Cape Cod part 3

This is the last section of posting on our trip to Cape Cod - there were definite ups and downs, but there are some great memories that we are going to really hold on to. We'll also include a few things here that were lows that now seem more funny in retrospect.

The first low is that the girls seemed to feel hurt a _lot_ while we were here. They were often saying something hurt, and while sometimes there was actual pain/discomfort there also seemed to be a fair amount of just change to the schedule and overall need for more care, and so we instituted "Mommy Hospital" upstairs in our bedroom. Christina would take the girls up, cool them down, bandage/medicate/inspect, and let them watch a show (Care Bears is a new favorite). It always seemed to work.

Maybe we should try to forget all the ice cream we've eaten - there was ice cream nearly every single day! Here are the girls being silly at Katie's Ice Cream in Hyannis (where Lena had some awesome blueberry ice cream).

Our friends Jessamy and Ted came to stay the second half of the week. They were really fun and indulgent of the girls, and though we may have cured them of ever wanting children themselves, we are glad they were so dear to ours.

Jessamy reading a good night book (to girls who had a hard time with this sleeping arrangement at some point every single night).

It ended up raining a lot, and also it ended up being the worst year for blueberries in a long time, and so there were a few open spots when we had nothing in particular planned to do. One day Elena kept talking about riding a bus, and so we found a trolley to ride.

The girls wanted to sit in their own seat together - they got VERY serious about holding on tight.

Clara kept offering to hold things for Elena so she could hang on tighter.

We meant to take the trolley all the way to Woods Hole, but none of us were enjoying it much and so when we saw a Farmer's Market going on in Falmouth we got off and scored some blueberries. The girls can eat their weight in blueberries!

Clara and Ted scouted out the lollipop section (sisters, if you're reading this before I see you, forget you've seen this part). Clara found the same lollipops Christina and her sister had as kids, so we got some to share with the cousins.

This was such a neat chair outside a kid's bookstore - it was made up entirely of the ABC's!

Clara, being one of the big girls with Christina and Jessamy.

Catching the trolley back took much longer than we expected, so we amused ourselves taking pictures - Steve was trying to get the girls to pose with this statue. Look at that look on Clara!

We handed the camera over to the girls to entertain them, and Clara got Lena to smile right away! She kept saying "Cheese, Lena, Cheese!!"

We liked their other shots - they were so funny- and it's amazing to see how differently we all smile for kids!

One day the weather got nice again and we headed off to a new beach - Sandy Neck.

The girls are really good at getting their "sun cream" put on.

Bathing beauties. Clara found some friends (it's a favorite thing to do) and they let her come swim in that "pool" they made.

Elena was more wary of the ocean than Clara, but both eventually got into this game of 1, 2, 3, JUMP when the waves crashed near them.

Christina and Elena found several of these sand dollars - they were coming in with the tide, and we took them before realizing they were alive. Once we figured out that they would die out of the water, we took some quick pictures and tossed them back in.

Clara stakes her claim on two separate towels:

The beach wore those girls right out. They had donuts waiting for them in the car, and Clara took one bite and ended up like this:

Here's one more thing we'd rather forget - the girls haven't napped for a week. These catnaps in the car (that always result in them waking up disoriented and upset) are all we've had since we started this journey, and it certainly wearing on us all.

In Sandwich we found a mini golf course set in a cranberry bog - several of the greens are actually FLOATING! There are no cranberries anymore, but the water streams around and ebbs and flows with the tide, and it was pretty fun. The girls had a great time wandering about, throwing the balls into the holes and figuring out the funny houses.

Elena's "I did it!" face:

And Clara's:

We took breaks to smell the flowers...

And visit a bunny:

Jessamy tried to offer the girls pointers, but they did not think using two hands, putting from one spot, or not touching the ball with your hands sounded very fun.

We'll do some more mini golf as they get older - they'll get the hang of it. The same is probably true for vacation, too.

