~Love is written here ~: paradise...90 minutes from our driveway

Acadia National Park.

Certainly one of the most beautiful places on earth.

And, luckily, our playground.

This is the spectacular, aptly named, Sand Beach. We try to go every year with Emilie and kids.

This year, three extraordinary things happened.

First, we figured out how to get there without going through the park entrance, thus keeping the twenty dollar fee we have paid every other year. Ah, yes. The shortcut. The secret. Don't ask me to post it because I can't. But just let me say if you get there early enough to get a parking spot, don't mind a woods trail walk-in of maybe 5 minutes for a normal party and 15-20 minutes for our party, and a modicum of complaining, it is totally worth it.

Second, the water was an exquiste blue, carribean blue, a blue I have never quite seen on the coast of Maine.

And third? Well, Emilie, Sandi and I all left our good sense at home and sun screened our kids up in good fashion (you can burn at the beach! even when it's windy!) and decided against doing the same for ourselves. We thought we had had enough sun not to burn. We didn't feel like we were burning. We'd look at the others and say, "Oh, you're shoulders look a little pink!" Things were said such as, "I'm turning over a lot so I don't think I will burn."

Stupidity ruled and we burned. Badly.

We came home and Sandi said, "Well, I have been wanting to try out my new aloe plant."

My reply: "I'm so glad I charred my skin off so that you could do a test run!"

Six days later we have blisters on parts of our skin. Emilie said her legs were swollen the next day.

If there was such a thing as the skin cancer police, he would have a warrant out for our arrest.

See me dutifully applying sunscreen to our child?

Yet, while we were sitting there unknowingly burning to a crisp, we had a ton of fun.

Ella and Skyler made a "lake." Skyler was the worker bee on this project. Unlike Ella who was up on the blanket having snacks, Skyler worked straight through.

This is actually the color of the sky that day. A man was flying this kite and Sandi took its photo while in flight.

Reedo, our most handsome godson. I think he only took off into the pounding surf a dozen or so times and only disappeared completely from sight less than 4 times. He must be maturing.

A meeting of the girls club...

Maya, looking strangely like Ella's bodyguard.

Perhaps my favorite part of the trip was when Ella asked if I could please turn the heat on in the car (the air conditioning was ostensibly too much for her). I told her no, it was summer, but I would turn the a/c down. "I want the heat!" she demanded. Emilie, unafraid to tell a white lie to quiet the unrest said, "There, now the heat is on low, right Suzanne? Everyone feeling better?" Wink, wink.

Then a few minutes later, with a chuckle, "Ummm, could you please turn the heat down a little? I'm kind of hot back here."

1 comment:

Emilie said...: I liked reliving the heat story, because it was really funny at the time, but the laugh-aloud award on this post really goes to the photo of maya as bodyguard. that is too much!; July 15, 2010 at 6:10 AM

about me:

My name is Suzanne Carver. I live in a house of girls with my partner and two daughters in Maine. I am a full time mom, full time overachiever, part time massage therapist, vegetarian and compulsive exerciser. At best I have a B average in parenting. I can play Brown-Eyed girl on the guitar, I love to climb mountains, cook, write, garden, ride my bike, and dream up things to do that fill my soul and exhaust my time. My life's work at the present is to determine the line between being a mom and being me- where one feeds or takes from the other- and trying to find the ying and yang where they exist in harmony. When I figure it all out, I promise to let you know.

CONTACT: loveiswrittenhere@gmail.com