3rd Day, Martha's Vineyard

At this point, Elizabeth and I are feeling pretty accomplished and cocky. Seven kids! Three days! We are Sister Wives! (It didn't help that Elizabeth's cousin Brett showed up with her two well-behaved and charming sons and the boys all played Beyblades for 45 hours straight. "One...two..three...LET ER RRRIP!"

We finally got everyone clothed and shod and drove to the Farm Institute.

Chickens! Every single boy got nipped by one.

Wee baby goats!

We played in some rocks and muddled with some piglets.

Oscar, Nathanial, Cal and Arlo.

We bought some eggs that were still warm and took off for the Right Fork Diner for lunch. It's on the edge of a tiny grass airfield, and we were disappointed to not see any planes come in. But the food and the behavior was fantastic! We also loved hearing stories from Elizabeth about waitressing there in 1989, saving up money for a trip to Greece. (She told me some slightly risqué stories about that trip.)

We took off to South Beach, It was foggy and mysterious!

Arlo looking for a place to pee.

Pictures by Lucy. Lila looking cute, and Lucy looking cute in the reflection of my glasses.

The surf was really, really rough. I'm a strong swimmer, but I don't think I would have ventured past my knees that day, never mind the fact that it was about 50 degrees in the water. The boys had no such reservations.

Poor sweet Lila took a spill in the water and although she didn't get dragged out, she wasn't able to get up. Luckily Elizabeth was 100% on top off it, plopped Jed down and plucked her up. That was our cue to leave.

We managed to tear everyone away from the exciting scary beach with tales of the boring private beach. Arlo was perfectly happy because he could stay nekkid. I never, never thought that I would be applying sunscreen to my son's Manly Area. Thank God for spray sunscreen.

We had Elizabeth's Grandma, "Bamum" over for dinner. She lives in a cottage next to the big house with an awesome golden, Nanuk, and generally lords over her awesome family with adoration and craziness. She is a pip, in the words of my dad. She nibbled on cheese and crackers while charming Oscar B and listening to Jed natter away. I loved listening to her talk about the history of the house and her family and her teaching career. Bamun tossed back a couple of red wines and retired early. We settled the kids down (very much looking forward to the next evening when we'd have the help of the husbands) and settled down to read for a lovely quiet hour in the living room. Elizabeth picked up the husbands and there was a joyous reunion.