Friends in the right places...

We had a busy weekend. It started a bit early on Friday afternoon, when we went to K's company's summer outing - a nice pool party and barbecue at the house of a co-worker. EJ had the best time in the pool and chasing down wildlife - tree frogs and salamanders. She found this cute red one and brought him home. Unfortunately, he (she?) didn't really like our home that much and appeared to be a bit "stiff" when EJ let him loose on Saturday morning.




On Saturday morning, we headed for Rhode Island, the only New England state we haven't spent any time in! Actually, we did get re-routed to the Providence airport once and had to rent a car to get home. And we had intentions of visiting Newport just before EJ was born, but then I was put on bed rest and it never happened.

Anyway, one of K's good friends from growing up just took a job in Newport and is living in Jamestown. We went down and spent the day (and night) with L and her daughter G (Dad, D, will be arriving in a few weeks after getting their old house on the market). I didn't realize it until I looked at the map the other night that they live on an island! (See little red dot, bottom center - just west of Newport.)




It's really a pretty easy drive for us to get there. We arrived around lunchtime on Saturday and walked down to the village to have a nice outdoor lunch. EJ and G rode their bikes all over the island (well, really, just within about a 1/2 mile radius, but it made EJ feel like an adventurer). After lunch, we walked back to the house and got little Sophie down for a much-needed late nap. While she was snoozing, L and I took the girls to a local beach on a cove. I could not believe just how WARM the water was! I mean, here in upper New England, the water is lucky to hit 65 in the late summer, but this water had to be at least 75! EJ and G had fun boogie-boarding (despite the seaweed that ended up in EJ's suit, and hair, and...). After some much-needed showering, we picked up some lobsters and introduced G to this fine New England delicacy.

Sophie had a great time playing with G:

We finished off the evening with a drive south to the tip of the island to a place called Beavertail park, where we watched the surf on the rocks and saw the lighthouse. It was a beautiful evening.

I gotta tell ya...I haven't spent a whole lot of time on the cape, but I'd take this little coastal RI town on an island any day over the traffic and congestion of the cape. It reminded me very much of Maine, but without as much coastal traffic on this beautiful summer weekend. Ahhh...it's good to have great friends in great places! We can't wait for G to visit us and to introduce her to some of our favorite sites in Boston. Hopefully, we'll be able to arrange schedules to visit each other often.