NH Trip 2014, Part 2

Thursday
Thursday was another nice, low key day around the house for Penn and I.  The weather forecast looked like a potential for rain in the afternoon so we had ruled out the beach or sailing.  The morning hours were supposed to be beautiful though, so we decided it was a good day for a bike ride.  Grampa, Doug, Koen and Tavin headed out around 9:30am for a morning out on a bike trail on Massabesic Lake.  The terrain was a little tougher for Tav with his training wheels, but did this trooper complain?  Absolutely not.  He just works even harder talking a mile a minute the whole time.  Doug shared some of his conversations with him and it was just priceless and adorable.  Oh how that little man makes us smile!  Here he is (clearly happy) with Daddy.

Here's a picture Dad got of the crew.  Looks like a great scenic trail!  Sort of makes me wish I went except for the fact that Mom and I had a blast giving Penn some one on one attention (Penn and I particularly enjoyed our walk with a stop at a creek nearby to throw rocks in for awhile).

The boys went out for lunch and so Mom and I continued enjoying our simple morning with Penn Rye.  Unfortunately, he has a cold, but it didn't hold him back from enjoying his day at all.  The big boys got home in time for some baseball practice in the backyard with Penn and I before naptime.  Then Doug surprised them with another outing after I laid Penn down for his nap.  They went to see Planes 2 at a theater!  It was Tav's first real theater experience and he was in awe.  Doug said every time he looked over at him, he just beamed.  I got a super quiet afternoon and lots accomplished with the big boys out of the house again.  A very relaxing day and just what I needed!!  To top off our day we got to enjoy a lobster dinner!  Koen has been talking about lobster since he got his own last year.  He did great with it yet again and chowed right through all the best meat.  Impressive for a 7 year old to enjoy such a grown-up food.  It was a messy meal, but fantastic as usual.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the delicious treat to end another great day at home in NH!

Friday 
Beach day!!  The boys have been looking forward to returning to the shore of the Atlantic Ocean since we left Hilton Head and despite my warnings that NH's waters would be a lot colder than South Carolina's, they were still quite surprised.  This isn't a great picture, but you can still see Koen's reaction.  Brrr!

Koen was quite brave and even caught a few waves before he had to warm up.  I have to give Doug props too, because in awesome Dad form he totally went in all the way with him.  Thankfully at the beach there's more to do even if the water is a chilly 64 degrees (no joke, that's how cold it was!).  We actually had a really fun development to our beach day in that a few days ago I had noticed via facebook that my cousin, Laura, was in town with her family, so I contacted her and amazingly it worked out to both hit the beach at the same.  Not only that, but her brother, David, was also home for a few days visiting with his oldest son, so they came too!  We were quite the conglomerate on the beach...

I've met my cousin Laura's kids before, but I'd never had the opportunity to introduce my kids to her family.  It was a delight to share these few hours together.  Penn, of course, was a big hit since he was the baby of the group.  He was super friendly with all the new family introductions too.

Grampa was a big help with the kids at the beach.  Ready to help with whomever.  He and Penn had some fun digging in the sand, walking along the beach and playing with the water.

At one point, Penn just took off walking away pulling the boogie board behind him.  It looked as if he was just heading into the waves for a surf.  We caught up to him and figured out that he wanted a pull-ride on the thing.  Tavin was game for it (despite the fact this kid caught Penn's little cold, but in true Tavin style it was hitting him so hard!).  

Grampa came to his aid when the pulling got tough and Penn was loving the ride.  He wasn't even concerned when the chilly waters rolled up to his chest.  Well, that was until the coolness settled in.  Then he started crying and yet at the same time asking for "more, more."  Confusing fun for sure (and I think the people around us thought we were torturing him!).

We stayed for about 4 hours at the beach, but before saying goodbye to all the family, we decided to try to get some pictures of this momentous occasion (I don't think I've been with David and Laura at the same time since David's wedding when I was in college).  Here are the cousins...

And the second cousins...   This took a few more tries, but they are all pretty entertaining, so I had to include my favorites.

Notice Tav's face, he's winding up for a big sneeze.

 It was loud and it was dramatic and it made everyone laugh.  Poor Tav!

Back to trying to get a good picture.  This is probably the best (and Koen did the head-turn from Penn without any prompting).

As we all cleaned up our gear and packed up, Penn and Tennyson enjoyed playing together in a little pool Grampa and Tavin had dug.  Tennyson really enjoyed Penn and was so sweet with him.  He must have been missing his little brother and sister because he was totally slipping into big brother mode with Penn and Penn loved playing with his new pal.

What a great day at the beach!  Thanks, Laura, for coordinating this impromptu beach meetup with me on the fly.  I'm so glad it worked out and we could share a few hours together and have our kids finally meet.  Thanks to David too for bringing Tennyson down!  What a special day!