day 19... a favorite place (and this month's family photo)

Today, we got up and hit 3 garage sales (Carl is totally hooked.  He thinks they are play dates!  First was a classmate's house, the next 2 had toys they could play with.  One lady gave him a tiny green car.  See, play date.)

Then, we headed out for our day at another truck event for kids.  We went to one earlier this spring (they even interviewed Gretchen & I at that one and we were on the news that night.  Carl was too busy having fun and was off sitting in some truck at the time so he wasn't with us.)   What these events have are many community helpers and other local businesses that are trucks come and all park together and allow kids to climb up into their ambulances, cop cars, cranes, tow trucks, helicopters, limos, work trucks, buses, .....   Heaven for Carl.  It has caused problems for us since then, though.  He now thinks any time I take him anywhere that vehicles are available for him to sit in.  And, he helps himself.  At another thing we went to, one surfing guy let Carl sit in his Jeep.  He even told Carl if he ever sees this Jeep (with the surfing business logo on it) that Carl is welcome to climb up and have fun!  Little does this guy know what he gave permission to!

So, when I heard of this event a few beach towns away from us, I put it on the calendar!!  Luckily, the rain held out and we headed out for the day.  Now, the cool part that I did not tell the kids ahead of time was that we were taking the ferry to get over there!  We've never done that.  It was so cool!  It was 4 miles on the ferry and it took about 30 minutes on the water.  We all enjoyed it.  The kids really had a ball.  This summer, we may just come down to ride it round trip.  They had a lounge area so we could go without our car if we want to.  Actually, once they load everyone, they let you out of your car.

OK - back to the theme.  A favorite place.  Since we were so busy going to the garage sales and the truck event... I didn't have time to get overly creative.  But, I can say, that although I loved my Volvo station wagon, (and even more so my Volvo 240.  Oh how I loved that car!!!!!  I wish it had not had New England rust.  I would love to be driving it still!!!)   I do love my minivan.  You might even say, it is one of my favorite places!

How is that for a stretch???
on the way over....

but, I also liked this shot of it on the ride back after our day of climbing in and out of various fire trucks and police cars.  Or as Carl would say "The Ford F450 (fire dept pick up truck) and the Ford E450 (police van) and the Ford Crown Victoria (police car) or the Walmart truck (tractor trailer.... the driver had 1 million miles with Walmart, and over 3 million miles of driving in his 36 year career... so far!  Nice guy - he was so patient with Carl returning 75 times to climb up into his cab.)"

We even had someone take our May family photo for us.  A lady form Georgia who was one of several Harley Davidson riders who were on the ferry, too.  I returned the favor for her.  Hope the shots I took came out nicely.