Two short lists.

THINGS LILA LICKED TODAY:

1. The right rear tire of my car.

2. The drain at the public park sprinkler.

3. The triangle at music class.

4. The footrest of her highchair.

5. A cracker she put inside my shoe.

6. A piece of cement that came loose from the patio.


THINGS LILA ATTEMPTED TO LICK, BUT WAS PREVENTED FROM DOING SO, BY ME:

1. A used bandaid she found in the sandbox at the park.

2. The brush used to scrape the grill.

3. A duck.

Last Vacation Post

Here it is, the last post from our nearly month-long vacation. This spot is one of my all-time favorites on the planet, ranking up there with the black pebble beach in Corsica I last saw at 16, the obscure but genial Caribbean island of Saba, and the view from Big Dock at my beloved Camp Waukeela in Eaton Center, New Hampshire.



It's a windy point at the end of a long peninsula; not much for sunbathers, so we've never encountered more than 4 people on the entire shore (That is due mostly, too, to the fact that even though all the coastline is open to the public, the clever citizens restrict parking for miles).



When the tide is out, you can cross a sandbar to another sliver of beach, and beyond that are small, rocky but verdant islands that reminds me a little of Ireland's west coastline.







I was fiddling with camera settings and set the image to "widescreen", as most of these pictures demonstrate. Standard ratios seemed inadequate, but it turned out to be a quick and easy way to annoy Josh. There's something about widescreen that, no matter the context, screams pretentious film student to him, and this was no different. I paid it no mind; this is a man, after all, who thinks setting your ice machine to "crushed" instead of "cubes" is showing off.



Did I mention that I adore him, nonetheless?

Cousins!

This photo sums up Lila's five glorious days with her cousins over our vacation. Wherever Lila went, she could count on at least two girls in hyperdrive to entertain and captivate her, mostly in the form of tickling her neck. And she loved every minute of it.



(Another common scenario - the pile of giggles)



(Reading with Abby)



(Dinner with the cousins)



(Lila shows the girls her toy)



(The center of everything)








We spent the 4th of July with all the girls, and our friends Neil and Denise came by as well, with their 3 girls:


(Sophia, Julia and Rachel)



(Lily and Nora)



(Rachel and Abby)



(Everyone!)

Driven to Post!

I, for one, cannot stand to look another day at that photo of the three of us grinning like ninnies on my last post. I do love how happy we felt in that moment, but the longer I look at the picture, the more I think it looks like a poster for Up With People.

So let's move on.

Here's a series from our vacation when Pop Pop put Lila to work cleaning the car. Luckily, he helped. Washing the car is no ordinary task for Lila, for some reason. Car cleanliness is a big topic of discussed in our house. Just yesterday I took her to wash my dusty car (we do it the non-approved method, according to Pop Pop...we pay someone else to do it) and as the car was swept down the belt, Lila laughed, she cried, she called out to her beloved "Mommy blue car"...and afterwards it was all she could talk about for the next 6 hours. It's a very special event to our odd but adorable girl.

Really, where to start?

Oh I had such big plans to post about our vacation, really, I did. But I find myself facing the micro-dilemma that reflects the macro-dilemma of the Internet age: too many choices. Thanks to our digital camera, I have hundreds of photos to sift through, not to mention the ones that Aunt Catherine gave me on disk that I copied into iPhoto twice, and the mere thought of going into the program and isolating and then deleting the duplicated pictures alone gives me hives.

(And as an aside, let me mention that I have always found the proliferation of choices an overwhelming luxury...in fact, in 1987 my college of choice posed the application question: "What is the greatest invention of the 20th century?" to which I responded in essay form the equivelent of: "Are you mad? What kind of question is that?")

But anyway. Vacation. For starters, let's revisit the view:




At the oceanside of the property, there were some stairs that led down to an extremely rocky beach:




Lila enjoyed spending time down there every day, instructing whomever was with her to throw rocks into the water:




Here she is with Aunt Catherine. She is clearly annoyed that rock-throwing has been interrupted by picture-taking:



We had our fair share of family visitors, including a couple of lovely days just with Nana and Pop Pop:





And for Josh's birthday we had Nana Ann, Popsy, Aunt Catherine, Uncle Thom, and our old friends the Nathan family down for lobsters and steamers. Nana Ann loves a reason to show up to a party with a lobster pot:



And Uncle Thom took some great pictures that night:


(Lila with Fisher and Effie)








(Jeff)


(Lila and Effie)



So that's a start. Up next: a visit to the lighthouse.

First, some housekeeping.

Lila's got some new friends to introduce:

Tess, the old lady of the group, and whom we've actually met and can therefore attest to her adorableness, born June 2nd:




Eva, born on June 7 in Paris (nee le 7 Juin):




Ruthie, born June 30th, to Carol and...dad/baby Stu...




And Asher, sharing the 230th birthday of our nation on 4th of July...in Canada, to American dad Rob, and Brazillian mom Patricia:



Happy birthdays everyone!

We're Back!

Lila unpacks...a story told in 5 pictures:











More photos to come...