June 20

I am freezing. I am sitting on the beach the sun has set and I am shivering. My family is insane. They are running around playing tag, digging in the sand and swimming. Yes swimming. I am surprised there is not ice chunks floating in the ocean the water is so cold. But they are having fun – crazy but loving it. We hit the beach first thing this morning ( by 8:30) and played till about 10:30 then we had to check out of the campground. We drove up the coastal highway through New Hampshire and into Maine. It was fun to see the coast and all the little beach towns in between. The road wasn’t the best for RV’s so we didn’t go as far north as we planned but we saw what we wanted. Coast, lighthouse, fishing villages, beaches etc. We had lunch at a little seafood place. The food was expensive and disgusting. According to the kids anyway. I thought it was expensive and probably cooked well for seafood but I am definitely not seafood lover. We wanted to try it though. We ordered fish and chips, crab cakes, clam chowder, and a lobster. The crab cakes were kinda gross, the fish was ok, the clam chowder was good and the French fries were excellent. The lobster was ok. When we got it and I took the cover off the plate I kind of froze. It was like a whole lobster with antennae’s and eyes and everything. I had forgotten you had to like crack it and get the meat off. Neither Rick or I had ever done it before. We weren’t sure how. Rick wanted to ask. What I don’t understand is how can he ask how to eat a lobster when he won’t even ask for directions after we have been driving in circles for almost an hour (I am not sure if I mentioned our GPS app crashed and we have just been relying on my navigating skills – which don’t posses). I was too embarrassed to walk up to someone and say “excuse me – how do you eat this” so I just started cracking and picking pieces out. I know you are supposed to eat the tail and the pincher things. So I started there. It wasn’t my favorite but it wasn’t too gross either. If you dip it in enough butter it is pretty good. The stomach is pretty gross looking- it didn’t’ take a lot for us to guess you didn’t eat the green gooey stuff. So we made everyone taste it and called it good. We made everyone have one bite of everything before we let them eat the fries. Then we went back to the RV and had some pbj’s. We went to look at light house. It was pretty. It is kind of out on an island maybe 100 feet from shore. The kids had a great time running around all the rocks on the edge of the shore watching the boats, the seagulls and looking for crabs. I spent a lot of time yelling at the kids to back up – I just knew some was going to fall in the ocean. I chased Rachel out on some rocks and when we got back to where everyone else was I saw Dallin soaked and holding Rick’s camera. Oh no – I thought – why would Dallin have Rick’s camera. He is pretty careful with that thing. I just knew Rick had to hand it off to him when he jumped in to save someone . I envisioned someone falling in, Dallin trying to help and getting wet and Rick jumping in. Well we did have a tragedy. Ryan was sobbing like world was ending. His flip flop fell in the ocean. He was carrying on about how he loved those flip flops and they were so “beautiful” yes my son said his flip flops were beautiful. When I told him it was ok we could buy some more. I said they are just flip flops we got at Walmart for $2. He started crying harder and said “uh huh we got them at Kmart”a they don’t have Kmart here. Well we watched the flip flop for a few minutes as it continued floating out t see. Ryan really wanted us to go in after it or ask the fisherman to get it with his boat. He was crying so hard I felt kind of bad saying no way – but I was not getting wet for a flip flop. Even a beautiful one. So we headed back. We had to make a stop at a grocery store, the stop and shop, and lucky us they had flip flops – even more beautiful then the one’s Ryan had before. So all is well.

We decided to take I 95 back so we didn’t have to brave the narrow roads again – it was a lot faster. We made the kids watch the countryside on the way up so they could see the Northeast but we let them watch a movie on the way back. I did however make them watch Pete’s Dragon – since it had a lighthouse and a town similar to those we visited. My older boys sure complained when I told them, especially when they saw that it had a lot of singing it it. “Not a musical” Taylor whined about the second song. I love Pete’s Dragon – but they, and Rick had never seen it. That made me feel like a failure as a mother. I did notice though when we stopped at the store and gave the kids the option to stay in the rv and watch the movie or go in it was the oldest three who could pry their eyes off the screen long enough to answer me let alone come in to the store. It is a good movie- and the kids are convinced the lighthouse in the movie is the very one we visited today.

We stopped at Duncan Donuts and got a dozen donuts. It is really unfortunate Donuts don’t come in 14- no one wants to have just 1 but 5 is too many extra for Dad to eat. We decided to stay at the same State Park we stayed at last night. We pulled in around 6:00 and the kids headed for the beach. I cleaned up a bit and came over. I have been sitting here shivering while typing. My fingers are about to fall off and my teeth are shattering so I am glad I have come to the end of the day. Now that it is 8:30 and the sun is down I will go talk Rick and the kids into going up and having some dinner. Some night we might just have dinner before it gets dark. It is just so hard to waste day light eating –not when there are so many fun things to do.