the squibix family blog

Leah's cousins(ish) Marcy and Joel live in Sandwich on Cape Cod, and a couple weeks ago they invited us down for an overnight. We've been before, but not for a while and never for more than an afternoon. So when we had an opening in our busy schedule, we went for it! Aside from getting to spend some time with lovely people, we do like visiting the sea. Or, you know, whatever's handy.

Sandwich is closer than we thought, and we got there well quicker than we expected, leaving us time to explore before our hosts expected us. It turns out that the town is the historic center of the Cape, and plenty of that history has been preserved. Like the gristmill, which was too expensive for us to visit; luckily we could see pretty much all we needed from beyond the fence.

Just as interesting to all of us was a big tree on a little town green, which looked eminently climbable.

By the time we got done amusing ourselves there, the time specified in our invitation had arrived, so we piled back in the car and got to our hosts' home just in time to enjoy an enormous lunch. As we digested they offered us a list of entertainment options, but we had ears for just one: the beach!

It had been raining as we packed up in the morning, and clouds still lingered in half the sky as we made our way to the water—which meant that the afternoon light was just beautiful. I took about fifty pictures right there.

Of course, we also enjoyed the beach in more direct ways. Leah swam, and the bigger boys an I played in the waves which, while smallish, were enough to entertain.

Lijah is really not feeling the sea-bathing this year—"I don't like the ocean," he'll tell you whenever the subject is even mentioned—but he enjoyed digging in the sand. And even he eventually figured out a way to get into the water.

After about 17 hours on the beach we headed back to the house for dinner. While Joel was doing the grilling we hung out by, and in, the pool.

Zion eventually went in the water, but he needed to rest up a bit first. Just after I took that picture I asked him if this was the life. "It would be if there were some food here," he answered. Luckily in that house lots of good food is never far away, and mere minutes later we were treated to a delicious dinner of "something from the sea", as per Harvey's request.

Harvey's other request was to go mini-golfing, and after a tough night (in which Zion fell off the bed onto Harvey's head, among other disruptions) and an abundant breakfast, we we went to Pirates Cove Hyannis to reprise our delightful experience in Bar Harbor. For some reason I didn't take any pictures, but I have to note for the record that Leah won this time, convincingly.

Then we went to the beach again—well, a different beach. We shared a tremendous picnic—you sense a theme here—then took to the water. It was a hotter day and we were all pretty tired, so mostly we just lounged in the water or under the umbrellas. That and picked up rocks.

The blue bucket came along again, so of course Lijah went in it again (if you're interested, Marcy and I probably have about 200 photos of him). As we were getting ready to go Zion got in on the act too.

It looked like so much fun we all would have loved to have a go... sadly, from Harvey on up we'd need a bigger bucket. Still, when that's the only thing that could be improved you know it's a pretty good time! Thanks Marcy and Joel for inviting us for one last wonderful weekend of summer—now to remind us of warmer days as we head into winter we've got these pictures, and our rocks. Lots and lots of rocks.