While Cooper and I were riding the Rail Trail, andNathan was fishing, Hudson had his own adventure going fishing with Aunt Eileen, Ryan and Cordelia.  I was so excited for him to get to do something so fun.

He caught two fish, and had several that “just got away.”

He had such a great time, and enjoyed having his cousin all to himself without big brother there to hog all her attention.

At the end of the trip the kids got to swab the deck like a regular old member of the crew.

And he even got a certificate!

After biking the Cape Cod rail trail last summer, I couldn’t wait to do it again this summer. It is something Cooper and I look forward to doing together.

We set off with Jim and James Zanino from the bridge in Dennis, and biked 22 miles at an easy pace with a few breaks here and there, finishing in about 2 hrs 15 minutes.  This year was a muchmore enjoyable ride: the kids are older and needless reminding to stay to the right (we didn’t run anyone off the trail this year!), the kids know how to safely cross the road, the kids needed fewer breaks, and no one whined about the ride because we all wanted to be there.

(Super cheesy selfie, but I took this while riding.)

 There were long stretches of riding and listening to and admiring the beautiful wonders of nature around me.  

We made it all the way to the end. I wasn’t sore the next day, but my legs were definitely tired afterward as I stumbled to the car.  It was easier to ride my bike to the car than to walk.

Nate met us at the end of the trail after a morning of fishing.

We celebrated our feat by having our traditional lunch at the Beachcomber in Wellfleet.  They have some of THE BEST fresh seafood.  We orderedpeel and eat shrimp, little neck clams, Jim had aseaweed salad, I had a crab cake sandwich, Nate had a fisherman’s platter, and Cooper had...you guessed it...a lobster roll!

The Cahoon Hollow Beach is always enticing, but we were tired and sweaty, so just took a quick picture.  It’s always fun to see the open ocean, especially from the top of a bluff.

This is my one photo from Monday 7/1. We split up for a girls/boys day.  Nate’s aunts and I have this kind-of tradition of going shopping and having lunch together in Chatham.  It’s such a cute little town with a quaint little shopping area (albeitexpensive), and some delicious places to eat.  I’ve never had a meal in Chatham that I didn’t like.  We decided to go Monday, and did some fun shopping.  My big purchase of the day was a newchef’s knife and sharpening steel to keep at Grandpa’s kitchen.  But I sure looked at a lot of other fun things!  We ate at a little place called the Impudent Oyster.  Delicious.  One of our last storesto visit was Nana’s favorite store, so we took a picture in front of the hydrangea display in her memory.  Hydrangeas were her favorite flower. The name of the store escapes me right at this moment, but it’s such a fun girly shop, and always smells divine and feminine.

There’s also a fun little house decor and things shop that had a tea towel with a saying that mademe laugh...

That was me at Guapo’s Tortilla Shack. Ha!

Meanwhile Nate and the boys went to ride bumper boats and cars and play arcades and do those things that kids enjoy doing.  I’m glad they hadsome time alone with Nate.  Cooper went fishingwith him a time or two as well.  There aren’t any pictures to prove it though. ; )

June 27th was Grandpa Gunning’s 92nd birthday, so we had a get-together at Eileen’s on Sunday to celebrate.  The boys finally got some good cousin time.

The kids couldn’t resist playing on the hammock. One of the twins took these pictures of Hudson.  They were sweet to play with him for a bit, especially considering they’re 17 and he’s 6.

Cooper had fun on the hammock too.

The twins, Samantha and Elizabeth, and their friends Skylar and Lisa.

Eileen’s patio is so picturesque of Cape Cod.

We enjoyed a beautiful night on the patio, and a delicious dinner, with cooked chicken grilled by Peter Picazio. The Picazios know their way around a grill!

This guy right here is 92 and you’d hardly know it. We are so fortunate to get to stay with him in his house for 3 weeks every summer.  Because of this, our boys are blessed to know their great-grandpa more than most kids—and me too!  Everytime we leave to go home, a piece of my heart remains behind with him.  We sure love Grandpa Gunning! What an incredible man.

Saturday we drove alllllll the way to the tip to Cape Cod to Provincetown (this was a beautiful little decoration outside one of the shops).  I hadn’t been there in about 20 years, and it looked nearly the same with the shops and the crowds and cute little narrow streets. It was just as I had remembered.

First place we stopped was the Black Dog store.Hudson wanted to buy yet another stuffed animal dog. Nate and I had a nostalgic moment looking at the little baby-sized hoodies and remembering when our kids wore one as babies. Awwww.

Next stop was the game store. Hudson played with this little puzzle for about 15 minutes until he figured it out. I was seriously impressed!

Cooper spent much of his time with the metal puzzles where you try to remove the ring.  I showed him how to do the horseshoe one, the only one I know how to do, and so he kept practicing. 

Next was lunch at this amazing, quaint little place called Canteen.  You ordered up front and thenwent around back to sit either in the garden areaor down by the beach. Super cute!

The food was delicious! Hudson’s new thing is to order fish and chips everywhere we go and smother it with ketchup.  That was my super delicious steak sandwich—I needed a break from seafood.

What did Cooper order? A lobster roll.  Always alobster roll. How did our kid acquire such expensive taste in food?

We shopped at lots of the little shops.  My favorite was the puzzle/game store.  Cooper had fun in the army surplus store (where he bought a Swiss Army knife as his souvenir).  They had lots of zany things, especially the costumes. This giant Uncle Sam hat made us laugh.

Hudson was enthralled by this street performer

who was supposed to be a statue.  I’ve seen better (she wasn’t very good at holding still), but Hudson thought she looked so cool.  He wanted to touch her and talk to her.  I think he was having a hard time figuring out how she was real but looked so fake.

So we gave him $1 to put in her tip bucket, and she moved and beckoned to Hudson to move infor a picture.

We got some very delicious homemade ice cream...

from a shop that also had many, many enticing chocolate treats.

It was the Portuguese festival that day, and a band for kids was playing. Hudson enjoyed watching and dancing, and even tried hula hooping.

Climbing to the top of Pilgrim Monument has been on my bucket list for awhile. It was the perfect cooler weather as a storm front moved in.

280 feet to the top!

We looked tiny as ants at the bottom.

Nate wasn’t excited about going to the top—he hates heights—but he was a good sport.

Let’s do this thing!

We made it to the top!

Views from the top...

The harbor in Provincetown

Looking down the Cape

Looking up to the very top of the tower

Enjoying the top of the tower

View of the center looking down from the top.

I was so relieved to find out the tower was mostly ramps, not stairs. Not sure I could have climbed that many flights of stairs. Nate was in a big hurry to get back down to solid ground.  Cooper wanted to run just for fun.

The walls are made of hand-hewn granite, the tower being built in 1910 or something like that.  Afew stones on every level have been engraved with the name of a town in Massachusetts that has donated to the monument and the date the town was established, and then the stone has been polished.  Hudson was excited to see one with his name on it.

He also wanted a picture of the stone for Boston.  As we passed the names of towns in Massachusetts that I’ve lived in—Lexington, Cambridge, etc.—I told him when I lived there.  His responsewas, “Oh, so you’re practically a pilgrim then?” Ha!

Knocked this one off my bucket list!

We did it!

There’s a neat museum at the base of the Pilgrim Monument.  The boys thought this whale jaw bone was pretty cool.  We all enjoyed the museum that had artifacts and antiques from times ranging from the 1600s and the Mayflower to the early 1900s.

Provincetown did not disappoint. We had a greatday!