Nothing Like Sleeping With Sand In Your Bed

Well, another vacation has come to an end. We had a fabulous and wonderful time at the ocean last week. I couldn't believe my luck actually. My boss has these houses right on the beach in Maine that they usually either rent out, or reserve for family but this year they had an open week. Actually, they had a couple of open weeks. (I am thinking that maybe the rich folk that usually shell out the big bucks for oceanfront vacation homes didn't have the extra cash this year?) Either way, their recession problems equaled a free vacation house for me, and I could not pass it up. Dennis didn't have any vacation time left (due to our aforementioned extravagant vacation taking) so it was just me and the kids. In an ironic twist Dennis ended up coming down with a nasty flu that may or may not have been swine and was home sick for practically the whole week anyway. Oh well, at least we missed the germs and his "I'm so sick I think I'm dying" man-whining. We were lucky that my parents and grandmother were able to come up for half the week and my cousin and her family came up the other half. My brother was there the whole week (the words "free" and "ocean" are right up his alley) and his girlfriend was able to take a day off and be up most of the week as well. It was hard for people to get time off because I was only offered the house about 3 weeks ago, but I was happy to forgo a week's pay and pack it up for yet another vacation, because, hey, vacationing is my life, right?

So we sat on the beach and soaked up the sun (after chasing the kids around spraying sunscreen at them while they screamed like hot wax was being dripped onto them) and even went out and bought boogie boards so that we could ride the waves in the warm ocean water. (Seriously, it was like 70 degrees, and this is MAINE we're talking about!) We walked to the pier and rode the rides and ate fried dough and played games that cost $2 where you win a stuffed animal that cost 31 cents to make. We played a very expensive round of mini-golf where everyone managed to get a hole-in-1 (well, almost everyone . . . sorry Matt). We ate lobsters dipped into melted butter and did sparklers on the beach and watched fireworks, and well, just had a perfect beach vacation. There was still the usual whining and demanding and fighting, but all in all the kids were pretty good. They have been totally spoiled though. Never again will we be going on this many vacations so close together, and I fear that I have set them up for a lifetime of summertime disappointments. Oh well, I guess they'll live.

Me and my cousin Colleen. We have vacationed together every summer for 35 years!

Cameron playing dead (notice the "boob" shells Jack placed on his chest)

Abbey the boogie boarding queen

Abbey and her Uncle Matt

Abbey and Brady riding in style


Jack was so proud to go on all the big rides with his older cousin. Here they are on their 6th ride on the rollercoaster, right in the front as usual.


Is it just us, or does everyone accumulate this many towels and crap?
(Notice the other house in the background - not ONE towel hanging off the deck!)

The whole group waiting for the tide to come in and destroy our day's work of sand castle building

On another blog-worthy note, have you ever heard of ski-ishing? We ran into 2 guys (who were apparently insane) on the beach late one night. Well, it was like 9, but that's late to me. They were wearing full-on wetsuits with flippers and everything, and they had fishing polls with them. They told us they swim out to about 40 feet of water, float there the ENTIRE night, and fish. If they catch one they let it pull them (hence, the ski-ishing part). They said they would float with the current and be at it until dawn. Yup, I thought they were nuts too.