stereotypical Maine summer day

Yesterday I told the kids to pack up the van with beach gear (we went to Mass on Saturday afternoon so we could hit confession beforehand) and we headed out on to Knight's Pond. Saturday was a hotter day, and not just because I ran a 5K (2nd in my age group), and the race ended in a parking lot with the smell of trash wafting from the Bangor City Dump. They remembered all the life jackets, the inflatable boat and paddles, the cooler, and the blanket to sit on. My only job was to pack pb&js and change Julia Ellen's nappie. We left Tim happily mowing the field edges and spent the afternoon splashing, riding about, and chatting with the other families.

After cleaning up ourselves and the van we headed back out to go to the lobster pound for supper, a yearly treat. Lobster pound dining runs the gamut, some eat off the tacky Styrofoam trays with a plastic fork while the more glamorous cover the picnic table with a tablecloth and pull out bottles of wine, appetizers, and salad to accompany their boiled lobster. Before I tucked into my twin special (2 lobsters on a plate) the children picked up lobsters from the tank. "I picked up two at one time!" "Look at this big one!" (yes, I know this is a crab, but the others were dark)

Eating an ice cream bar back home finished up the day with promises that we would visit the pond several more times in the coming weeks.