Vacation Surprises

By the time you read this, I will be here.
I mean, there.
Where the picture is.
Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

I've never been to Maine before. It looks pretty, huh?

My mom has decided that we need to take family vacations together again. My brother lives far away (Dallas), and we need to get the whole gang together and vacate.

And we do what Mom tells us to do, so we go. We're no dummies.

The last trip was a week in Italy in 2007, which was completely awesome. The kids were just happy to have their cousin there. And a pool. They thought it was sort of amusing that they couldn't understand what people were saying. And Tater enjoyed the Carousel enough to want to go back.

This time we are staying a bit closer to home - at least in the good old USA. Although pretty much as far from Dallas as one can go and still be in the country. I wonder if there is a message in there for my brother...hmmmm. Anyway, in commemoration of this event, we decided to make t-shirts.

We went to the Dollar Store and got plain blue shirts for each child and then we got some of this (fabric paint that doesn't get weird and crunchy...and is washer safe after 72 hours...):

And some of these (letter stamps - from JoAnn Fabrics - $12.99 for the set of two sizes):
We folded the t-shirts carefully and put a piece of cardboard between the front and back to make sure the paint wouldn't bleed through. Then we painted the fabric paint ever so carefully onto the stencils, and we made these.

The kids each did their own and did a great job. They were careful about spacing the letters and making sure they were pointing the right way. Very impressive, I think!

I made one for my nephew and the plan is that they will all arrive wearing these tomorrow and surprise my Mom (Nana - in case you didn't guess).

Check out the backs:

Get it? "Maine" event?

My brother is in advertising. He's my go-to tagline guy. Not that I need one that frequently. But when I do, I go to him.

I am hoping this isn't one of those things my Mom will look at and say, "I don't get it."
That would suck.

But then, we will be spending the rest of the week hanging out here, so I can probably handle it either way.

Thanks for the trip, Mom! You rock!
Yay for Nanafest 2009!!