It was a beautiful day, the second day of my favorite month of the year when I asked:

“Hey Ben, Emma and Molly…  do you want to go to Hampton Beach with me to see the sand sculpture competition?”

While you weren’t sure exactly what I was talking about, away we went.  This was an unofficial  ‘three musketeers’ kind of adventure, because this time one of the musketeers wasn’t Camden, it was Molly.  She had never been on this kid of outing so she was a little unsure about how things would play out.   It wasn’t long before she got the hang of it and began living the 3 musketeers mantra: “go with the flow, stay loose, try new things and have fun.”

Our first stop was the Friendly Toast in Portsmouth, one of our favorite hangouts.  The food was great, we had eggs and pancakes and bacon and orange juice. Yummy!

We were soon heading south on Rt. 95 toward the biggest beach in the state of New Hampshire. Here’s what we saw when we gazed at Hampton Beach:

I created a goal, “we each have to pick one sand sculpture that’s our favorite… but don’t blurt it out right away, let’s make sure you’ve seen them all first.”  After all, there were a lot to choose from including:

I asked what you thought and Ben said “when you said we were going to see sand sculptures, I wasn’t that excited because I thought they were like the ones we make on the beach.  But these aren’t anything like that, they’re amazing!”

Amazing indeed.

While you were figuring out which ones were your favorites, I had you pose for a photo (of course!):

Ben decided the dragon was his favorite; Emma liked the monster, Molly’s eye settled on the “Frozen” character and I was blown away with the person emerging from the sand. Molly was wondering about the naked sand ladies with “the boobies.” I told her there’s nothing wrong with the naked body, we all are naked every day, it’s natural and beautiful, etc.   Not sure I worded things correctly, but I tried to get the point across.  Uh, come to think of it, that sand sculpture might have been my favorite

We headed across the street and visited the Arcade, playing all kinds of old fashioned games in a very old fashioned place that hasn’t changed much in over 50 years:

After the games, I brought you to the home made candy store and you each picked out some favorites. Everyone tried an interesting flavor of salt water taffy which is a candy they liked over 100 years ago and is still popular.

With cold drinks in our hands, we headed north to Moody Beach (thanks to the Youk) where we went in the water and you guys slept over for the night.  It was a most wonderful day, a classic summer adventure we won’t soon forget.