The first weekend in September, Aaron and I, along with Amy, Joe and their boys headed down to our Aunt Becki’s Summerwood condo on the Connecticut shore. Despite the threatening weather report, hurricane Earl turned out to be not so bad, and had completely blown through by Saturday morning. The rest of the weekend was beautiful. We took advantage of the pool, the beach and the back deck and spent most of the weekend outside. Click on the photo above of the view from the back deck to see the album from the weekend. Thanks Becki!

Aaron and I drove up to Ogunquit Maine for a long weekend visit with Bonney and Patrick and to meet their baby boy Rowan. We stayed at The Dunes, this old-school style, cottage hotel right on the ocean. We had a great couple of days of relaxing, spending time outside and enjoying Ogunquit. On our last night together, the tide’s timing was in our favor and we were able to walk across the shallow river (blankets, gear and Rowan carried above the water line :) to the beach and enjoyed a sunset picnic dinner. It was too short a visit, but great to have the time together and the chance to meet the boy we had been hearing about for months. Click on the family photo above to see the pictures from the weekend.

Back in August, Amy and Joe held a joint birthday party for their boys Justin and Brian. Justin turned 4 at the end of July and Brian turned 1 in the beginning of September. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate and we had a day of on and off showers. So, taking it all in stride, Amy and Joe set up their garage as party central with food (complete with a popcorn machine), activities and games. In between the showers the kids would run to the back yard to play on the swing set. Both friends and family stopped by to celebrate, visit and have a piece of Amy’s homemade, construction-themed birthday cake. Despite the weather, we all had a great day, including both the birthday boys.

Our weekend on the Cape with Aaron’s family continued. On Sunday the weather was beautiful, so we decided to go out on the family motor boat for a little fishing excursion. In the few hours we were out there Andrew caught something like 22 fish, most of them before Aaron caught any – but after some adjustments to his hook and sinker combination – Aaron finally caught a fish. It was the biggest one of the day and the only one we kept. It was great to be out on the water on such a perfect day. Once we were back at the house Aaron and Emily cleaned and cooked up the fish. Aaron decided it was time for me to make good on my bet from earlier this summer. You see, when Aaron picked up this new hobby of fishing, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in his abilities – so I bet him if he caught anything, I would try it – which was really saying something, as I don’t like the taste of fish. Click on the photo above of Emily and the fish scale she caught to see the album of photos, including ones Emily so thoughtfully (note the sarcastic tone) took of me trying the fish.

Back in August, Aaron and I spent a weekend on the Cape with his family. We were thrilled to learn that the annual Cape Top Chef event had been planned for during our visit. For those of you who are not familiar with Top Chef, it’s a television show on which successful chefs compete in a variety of cooking challenges. Molly, Emily and Andrew are all fans of the show and so a couple of years back they decided to have their own version of the competition. They do it along with two other families they are friends with. All the kids cook (10 in total, divided into 2 teams) and the parents get to eat and judge. Sounds pretty good, right? Now you understand why Aaron and I were so excited to be there this year as guest judges (which means we got in on the eating). It was really quite remarkable – the food was great and in an effort to be a thorough judge those of you familiar with my “selective eating” may be surprised to hear I tried both the shrimp and the lamb dishes. Admittedly though, I passed on the banana dessert – I just couldn’t do it. It was a great evening – check out the photos. (Note: some of the photos are a bit grainy as they were taken without a flash)