Cape Cod Vacation

We are back from our Cape Cod vacation!  I apologize for not doing a Thankful Thursday last week but there is no wi-fi at our house on the Cape and the cell service on Cape Cod is horrible so my plan to attempt to post from my phone did not happen.

Apparently there was massive amounts of rain here at home while we were gone and lots of flooding but it was sunny and warm at the Cape so we were able to do everything we wanted to do on our vacation.

Selfies on the beach with my girl...

A visit to the Barnstable County Fair where we did get a little rain but were still able to see a lot of animals, ride a few rides, watch a tractor pull, visit the exhibits, etc....

 And spent more time on the beach with my girl...

We spent some time in Boston before we ....

Harvard Book Store

This was right before a bird flew over and pooped on us!  Luckily I always carry WetWipes!

...we headed to Fenway to see the Red Sox play!!!

Fenway Selfies!

The ballgame went into extra innings but the Red Sox managed to win it in the 13th inning!  We got a lot of extra baseball and after the walk back to our car and the drive back to the Cape, we weren't in bed until 2:00 AM!  It was worth it though!

The next day we went for a bike ride on the Shining Sea Bike Path.  We did the portion from Falmouth to Woods Hole.   It's only about 7 miles round trip and we always stop for lunch in Woods Hole in the middle and cupcakes in Falmouth at the end.  Even I don't complain too much about a bike ride when it includes lunch and cupcakes!

This was our view for part of the ride....  

We got to watch the drawbridge open in Woods Hole.

Lunch!

Cupcakes!  Peter had a Whoopie Pie which is not pictured because he was eating it while this was being taken.  You can see his elbow!  :)

We stopped to take a walk on the beach during our ride.  It was so rocky.  Not sure if they brought those rocks in or not but I was glad we had our shoes on!

On Wednesday, we picked Cathy up from the airport and met Uncle Bob and headed to Glouchester to visit  Uncle Ron (who isn't technically their uncle but in fact on of Uncle Bob's oldest friends from the seminary and spent all the holidays with Dan's family so he really feels  like another uncle.

 And then we spent Thursday on the beach, had the best clam chowder in the world at Captain Parker's, took a quick evening bike ride, and finished a puzzle. 

Cathy and Sarah

That's everyone in the distance playing in the water.

My men.

The chowder!

And then on Friday we took a hike from the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History out to Wings Beach where you can look out over the water and see the arm of the cape just as it looks on the map.  You can't really make that out in the pictures though.

And then one last swim before we packed everything up...

And with that, our Cape Cod vacation was over. I hope you enjoyed our photos.  And now we only  have two weeks until school starts.  How can the summer be over so soon???

Thankful Thursday - Edition 30

It's time for Thankful Thursday.  What am I thankful for this week?

1. Swim season is over and we got in our meet with no rain on either day!

2. I always stress about getting the tent set up for the swim meets and at the championship meet where all the teams compete, I always stress about parking.  They allowed us to set up our tents the night before and Dan was able to help me.  And the next day when we got to the meet there was the perfect parking place mere steps from our spot.  Not sure why no one had parked there yet but I took it!  In fact, before I parked, I even asked someone if it was okay to park there because why had no one taken this perfect space yet??  

3. Rain!  We finally got some rain this week and it's been very good for the grass and garden. Peter was able to mow yesterday finally and it looks much better.

4.  The perfect tomato sandwich. I love it when the tomato is so big that you only need one slice to cover the bread.

See?  It's the perfect size!!

5. Our jalapenos are starting to come in and while I hate to can tomatoes, I can can jalapenos with the best of them. 

6. Jennifer's daughter, Caity, has been dealing with a kidney stone for the past week!  Poor thing!  She finally passed it last night! 

7.Mani/pedi!  I got a fresh mani/pedi yesterday and boy was it needed!  Because not only was I overdue BUT....

8.  VACATION!!!  We are headed to the Cape tonight after Dan gets home from work and I am very thankful about that!  I'm looking forward to spending a lot of quality time with my family and seeing extended family members we don't see often enough!

What are you thankful for this week??

And now you are all caught up.

I honestly thought I would have so much time to blog this summer.  But glancing back since June and I realize that I've barely averaged two posts a week.

I think between swim practice and errands and random summer doctor's visits and just being, I haven't had a lot of time to write.  Or perhaps I've had time to write but the kids have been hogging the main computer and the laptop is so slow that I can't even with it.  Or perhaps my main subjects don't want me to write about them on the blog so what's to write.  Or perhaps I'm just lazy.

Most likely, though, it's a combination of all of the above.  With that said, here's what's been happening around these parts lately.

The County Championship swim meet was Friday and Saturday.  The 11 and ups swam on Friday and the 10 and unders competed on Saturday.  We finished the Friday portion 15 points ahead of the other teams but we completed the entire meet in second place.  Sarah was so upset!  But the nice thing about swimming is that it's a good mix of a team sport and an individual sport.  So even though our team came in second, my kids swam well and finished the season with improved times in all of their events!  And now Sarah is more excited than ever for the high school swim team.

 

And speaking of the high school swim team, Sarah got an email from the coach.  He is planning to do a meet and greet before school starts so the new swimmers can meet the upper class men.  She is very excited about this.

I just finally got around to completing all of their paperwork for the new school year.  I put that in the mail with a note that said basically "I hope I got it all.  Please call me if I missed a form!"  I had to put extra postage on that envelope it was so thick! 

And I also ordered Sarah's PE uniforms and school uniforms (Land's End 40% off sale for the win!) and got Peter a few new items as well.  The kids got their schedules last week so I also need to start checking on text books as well.  Once we have our last swim meet it always feels like summer is over even though we still have a month left.  I am trying to stay on top of everything because we leave for the Cape on Thursday evening!  And when we get back, there will only be two weeks of summer left!  YIKES!

The kids still need to do their summer reading and write their papers and Peter's math teacher has assigned a ton of work for them to do this summer which Peter has just now started to do.  I am hoping he can get it all done.They tell me they will be using their time on the drive to and from the Cape wisely by reading but I've got a feeling that's not what's going to happen. 

My Pinterest feed is already starting to fill up with fall things and I am refusing to look at anything pumpkin colored or pumpkin flavored. We are up to our eyeballs in tomatoes around here and Dan keeps wanting me to make and  sauces but y'all - making tomato sauce or even salsa is such a production.  It is so hard to get all the skin off and all the seeds out and then after all that hard work I still end up with iffy tasting sauces.  Maybe, if there is still a large crop when we get back from vacation, I can find an easier way to get rid of the seeds and skins and then just freeze them and use them as crushed tomatoes in fresh sauces.  Canning tomatoes is NOT my forte.  Although, I can can jalapenos with the best of them.  I don't know about the tomatoes though.  I'm at a loss.  Suggestions??

And with that, you are all caught up around here!