Cooking dinner

Getting ready for the pot...

Here they go!

15-20 minutes later....

This is the obligatory lobster photo.

Ready for the Martha Dodge Lobster School!

We all dug in and picked the lobsters clean. Both girls loved it!! What a fun first lobster experience!!

Playing with dinner!

We are looking to see if they are right handed or left handed. (You can tell by the size of the crusher, or big claw,) Half are righties and half are lefties.

Then we flipped them over to see if they are boys or girls. (All boys in this lot.)

This is the one time it's ok to play with your food!

Lobster!

We went to the lobster man to buy dinner.

The girls named their lobsters. One was named Crab.

Fort William Henry

This is one of the forts that was build to as defense in WWII. Like the others on the Atlantic coast, it never saw action.

There are dozens of colored buoys in the water. Each marks a lobster trap. Each fisherman has their own color pattern so they can easily identify their traps. 

The girls love looking for shells and sea glass. Their collection is growing....

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse

The lighthouse is still operational.

We climbed the 39 steps to get to the top. 

Ali loved the spiral staircase.

That's a goofy kid!

Pemaquid Point

We explored the tide pools and rocks. A lot of seaweed and periwinkles (they look like snails). 

Martha came exploring too!

We loved watching the waves crash on the rocks and the tide come in.

Damariscotta, ME

So happy to visit Martha's beautiful spot. The girls wasted no time and got right into the pool!

We had dinner in town on the water and then had to go for ice cream!

The ice cream was delicious!!

Welcome to Maine!

Seacoast Science Center, Rye, NH

A nice little museum/ aquarium about ocean life and the North Atlantic coast. They had several huge lobsters, including a blue one and an orange one. The orange it the rarest. We learned that the colored lobsters are the same as the regular ones- the pigmentation in their shell is caused by the presence or absence of different color tones, just like people skin. Inside the lobsters are all the same. When they are cooked, all the pigment except the red goes away. That's why they all turn red when they are cooked (no matter what color they are to start).

Bones from a humpback whale.

Exploring the rocks along the shore by the science center.

Welcome to New Hampshire!

A short stay in New Hampshire.

Brandeis University

I have not been back since I graduated in 1993. Not much has changed...

Sam spotted a heron in the pond in the quad.

Jo O'brien's Crossing

This is the crossing by Franklin Elementary. Jo O'Brien is Samantha's classmate, Sienna's grandmother. Turns out that Mona, Sienna's mom, went to elementary school here and her mom, Jo, was the crossing guard for years. Small world!

This is Grandma Jo at a concert the night before we left on the trip.