Once again, because of the sheer volume of pictures and activities, this Quick Takes spans a few weeks.
Week of Aug 21
1. On Sunday we went to the annual sandcastle competition.
The entries weren’t quite as spectacular as last year but that’s probably because the tide was coming in and some of them had started to wash away. (We always go later in the day when it’s not quite so busy and we can get better parking. ) There were still some nice cities and an awesome pirate ship.
On the other side of the beach this guy was making sculptures of giant sea shells etc. He was just doing it for fun; pity, I would have voted for him.
Week of Aug 28
2. On Tuesday we took a trip out to a local fort. I hadn’t been there in years but used to go there from time to time when I was a kid. We walked around inside and then outside it, had a picnic snack and then went over to the look off where we saw all sorts of ships including 2 container ships and a giant cruise ship.
As we were walking around it we came to some of the trees that were damaged by the fire earlier this year. It was really neat to see a charred tree, complete wit charred pine cones, made my camera happy.
Week of Sept 4
3. 
A few weeks back I decided that it was time I actually started writing in the baby book. I started way back but then wished I had worded it differently, so instead I resorted to working on it online. I added regular updates as baby grew up but never went back to do the older pages etc. I figured I wouldn’t be a very good mother if I didn’t get baby’s book done by the time the new one arrived, so I set a tentative date of Sept 1st where if hadn’t stated it yet, then I would then. The plan was to try to do a page a day.
It worked for the first day, I didn’t quite have everything written in, but I had it typed up how I wanted it and wrote the last thing in for that page the next day. Now 2 or 3 days have gone by since I’ve done anything on it, and that needs to change. The pages are just getting harder to fill in than simple names and dates.
4. Being pregnant through the summer I haven’t been wearing a whole lot of long pants, but as the cooler weather sets in I’ve really been wanting a pair of jeans I could wear. Especially when one of my other maternity pants for a whole in the banding so I can’t wear them out anymore. On Wednesday morning DH and I went to the mall I prefer to wear my pants under my belly than stretch the band over. The maternity store only seems to sell the latter, but in a regular clothing store I found a great pair of jeans, made for an expectant mother, but without the stretchy band attached to the top of them, so they fit more like normal pants. I love them 
5.
We had several relatives in town for a few days this week from as far away as Australia, and that we haven’t seen for as long as 16 years. My mom threw a big Indian dinner party on Wednesday, which was very enjoyable and very tasty. I wasn’t able to finish my entire plate of food because I had eaten a lot of the appetizers, so I took the rest home. Homemade onion bhajis and samosas, with multiple homemade chutneys are REALLY good.
We had heard that there were several relatives coming to our neck of the woods around the same time but we weren’t sure then if they all would make it for the party-they did. So, we made a point of getting some proper family group photos. There is one from about 18 years ago, but it is a bit out of date and doesn’t include as many of us.
There were so many people that night one couldn’t really visit with them all, and especially my mom who spent most of her time in the kitchen. I had tentative plans to meet with a few of them and decided we’d do it over at her house (my mom) that way she’d get to see them too. We had everyone but the Australian over last night so we could see them again.
6. One thing that happens over 10+ years of not seeing each other is people develop new interests. My nephew has also gotten really into photography, and he had his several thousand dollar equipment with him and was able to teach me some of the basics of manually controlling the settings to take better pictures.
Look at the difference settings can make!
F:8
F:3
This was something we did last night, along with getting some recording done for a family cd. The other night I couldn’t focus enough to absorb anything so last night we took about an hour and set down in a separate room to go over it. I also took notes. Sadly, the improvements won’t be instantaneous, as it’s going to take a lot of practice before I can adjust to the perfect settings on the fly, so for now I’ll mostly keep it on auto with the baby pictures, but whenever I’m setting up for a shot of some inanimate object, I’ll test it out.
7. My best friend came back from Ontario this week (she went away for a wedding) and I messaged her yesterday. My birthday is coming up so she’s taking me out for dinner. We are also meeting up on Monday with the baby in tow so she can see him before he’s walking like a pro (her next available date was 3 weeks away). I won’t be bringing him to the restaurant because he would be difficult and I wouldn’t get my girl chat time.
