A Long Weekend on Cape Cod

Since we've been back from Florida, we've had wonderful summer weather.  The girls had planned a small pool party for last week and it started off cloudy but the weather cleared and they had a fun time in the pool.  I busted my butt getting the house perfectly clean before we left for vacation and I have to say it was so nice to come home to a clean house.  When we walked in the door, Anna asked, "Did someone come clean the house?"  I don't know what she thought I was doing!



We headed down to the cottage for the long holiday weekend.  Whenever we return home from a vacation of eating all meals out, we tend to want to make all of our meals.  So we stopped at the Market Basket over the bridge to pick up food.  We did order out pizza one night but dinner the other nights included lobster rolls (thanks to Rich) and steak tips with corn, asparagus and baked potatoes - all on the grill.





In addition to beach time, we also played mini golf per the girls' request.

This was a quiet 4th for us.  Well, somewhat quiet.  For the past two years, we've had family staying nearby and we've hung out with them.  This year, they won't be renting until later in the season.  We did head to the beach that night to watch fireworks, which was going well until someone decided to light them off right over us and the kids freaked out.  Too much smoke and noise for me too.  And probably a safety issue.  We were close to leaving anyway.  By the way, Anna cannot stand to be close to fireworks due to her shunt/hydrocephalus.  





Rich bought a pressure washer last month and took care of cleaning the shingles on the cottage.



It looks sooooo much better.  We do need to freshen up the white paint and I want to paint those shutters a different blue.  These are projects way down the list.  I'm still trying to paint that small bedroom and after last weekend, I now remember why we didn't get everything painted last summer.  I really didn't have time to paint.  Between meal prep and clean up (we don't have a dishwasher) and time at the beach and time for running/walking, there wasn't much time for painting.











I had almost an hour "free" one evening so I added another coat of primer to the areas in the small bedroom that needed it.  The next night, I had another free hour so I started painting the white semi-gloss on the wood paneling.  I was basically painting in the dark because the lighting situation isn't so great.  It'll be interesting to see how it came out.  I'm hoping I only need two coats of gloss seeing as I spent a good deal of time with multiple coats of primer.  That wood just soaks it right up.


Summer freckles!





I zoomed into the above photo and I don't know what was going on but their expressions are hysterical.

See?


I'm loving how we have almost 8 weeks of summer vacation left!