . . .

GASP . . .

the sun came out!!

Everyone squinted up at it and started exclaiming about how bright it was.

Tami said, “Shhhhhh . . .

“you’ll scare it away!”

But we didn’t.

There was plenty of sun to have a fourth of July parade.  Look how cool everyone’s bikes were

Those patriotic campers of mine went through the park in a blur of red, white and blue . . . tooting their whistles . . . streamers  blowing in the breeze!  It was soooo cool!

Debbie and Bryant also had some All-American relay races on the playing field, made noisemakers at Arts and Crafts, had a seed spitting competition and played with the water balloon slingshot.

It rained a little Saturday afternoon, so our hayride was canceled.   But I still visited with my little campers while Debbie put tattoos on everyone. Everyone except me, that is.  Sigh.  Tattoos don’t stick to fur so well, I guess.

On Sunday, I brought one of my favorite books to Story Time

Mouse Was Mad, by Linda Urban.  Everyone loved it!  A couple of my camping friends, Hunter and Amy,  brought one of their favorite books too, When You Give a Moose a Muffin!  Bryant made some Moose Feed (yummmmmm)  and we nibbled on that while he read to us.

Later that afternoon, Bryant had the kids design their own Fourth of July pizzas.

Aren’t they all awesome?  I can’t choose a favorite  . . .

On Sunday night, BJ Hickman magically appeared to perform for us.  He was soooo funny.  Did you know he has a magical mouse?  And a magical clown?  And he can make a necklace disappear?

He tried to show us how to do some of his magic tricks . . .

I’ve been practicing that ring trick every night . . . but I still don’t get it.

oh, Oh OH!  You know what?

Tami talked to Santa yesterday.

He’s coming all the way from the North Pole to our Christmas Party Saturday night!  I’m such a lucky moose to get Christmas twice a year.   But Tami tells me, that I have to be twice as good too.

I try.  I really, really try.

Our camping friends, the Spencer’s, have a sign on their site that counts down the days.  I looked three times today, but it says the same thing every time.

3 Days till Christmas!

Rainy Days .. .

Yeeeees, it’s been raining on my little campers this week.  But it hasn’t stopped us from having fun!  There were still plenty of swimmers

And lots of people out and about having fun

Debbie and Bryant never cancel their fun activities on account of a little rain.  Or a lot of rain, either!  They just move it all indoors!

Or they build boats to float in the puddles.

The fishermen have had a great time the last two weeks.  The fish are reeeeally hungry!

Look at this beauty caught by Fred Becker!

3 1/2 lbs .  . . 21 inches long . . . brown trout.  Amazing.

The Lamoreau Family reported to Tami this morning that they’ve caught around a hundred fish during their week stay.  Among their prizes were  2   2lb large mouth bass and a 4lb’er too.  They also caught a Crappie, which I didn’t even know we had in Lower Range Pond.   Oh – and pickerel too!

The baby eagle is sitting on the edge of the nest now.  When he hollers for food, you can hear him all over the lake.

The Joyce family gave Tami this photo of the baby and adult.  Isn’t it a good one!  In no time at all, that baby will be flying.

We have tons of activities lined up for this coming week  including a performance by B J Hickman on Sunday night and a science-y arts and craft lesson on how to make Exploding Lunch Bags with the Science Guy on Tuesday.

I can’t wait to explode lunch bags!

And guess what?  The sun is trying wicked hard to shine through the clouds today!  Cross your antlers . . . I mean your fingers . . . that it gets a chance to come out!

Ice Cream Party #2

I scream . . .

the campers tumble and SCREAM . . .

WE ALL SCREAM . . .

For ICE CREAM!

What a great turn out!  The campers brought lots of fun toppings to share

and we found two  hard working  ice cream scoopers

so everyone could make their own sundaes

Tami told me that lots of kids showed off the tattoos they’d gotten while hanging with me Saturday afternoon

Can you see the dragon on his arm??   It’s a little worn off, but Bryant did a grrrrrrr-eat job!  Then again, he should. ‘Cause he does face painting eeee-very Monday afternoon, rain or shine.  I get to hang out with all my little campers then too!

OOooo!  I just peeked at this weekend’s schedule!

Guess what?

C’mon, guess!

We’re having candy bar bingo tomorrow night!!!

And a chicken BBQ Saturday night .. .

Dad eats free . . .