everybody needs a holiday, a little time to celebrate

My parents' backyard. I love me some rainy trees.

I love surprises, okay? Getting and giving. Fair warning: if I know you (and like you) I may spring something totally awesome on you with zero notice. (Alternatively, I may spring something totally awful that was intended to be awesome. But hey, the love was there.) So this past weekend I went home to PA, hung out with the 'rents (check out my slang, it's tots def dated) Thursday night and Friday, then Saturday we went to the Jersey Shore. Here's where it gets shocking, so hold on to your hats. My sisters, their menfolk, my nephew, and my step-niece-to-be (whom I hadn't met yet) went to the shore that day too, expecting to meet only my parents. There was some really flattering shrieking and running when they realized the strange lady walking next to my mom was me.

It was a gray and chilly day but that meant lots of huddling in sweatshirts, sitting on the blankets, cuddling shivery munchkins, etc. It also meant that the beach was less crowded than it would've been otherwise, which is good, since for the little ones' sake we had to go to a beach with lifeguards. (My dad used to be a lifeguard, and my sisters and I are all strong swimmers, so we usually go guardless and just keep an eye on each other.) The downside of the grayness and chilliness (besides the actual, you know, grayness and chilliness while you're at the beach) was that the water was pretty choppy and the overzealous lifeguards wouldn't let us go out very far. Knee-deep was the limit, in fact. Which is pretty damn ridiculous. It's not a wading pool. My dad was so furious when he was whistled in from the breakers that he went over to the lifeguard stand and argued with them. It didn't make a difference, of course. Damn the lawyers!
In closing, I present my new niece. Check out those curly pigtails:

I come not to build sandcastles but to destroy them.

p.s. that's right, no knitting content whatsoever.