We'll miss you, Cape Cod!

Cape Cod part 2

So fun at the beach continued, as we spent what we called "a day at the beach" and was really just about two hours. The girls said we needed a kite, and a pail, and a shovel, and then we needed lemonade, and a donut, and gathering all of that took a chunk out of beach time. It turned out two hours was just about right.

Elena can barely spare Christina a backward wave as she heads down to the shore.

Sandcastles!

Then we got into more involved sand crafting.

Mermaid Clara.

Elena with her fortress.

Elena only dipped in a few times with Christina, but Clara just LOVED going in the waves with her daddy.

We had a little picnic, and the girls carefully protected their food from the seagulls they were sure were lunch-snatchers.

PB&J cheers on the beach...this made all our work from the earlier part of this summer seem worth it!

Here we try flying the kite - our first kite was a little tricky, but then we went in and asked for the very most easy to fly kite there was, and we ended up with this one that went straight in the air and sailed beautifully.

We found a farmer's market the next day in Sandwich - we haven't been able to find a place to pick them ourselves (everyone says they are a week from being ready) but it was great to get them there, and we devoured them straight away.

Also in Sandwich we hit upon the Green Briar Nature Center and Jam kitchen - it was this fantastic nature conservancy and animal refuge, coupled with a kitchen begun by a friend of Fanny Farmer's, who says that the world "is in a jam, and needs preserving" and so made that her mission.

The girls said hello to Teddy, Eddy, and Peter bunnies.

Clara seems a bit wary, but we really enjoyed seeing the kitchen where tons and tons of jam have been made for so many years.

The woman who started the kitchen, Ida, invented this "sun cooking" method. We got sun cooked blueberries with Kirsch and put it over poundcake....it was delicious. Elena favored the Apple Pie Jam, and we had to get a jar of that, too.

Hydrangeas abound here - we just love their blossoms!

Little Clara in a tree - proud as can be.

Now she's being a monkey - ooh ooh, ah ah!

Elena tried to distract from her monkey sister by being a silly monkey herself - berry basket on head.

She took her turn at being a bold tree climber, too.

We took a little path down to the water, and we saw a swan and dragonflies and assorted other plants and wildlife. We tried to get a picture here of the girls and Kerrie, but Clara wasn't into it. Elena tries to tickle her into a good picture pose.

We had lunch at a tea shop in sandwich, then played in a grassy park nearby. We met this woman and a cat, who she said was very friendly and who indeed run to get pets from the girls. Sadly, this Miss Poula decided suddenly to bite Leni...it doesn't seem deep, and we're keeping neosporin on it, but it was a sad end to that interaction! Bad Miss Poula!

To bring us back up to a high note, we went to play at a park at a nearby school. That really cheered us all...until kids from the school came out (why are they in school in July??) and we had to "hide!" in our car so they wouldn't know we snuck on their playground.

When we got home, Hart showed the girls a stomp rocket he got them. The girls had disrobed a bit in the heat, so most of the pictures can't really be shown.

But we're going to go ahead and show this cute one - Hart is looking at the rocket Elena has stomped way up high in the air!

Kerrie brought out the fingerpaints, and that was some good indoor fun once it started raining.

Elena has a really interesting style - she used almost the entire pot of blue and of green finger paint in one setting- those pictures still aren't dry! Clara had a more moderate approach, and put a few dots here and there and then was off to her next project.

Steve went and got us lobster for dinner - it was a really delicious meal that also included scallops, corn on the cob, and an amazing beet salad. We kept offering the girls different foods, and they very politely tilted their heads and said "Maybe...not" or "Please, may I no?" They behaved really beautifully.

These last pictures are totally blurry, but also full of too many fun memories not to include.

In other news, the girls went to bed with no fuss for the first time in their big girl bed, and slept through the entire night and woke up happy!!! Hooray! That warranted a trip to Dunkin' Donuts in the morning for celebratory breakfast donuts...we are so proud of those girls.