island fun

With graduation getting closer and Sandi having hours to spend on final tasks and studying for boards, the vice on our family recreational time persists.  However, when her mom called to discuss the possibility of going on a "picnic" a few times in a row, we poured over the schedule to see if there was a day to fit it in. 

 

Did we ever pick the right day out of the weather lottery.

 

A "picnic" by Carver standards is a day spent sailing on Dwight's lobster boat to a neighboring island, rowing coolers and food, people and dogs, clam hoes and Nerf footballs in three to four trips from the anchored boat to the shore and frolicking on an island for as long as time permits.  It had been two years since we'd been on a picnic, long enough for Maya to not remember it, and although we couldn't frolic all day day long and had some time constraints, it was more than worth the trip!

 



 

Sandi and her sister Kristi



Brevan, Maya and Dwight



Me, Patti and Kristi



Patti with her other child.

 

Check out this guy hauling his traps by hand.

 

After a beautiful boat ride that would have, in and of itself been enough fun to warrant a trip to Beals, we came upon Ram Island.  What a amazing stretch of coast the Carvers live on and what a photogenic day it was.



castaways

Patti and Sandi got right to their favorite sport: fire building.  They are two peas in a pyrotechnic pod and love these sorts of joint activities.   To cook outside is gratifying but to cook on an island in the Maine sunshine is irresistible.

Dwight, Micheal and Brevan set about digging us some clams.

 

Patti also brought fresh mussels to cook over the open flame. 

 

These lobsters look so beautiful laid out and ready to be eaten.  But they do look decidedly lonely.


Yes, that's better...  (for the record we covered nearly all the shellfish family: lobsters, mussels, clams, crab claws.)  Eating this kind of hands on meal outside on the rock is ideal in every way. Easy to manage, a cinch to clean up and, as everyone knows, all food tastes better outside.

 

The island is such a wondrous place.  Not surprisingly this called for an usual event: the creation of a store.  (You may recall the kids have been nearly obsessed with stores this summer.)

Dwight's store purchase was a Canadian baseball hat I fished out of a tree for Brevan. 

 



"Mum's girls" awaiting our return.

The girls and Sandi and I are always on the lookout for heart-shaped things in nature (or in pickles which Ella is very adept at finding).  She found these two rocks on the beach.

I often don't know how to finish posts like these where our lives seem so over the top blessed it feels almost arrogant to broadcast it.  All I can say is that I am never without gratitude and I always work to take in this love that flows to me but to not hold it too tightly.  Instead I let it keep flowing, allowing me to enjoy it as it moves but giving it license to travel to all the other places it is needed.  So this was my love for the afternoon and now it belongs to the world.