Well, at least no one can call me a wimp. Yesterday at low tide the water around the dock withdrew to a point several feet away from the bulkhead, leaving a large expanse of gooey, slimey mucky muck. The guys were eyeing the mud and speculating whether the holes they saw in the mud were clam airholes. However, just like a Life Cereal commercial, there was a whole long conversation of "I'm not going down there to find out, you go down there." "Well, I'm not going down there." I figured a little mud couldn't hurt me, so I put on my cheap foam shoes and climbed down into the mud. My primary mission was to retrieve a few plastic cups that were lying about, do my part for keeping the bay clean. But I did dig around the holes, and while they didn't appear to be good indicators of exactly where clams were, I did manage, probably by accident, to find five clams. Which, I imagine, will be an appetizer for someone's dinner tonight. It was an adventure--the mud was really really gooey and it kept stealing my foam shoes, making it kinda hard to walk. But it definitely was an adventure.

It's been a nice, laid-back week so far at the Big Blue House. We're here a little later in the season than in years past, and it's paying off, in that there are more town-sponsored activities to partake of. Monday night we saw a magician in Stone Harbor, Tuesday we saw the movie Surf's Up on the beach, appropriately enough. Wednesday we went to Kids' Day at the Victorian-era Physick Family estate, where the kids were able to have their faces painted, create homemade bubble wands, and learn a little about everyday life in Victorian times in this part of the US. We toured the family house, which was lovely except for the Victorian penchant for painfully garish wallpaper and clashing patterns. I was excited because I got to see a couple of new household tools I'd never seen before, a bun cutter for slicing dough and a chain-mail (yes, real metal chain mail) pot scrubbing pad. Some days just make you really, really glad to be living with the modern conveniences. They also had another magician at Kids' Day, and we were mildly amused to find that the two magicians had not only several magic tricks in common, but also many of their jokes. On Thursday we went to the Wildwood boardwalk and watched the kids giggle hysterically through a series of amusement rides.

There have been hidden adventures even in the ordinary things. When the grown-ups took the kids to the beach playground, they managed to get a toy airplane stuck in a tree, which led to several entertaining attempts to rescue it.

The grown-ups have been having fun as well. Cliff mopped the floor with the rest of us at Scrabble, and when he bowed out to read a book, the next game resulted in, well, heated words, to the point that we were contesting the choice of online dictionary to handle challenges. Later in the week we resorted to poker, which was an interesting fusion of two styles. In our house, we play nickel-ante, play-until-you're tired poker games, whereas in the Teutsch household they hold Texas Hold-em tournaments, which are played until there's no one left standing (which the tournament rules ensure isn't too long into the night). When we explained how we played poker, Christian kept asking "but how do you know who's won?" So we played a little Hold-em, a little High-low, Follow the Lady, and even Anaconda. A good time was had by all, and no one was out their rent money at the end of the night.

For those who are wondering whether I've found any yarn stores yet: no, I haven't , but there is an alpaca farm in Cape May, which is sorely tempting. Because what I really, really need is a pound of alpaca roving.

As always, pretty pictures in the galleries.