New England Clambake

Another year has come and gone. This past weekend, we spent some time with family at the annual clambake. If you've never experienced a real New England clambake, check out my photos and description from last year's bake here. This year, I concentrated on taking more photos of family, but I did manage to get a few shots of the clams coming off the pit before they filled some very eager bellies.

I'd say they enjoyed themselves, wouldn't you?

Accomplishment

Summertime and swimming. Is there anything more enjoyable? Some serious games of football and splash, jumping off the water trampoline, and the annual "swim across the pond" are just a few of the things we love to do when we're on vacation. But this year, things got a bit more serious. (And just to clarify... I am the only member of my family who has yet to swim across the pond. I'm the one in the canoe with the camera and the life preservers!) My youngest daughter and my hubby decided that this year they were going to combine their three outdoor activity loves together—swim across the pond, bike to Coastguard Beach, and then run through the bike trails—in the same day. Their 2012 Summer Triathlon took place on July 15th at 9:30 am. We guesstimated how much time it would take, and figured between the actual time it would take them to complete each task and the several breaks they would need to recuperate between each one (about a mile swim, 18-mile bike ride, 2-mile run), it would take about 3 1/2 - 4 hours. But they astounded us all by completing the entire thing (with breaks) in 2 1/2 hours!

My sister-in-law, my oldest daughter, and I were exhausted just jumping in and out of the Jeep to beat them to each checkpoint!

Well done!

Do You Re-read Books?

Yes, I'm back from vacation and I'm not too happy about it. Why would I want to give up living outdoors, eating fresh seafood, not adhering to a schedule of any kind, and reading till I can't keep my eyes open? I wouldn't and I don't.

But back I am and it's time to get back to business. The first thing (or almost first thing) I wanted to do is start writing in this blog again, so I'm starting with one of my favorite subjects—reading.

For those of you who have read this blog before, you know that my girls and I have a reading contest each summer while we're away. The first year we held this contest (5 years ago), I won. The girls were obviously much younger then and they had better things to do than stick their noses in a book every 5 minutes like their mom. Then my oldest daughter discovered Harry Potter and she won the reading contest the very next year. Since then, my youngest has blown us both out of the water. But, this year, she really outdid herself. The only rule of this contest is that you can only count the pages you've read while on vacation whether or not you start or finish the book outside of the official time we're away. Are you ready? (Insert drum roll here.) She read 4,222 pages! I don't think we'll ever beat that.

And of the books she brought with her (and some her aunts had given her when she arrived), she took along 4 books she had already read. Not to be outdone, my oldest knew she would be extra happy if Harry Potter came along for the ride, so she packed him up and visited the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry once again (or maybe it was for the third time...). Re-reading books (to us) is like visiting an old friend.

Do you re-read books? We do. Goodnight Moon, Dr. Seuss, Berenstain Bears... just the children's books alone would fill several pages of a notebook in our home.