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Last night, dozens of people came to Rockland for the Maine Art & Design Dinner, presented by Thos. Moser & Down East Magazine. The opening reception took place at the beautiful Eric Hopkins Gallery in downtown Rockland.

August 6-8 is the Maine Fairy Festival at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. It's a truly wonderful event with thoughtful and fun programs like fairy house building, a fairy photo workshop, a parade of fairies by the Shoestring Theater, book signings, and a beautiful setting.   Last year I took my children (then 1 1/2 and 4 1/2) and they had the most magical time.  And that's why, when the CMBG asked Down East if we wanted to build a fairy house for this year's fairy house competition, I jumped at the chance.

We assembled a crack group of Down Easties, gathered materials from the woods, the beach, the farm, and then last week, we set to building.

Another Down East editor and I watched the fireworks in Camden from the top of Mount Battie, the mountain that inspired many Edna St. Vincent Milay poems. While we waited for the sky to darken and the show to start, our children played on the rocks and explored the peak.  It was a wonderful scene. A classic Maine moment.

And to top it off, while there was still just enough light in the sky to see, my daughter discovered a patch of ripe wild blueberries, and after commenting on how early it seemed to find ripe blueberries, all of us feasted on them.