I joined Brian, Susan, Dane, Nick, and Lily at the beach last Saturday. Brenda arrived the next day. I had to leave on Wednesday, because of the unfairness of the world, but I had a terrific time during the time I was there. The weather was perfect the entire time. It couldn’t have been better! Click on the first picture to embiggen, then click on the right to run through them all. I’ll let Brian or Susan add pictures from the 2nd half of the week.

Oh, this is nice.  When I walked outside about 7:30 this morning to take Frannie out, I was unexpectedly hit in the face with fake spring.  And it was wonderful!  It actually felt warm.   Ducks were swimming in the pond that just yesterday was frozen hard enough that Artemis could walk out onto the ice (don’t tell Amanda).  But best of all, it smelled like spring.  I know, next week we’ll get an ice storm and two feet of snow and depression will set in.   But I’m enjoying this while I can.  Besides,  I got a couple seed catalogs in the mail last week, so spring has to be on the way, right?  Is that a robin?

Here’s a picture from yesterday back when it was still winter of 3 beautiful girls, I mean 5 beautiful girls at the beach.  If you look closely, you’ll see Frannie’s nose right under Arty’s tongue above Amanda’s boot.  UPDATE:  Brenda noticed that the photo below shows three generations of our family –  Cool!

Kelsey, Frannie and I drove to the beach last night after Artemis’ dog training.  Today was great – sunny, upper-40’s, probably the best day we’re going to have all weekend.  There’s something special about the beach in the off-season.  Half the shops and restaurants are closed,  and most of the folks you run into are local  There’s very little traffic.  Dogs are allowed on the beach.  But best of all, they city unscrews the parking meters and you can park anywhere for free!  Happy MLK Day!  Oh, and click on the picture to embiggen.