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Because of concerns over my wife's appointments and those of my mom's, we've opted not to do any cross country trips this summer. We did want to do a few day-cations this year. Today's sunshine and anticipated 80°F weather made it a perfect day for a trip to Lake Sunapee. The only problem for me was that I had to stay heavily sunscreen'd and in the shade of an umbrella because my antibiotics are making my skins sensitive to sunlight.

We left around 10 o'clock this morning. We drove about four-five miles before we realized that we only brought four towels and Tim had no shirt. There were quite a few 'ugh's but we turned back. After a quick return we head out in earnest for the beach at Lake Sunapee State Park in Newbury, NH. It's quickly becoming a favorite of Michelle's. They have decent bathrooms, changing rooms, showers, snack bar, tubes for sale, and plenty of life guards. And it costs $20 for our entire brood of kids for the day. You'll spend that much in gas from Milford.

The kids spent most of the day in the water or playing with the sand. I went out for a few long swims but tended to spend the rest of the time under the umbrella, reading a few more chapters of LifeHacker. Michelle packed plenty of sandwiches, snacks, and drinks to nibble on. A couple camera phone snapshots appear above, but Abby took more pictures with her camera. Those photos will appear in an upcoming album.

Near the end I briefly called LDN to check on our lawn tractor. On the drive home we stopped in Henniker at Intervale Ice Cream. We discovered it after Lake Sunapee Day 1.0 some weeks back. Many great ice cream flavors at affordable prices — $19 for the 7 of us. When we arrived back at the house, our tractor was in the driveway waiting to be put away. As I started it up to store it, it seemed stronger and less "sputtery" but this weekend will be the real test. Michelle will drop off a check for its tuneup tomorrow.

I'm going to wrap up tonight watching There Be Dragons. I've been awaiting this movie since last summer. It only had limited theater release so I needed to wait for it to come to DVD. The few minutes that I screened this morning looked good.