A cold and windy day at the beach

We took a few side trips before school started-- so the kids would have some fun activities fresh in their minds while they were settling back into their classrooms.  One of these activities was a trip to Newport to throw down some chowder and hang out on the beech.  After enjoying some Mo's Annex chowder, we ambled down the waterfront a few blocks to see what the resident sea lions were up to.  It turns out they were up to the same old things-- lying around on the docks and barking bitterly at any interlopers that were too late to the party to enjoy a dry section of dock. 

Satisfied that there had been no new developments in sea lion behavior, we made our way to the beach, where we began to appreciate the fact that we had selected an exceedingly windy and not particularly warm day to take in the sand and surf.  The wind-blown sand necessitated leaving the camera in the car.  Hence, the only beach picture we came away with was Andrea and April returning to the car from the bathrooms.  You can tell by the looks on their faces what a great time everyone had!

A day at the zoo

Hey!  Brandon and Keely have a new baby!  Congratulations!  I swear this is somehow related to the title of this post.  As it turns out, we took Andrea's parents to the airport yesterday where they were off to Ohio to see the new baby, as well as Brandon and Keely.  After dropping them off, we headed off ourselves-- to the zoo.  We all had a good time.  It was mid-week and there was a bit of a drizzle, but this kept a lot of other people at bay, and so the crowds were minimal.  Besides getting an especially close-up view of a leopard, one of the highlights was the lorikeet aviary.  We must have walked in right at the boozing hour, because the birds were all over anyone carrying the paper cups full of lorikeet dope they sell before you go in.  A lady in front of us was assaulted by a particularly thuggish lorikeet and Jolie had to have one pried off of her thumb.  It was like a cross between a technicolor Hitchcock nightmare and Leaving Las Vegas  in there for a while.  If you don't believe me, check out the picture of the meth-addicted lorikeets.  It's really about time someone did an intervention up there...

I tried here to recreate a picture I took of Claire when she was about three or four, but without the sea lions (which were swimming around in the original), it doesn't really measure up.  They must have been having a smoke behind the lorikeet cage.

Here are the lorikeet junkies I was talking about.  These are some bad hombres!