October 13, West Seneca, NY

Left Maine this morning at 5:45am in a downpour. We drove through Massachusetts and New York, ending up here in a suburb of beautiful downtown Buffalo. We thought we'd managed to evade rush hour because we bypassed Boston - Ha! The entire state of Massachusetts is a Boston suburb, evidently.

We told the kids goodbye last night before they went to bed. Laila is going to miss her Papa (and Papa is definitely going to miss his Laila). Before we left, we celebrated Philip's 4th birthday a couple of weeks early.

Portland, ME, has some wonderful parks - it's a really pretty town. The park we went to has a terrific playground, and since yesterday was a school holiday, it was packed with kids. Laila loved the big-kid slide! Philip just had all-round fun. It's hard to leave these kids!