Beach!

Emily got away but her friend got overtaken by this massive wave. LOL

There's one thing to say about New England and it's that we love our beaches!

I took my daughter, Emily, and her friend to Misquamicut Beach in Westerly, Rhode Island last Friday (my men are no longer interested in the beach). It figures that beach day fell during the middle of a heat wave. I can't remember ever having such a hot day at the ocean. Usually there's a nice ocean breeze to keep you comfortable but on that particular day, it was HOT! The air was heavy and oppressive. The girls spent most of the day playing in the waves. I spent a good chunk of the day in the water for the simple reason that it was too hot to snooze on the blanket. The waves were pretty impressive that day and the water was a "warm" 72°. We had good people around us who were well behaved and pretty quiet (no screaming kids - not that I don't like kids but my teenagers are past that stage). As you can tell from the two pics I included here, the girls had a great time.

Emily's friend doesn't see what's coming!

I came home with a pretty good (by good I mean bad) sunburn. I have all the tell tale signs of where I missed with the sunscreen. I've got some lovely splotches of red mixed in with tan on my face. My rarely see the light of day chest area (*cough*cleavage*cough) got pretty red, thanks to the fact that I completely missed it with the sunscreen. And worst of all, I asked Emily to put lotion on my back and then both of us completely forgot to do it. Doh! I realized it after about four hours, most of which was spent in the water. Double doh! Surprisingly, my back doesn't hurt much. It's those two bright red patches just above the girls that really sting. Aloe has been my best friend for the past 36 hours!

After a long day at the beach, we took a cool shower to rinse the sand and salt off, then packed up the car for the 2+ hour drive home to Massachusetts. We made our traditional stop at DQ in Willimansett, Conn. for hot dogs and ice cream before continuing on our journey. Emily entertained us by singing and playing Veggie Tales songs on her iPod. Gotta love teenage girls. :)