What a busy weekend....

On Friday, 3/16, my aunt Ettie and cousin Lynda came for a visit. Friday was actually Ettie's birthday, so I decided it would be nice to have the family over for a birthday dinner.

She was surprised when we had a birthday cake.



We all had a good time together, including Dot. We never left to bring her home until after 10 p.m. and she never asked to leave. She seemed so happy to be with all of her family.



The next day, Saturday, Ettie, Lynda and I went to visit her at The Atrium.



The weather was so nice we took a walk around the grounds, and then sat in the little garden that they have. Dot immediately went to work cleaning out the flower pots, weeding, pruning, etc. I'm so happy that they have a place where she can do this. She loves it.



Dad, Marge, and Ettie stayed and had dinner with her there, and Lynda and I went out for dinner. It was nice to catch up on each other. We don't do that enough. We all had a fun time that evening visiting with Dot in her "living room." At times I wondered if we were going to be asked to leave. My family is loud. We talk loud and laugh loud. At one time, one of the residents was in her room crying out and moaning a little. Dot went to see what was going on. She entered her room (the door was open) and ended up praying for the woman. Would you believe that in minutes the woman calmed down and fell asleep. I have noticed that the residents really do look out for each other; so nice to see that.

On Sunday, we all met at The Atrium again. Ettie and Lyn were leaving around 12:30 to go home. Dad and Marge were coming to take Dot back to their house for a corned beef and cabbage dinner. Dot seemed tired, but she was still up to going to Dad's house.

On the way home, the weather was so beautiful that I called Paul and asked him if he wanted to go to the Cape for today and tomorrow (Monday is his day off). The kids were all at the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Surprisingly he said yes, so we packed an overnight bag and off we went.

We stayed in Eastham at the Town Crier where we had stayed last year. The Cape was beautiful and warm enough that we were able to drive with the windows down.

The next day we headed up to the Provincetown area and went to Herring Cove Beach and Race Point Beach. The weather, again, was beautiful and the light was gorgeous. At Herring Cove Beach there were whales out by that NOAA boat. In this picture you can see two black dots on either side of the boat. Those are whales. We were told that they were Right and Humpback whales.



We worked our way back down the Cape, driving by all of our old haunts. What a fun day it was. Such a spur of the moment mini vacation.

Here are some pictures from today.



















P.S. More post offices. Be prepared - we went by a lot of post offices on the Cape!

East Sandwich


West Barnstable


Cummaquid


Yarmouth Port


Dennis


North Eastham


North Chatham


Chatham


Harwich Port


Dennisport


West Yarmouth


As I said, what a busy weekend!

Cape weekend, day 2

Today we went to the Cape Cod National Seashore which is very close to the motel we stayed at. It was absolutely beautiful there.






This is the old Coastguard Lighthouse Station at Coastguard Beach. This is also the place where the storm of 1978 took part of the parking lot and bath houses out to sea. This is also the same storm that took The Outermost House out to sea on the same beach.




We got a call from my Dad saying that my aunt Dot wasn't answering her door or her phone. He called to ask where to get keys to her house. We were about to head home, thinking the worst, when he called back to say she had gone out to eat with her friend Steph! It gave us all quite a scare.

We decided to head down to Falmouth and Woods Hole. This is the ferry that goes to Martha's Vineyard.





I was surprised that I only saw one "little door" this whole trip. This one was in Woods Hole.



The cranberry bogs were red all over the cape. This one in Woods Hole was one of the bigger ones.






Seafood Sam's again. This one was in Sandwich near the canal (diets start tomorrow!).




I thought these seagulls were very picturesque.




We drove through Plymouth on the way home looking for a museum that Paul's uncle was supposed to have. We found the museum but it was empty. We're not sure what that was all about; we'll have to find out.



We got home at 9:00. What a fun little getaway!

Cape weekend, day 1

Today we left for a two day weekend trip to the Cape. The weather was perfect for April, low 50's and sunny. The daffodils were out. On one side road near Sandwich I stopped to take some pictures of daffodils and noticed this barn with a thatched roof; a really pretty thatched roof!




As we driving through Brewster I decided that we needed to try and find a cottage at Ellis Landing Beach. My friend Carma's parents always vacationed at this cottage. One summer they couldn't make it but the cottage was already rented so Carma asked me if I wanted to take all of our kids (Her 3 and my 2). I'm not sure how old they were but they were all elementary school age. One day we all took a long walk (2 miles each way) to a church where they were having a puppet show.

This is the church. They are doing some renovations on it right now.



Then we went to the Brewster store (an old fashioned general store) which was right next to the church.



The kids we're pretty good about walking that far but we were all pretty tired.
I tried to remember which cottage it was but I wasn't sure. It was one of these.



These are pictures of Ellis Landing Beach. The kids had a lot of fun in the water. The waves are't too big here (it's on the Bay side). We found out that there were a lot of little crabs in the water and after that Mark would only go in the water on a float!






Back to the present time -
We love Seafood Sam's and decided to go for lunch. We found the one we usually go to in South Yarmouth totally remodeled.



The one up the road in Harwich was closed. The last time we were there was a couple of years ago with Paul's aunt and uncle along with Marley and Jack. We have been going to the Cape at least once a year since 1977. Lots of changes but it's fun to see what is still the same.




This next picture is in the Monomy Point area of Chatham.




We walked around the Capt. Penniman house in Eastham. He made his fortune in whaling. This is Paul standing under a couple of whale bones.






These pictures are of Nauset beach.






We were heading up towards Provincetown and stopped at these little cottages (not open for the season yet) to take some pictures of the sunset.





It was windy and freezing but beautiful. We were going to drive around Provincetown after that but there was construction, and roads closed because one of the beaches was closed from winter storm damage, so we gave up and went back to our motel, Town Crier, in Eastham for the night.