Yesterday, completely on a whim, I decided to bring the kids to the beach. Alex is in the middle of a 4-week study of the oceans and sea creatures of all kinds, so I figured this would be especially cool for him. It was a gorgeous day, too. And the best part was, I didn't tell the kids where we were going. Just bundled them up, gave them rubber gardening gloves to wear in case it was cold (and because we'd be collecting sandy, wet treasures along the shoreline) and off we went.
We went to Oakland Beach, in Warwick, because it was close by. We drove past the little house that Bill and I rented for a few years way back when, and we got chowder and clamcakes and lemonade at Iggy's.
We filled my deep coat pocket with all sorts of shells and rocks and crab claws, and I took a bunch of pictures. The kids chased seagulls...we climbed on rocks...we saw 4 dead jellyfish...and we were out in the fresh air for a couple of hours.
The kids see our collection of shells as their bounty, but I look through the pictures and see our time spent together as the real treasure. I've included a few shots in this post, but if you want to see the rest of them, you can go here.
(and I didn't put that little starburst highlight on the shell - it just came out that way.)
and lastly - a bit of dabbling with artistic effects...we saw a pair of swans on the way home...here's one shot:
and here's what happened after I played with it a bit:
Fun stuff, huh?
Anyway, like I said, if you want to see all of them, you can go to my Oakland Beach set on flickr.
Good thing we went yesterday...it's pouring rain today.
