The Beach on a Spring day in New England

It's the strangest thing about living in New England - when the temperature is about 60 degrees in the sun, the water at the beach is not that cold. When you visit the same beach in the middle of a 90 degree heat wave in July, that water is more like the water you would find off the coast of a melting glacier.

On my last day off during the kids' spring break, I took them to Nantasket - love that beach - the waves are so little and the slant of the beach is so subtle that you could venture to go out pretty far (maybe 50 yards) without the water even reaching your waist.

Took some pictures -

Angelica and Dylan standing in the water. I'm not thrilled by the composition of this photo - I also wish that I had gotten more their reflection in the water...I cut them off. Sorry kids. I also wish that the horizon was a little straighter.....mental note for next time.
While the horizon isn't straight in this photo, I love this picture of Angelica running back to the shore. The look on her face just epitomizes what she's like - she's carefree and much of the time, happy - by her own doing. At 7 years old, she's learning to accept that you don't always get what you want and many times, she surprises me by just letting those kind of things go...

Love this photo - that horizon is as straight as I was ever gonna get it - I love how the kids look little and the beach and sky look huge. I took all these photos with my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 with a circular polarizer attached to it - I am still learning how to use this kind of filter and as I learn, I will post here...I only know that you can get some hot looking blues in your photos with this type of filter. The unnaturally blue sky was also helped along by a little editing magic on CS4.

More of Angelica and Dylan checking out the shore - I got my feet wet too in this shot.

This is the newly 5 year old Melody watering the sand at her feet - I love how her hand is in her pocket.

When we were leaving, I told the kids that I needed a group shot - the first two I'm posting are outtakes and the last one is the almost best one of 17 shots that I took before I gave up....
What is Melody smirking about?

I kinda like this one - they all look genuinely happy - now if only Dylan's hand was not in this shot....

Someday, they will all smile nicely for me - just not right here....we'll work on it -

Melody's 5th birthday/getting back to the blog

With school finally over - I got an A- in A&P II - I have devoted a couple of weeks now to just wasting away - but I did get back to shooting...and doing stuff at home like laundry and cooking and organizing my scrap room. And running...more on the rest of my extra-curriculars later...

I was off this weekend (thanks BT) for Melody's 5th birthday - we didn't have a birthday party for her but we did everything that this little kid wanted for her birthday. We went to the Boston Children's Museum for Target $1 Friday night. Melody's birthday was actually on Saturday - she made us go to IHOP for breakfast with a quick stop at Toys R Us for a gift and then to Chuck E. Cheese for pizza and games (I HATE THAT PLACE!)

I didn't dare take my camera to Chuck E. Cheese - rightfully so, since there had to be so many kids in there that it had to be a fire code violation. I suppose that is what happens on a rainy Saturday at the beginning of spring break.

Anyway, on Sunday, we celebrated at mom and dad's house - pictures:
Thanks to Auntie Kristin and the kids for the cool 3D bubbles (they really work too!)
That cake looks yummy (chocolate-coffee ice cream cake from Peaceful Meadows). We did cake after the gifts...we're pretty silly like that -

Later this week, I'll blog about the rest of the weekend - good stuff - stay tuned -