Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

They promised us rain. The heat usually brings rain because the humidity escalates to a point where it develops into rain, which materializes in mid-air. Every morning, I would check the weather for when the rain would come, and every day they pushed it back more and more. Boston's weather forecasts change every other hour or so. But the rain never came, until Friday night when we were camping in Cape Cod.

Paela sleeps like a bear. Not as a bear sleeps: deep and sombre, but like unto a bear as he naturally is: thrashing, wild and tempermental. It is a horrible experience to sleep within hearing distance of her. Especially when, at one in the morning, she decides it is a good time to provide a running commentary on the rain which is pelting our tent like the apocalypse. We have only been camping in one worse rainstorm, on the beach in Oregon.

Because it was hot all week (and because of the free weekend for national parks) we camped at Cape Cod and visited the beach. Paela liked running away from the water, and I liked running into it. However, now Rebecca and I are terribly burned by the sun. We were flippant about accurately applying sunblock and now we are paying for that [in certain places, but not others...]. But the water was cold, and that felt nice on such humid days, plus it was nice to have Camilla and Victor (and baby Cameron) come along.

Sadly, the rest of the week I couldn't get Paela out of the house. We picked up a shoebox full of hot wheels cars [yay freecycle! -bec] and they are the first thing Paela asks for when she wakes up and the last thing to kiss goodnight. I would beg and plead to get her out of the house, but she would politely tell me that she was working with her cars. I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon.