We had a nice weekend, here at the Big Blue House. On Friday we attempted to watch the fireworks at Stone Harbor, at the other side of the Island. We headed off in a caravan of cars, intending to watch the fireworks from the deck of the house on 85th Street. However, there were a few snags in the plan. First of all, the fireworks were scheduled to begin at 9:00, and not at 9:30 as Cliff had thought. So we were racing madly—well, as madly as one can race when one is driving at 25 mph, which is the strictly-enforced speed limit down here—trying to reach 85th in time for the fireworks to start. Second, about one- and-a-half minutes before the fireworks began, it started to rain. Third, someone had parked their car blocking the driveway to the house on 85th, so we couldn't park the cars anywhere near the house. So we rolled up the car windows and parked on the street, enjoying the fireworks as best we could through the rain. Then we joined the long, long line of cars attempting to get back to Avalon, stopping for bedraggled pedestrians as much as possible. I think the drive back lasted about three-times as long as the actual fireworks display.

On Saturday the Teutsches packed up and headed north to New York, stopping at Ikea on the way. Mike, Tom, Christiane and Baby Erik drove up to spend the second week here. As some space opened up at 85th, they opted to stay there; Tommy maintains that the baby accessories take up enough space to fill up the place, and this way we'll have a little extra room when the Bucher-Dials arrive tomorrow. Avalon had scheduled a "Family Fun Day" at the beach, so we headed over and enjoyed steel-band music, face painting, a juggler, a magician, and balloon animals. We had much better luck with the weather this time, and the fireworks were very nice. Cliff and Kai coordinated an "ooohhh" and "aaaahh" call-and-response for the fireworks, which seemed to work well. The musical accompaniment, provided by the local radio station, was a John Philip Sousa medley, which sounded very patriotic right up until the point where it broke into the theme from Monty Python, which, unfortunately due to lifelong association, doesn't remind us much of our American patriotism. But that's pretty darned minor. We had a good time.

The rest of the time we've spent going to the beach, hanging out at the playground or around the house, and cooking/washing many, many dishes. I've devoted most of my time here to knitting, working on a shawl. However, I've gotten to about one-quarter of the way through it (which represents a good many hours' work, especially considering I've started over twice already), and I think I'm going to have to start over with smaller needles to get the look of stitches that I want. But it's a pasttime, so I'm just happy to be able to sit around knitting. On Friday I hope to perform surgery on my Mac Mini, which desperately needs more RAM, but which even Apple-certified technicians at the Apple store refuse to attempt. Really. I figure I'll have lots of moral support if I try it here. So if there's suddenly a deafening silence from me online, you'll know what's happened.

Harumi, who has a nicer camera and more patience, has graciously offered her pictures from the past week and a half as well.

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.

Hey y'all--

Greetings from the Big Blue House! Keith, Harumi, Kai and Mana are staying in one half, and we are in the other half, with our friends Christian and Lydia Teutsch, with their lovely daughters Savannah and Abby. If you're counting; yes, that is, indeed, five children between the ages of four and eight. Those of you who followed along Cliff's adventures in the battlefields of France will remember Christian in the role of Other Responsible Adult—and medieval scholar—on the trip.* If you haven't checked out the blog, by the way, I highly recommend it. There's fun pictures, stories of cadet adventures, and a very entertaining video, which brings us the immortal quote: "yes, it's really an electric fence, but it's not like it's a dangerous electric fence."

It's been gorgeous weather, and, knock on wood, there haven't been any major disasters yet, except that I managed to destroy my cell phone before we even left the house. Apparently, phones don't like being submerged in water. Really, they ought to print a warning on the package or something. Actually, the phone dried out—mostly—and it works—mostly—but when I try to turn it off, it develops the Purple Screen of Doom and I have to remove the battery to do anything with it. I think I'm buying a new phone.

As with any vacation at the Big Blue house, we've devoted nearly all of our time here to Hanging Out, the most popular activity by far here on the island. Hannah and Savannah have spent most of their house time in their bedroom closet, which is apparently a really cool hangout if you're an 8-year-old girl. Abby's been making artistic creations. Kai has devoted his energies to reporting on all of the goings-on in the house and attempts at rallying the other kids for major campaigns, earning him the nickname "Kaiser." He's also assembling a navy, but we'll warn you if, on our trip to the bookstore this week, he starts eyeing maps of Eastern Europe. Mana is all over the place. The biggest attraction each day is the Running of the Crabs, when Keith walks to the end of our dock, hauls out the crab

traps, transfers any eligible crabs to a pot, and releases the rest of the crabs onto the dock to scuttle off into the bay. Kai and Mana run upstairs, announce "it's time to check the crabs!" and barefoot they all run down the many stairs to the dock, to dodge the snapping pincers which might try to pinch their tiny toes. There's often squealing involved. The grownups are all doing those things they love to do best, which often involves reclining with a novel or sleeping. I'm knitting a shawl; while the pattern made absolutely no sense whatsoever to me at first, some wonderful friends from Yorktown Stitch n Bitch helped me sort it out, and I'm happiest when I can sit for hours working on that. And, after years of sharing Cliff's laptop, which meant not having access when he was working, I have my computer with me this year, which means I can obsessively check my email, forums and boards, as well as update the blog in something resembling real time. Happy me!

The pretty pictures are in the picture gallery, and also check out our snaps from last week's Clearwater Music Festival, which was also blessed by wonderfully moderate weather.

*Truth be told, Christian sweated through the nuts-and-bolts of organization and planning, and Cliff was the Other Responsible Adult and Senior Scholar.