A Day Like Today Is Why We Love Where We Live

Today has been one of those perfect days that makes us appreciate why we love where we live so much.

This morning started off with a Pirate Cruise to celebrate the fourth birthday for one of our neighbors by the name of Jack. The Pirate Cruise is just that, a cruise where we look for pirates and buried treasure in the harbor. It's an absolute blast for the kids and the parents and we've been on three this summer. Captain Paul Quintal runs it and he does a fantastic job. (A few weeks ago we went on the Wednesday night harbor ice cream cruise and I'm bummed that the Thursday night wine cruises are already sold out for the season.) If you're interested, you can find more information at http://www.piratefun.com. The weather was fantastic and made it that much more enjoyable for a great day on the water.

After the cruise, we went to the 2006 Downtown Plymouth Waterfront Festival (http://www.plymouthwaterfrontfestival.com/index.html) which is just that, the annual summer festival down at the harbor. Tons of booths full of crafts, games for kids, face painting, etc... As you can see from the picture, Sophia decided to get a butterfly painted on her face.

The visit to festival was followed by lunch at our favorite weekend breakfast spot, The Water Street Cafe. Then it was home to work on the yard and build a stone wall. Everyone pitched in and it made the work go faster.

We decided to go back the festival and enjoy the amusement park aspect of the festival with rides and games. Sandy won two stuffed animals for Sophia at the water gun game and Sophia went on a few rides. Then it was a dinner of fried dough, funnel cakes and french fries.

To top it off there was a free concert by Plymouth Rock. The band was Parrot Beach, a Jimmy Buffett tribute band. We hung out a while and danced in the street. It wasn't exactly like being at a real Jimmy Buffett show but, considering that he probably won't ever be performing Live At Plymouth Rock this was as close as it'll get for us on the Plymouth waterfront. I was in heaven and it really was the perfect end to a great day.

We are really lucky to live here in Plymouth. We've got terrific neighbors, we've got the ocean five minutes from our house, a forest and lakes behind our street for walks and mountain biking and we've got the mountains for skiing three hours north. Today reminded us of why we live here and are so lucky to call this our hometown.

Now it's time to spend what few waking hours we have left together, as a family, just as we did the whole day!