I was totally blessed the previous week to have the opportunity to escape to Cape Cod for 9 whole days, which is the longest vacation I’ve had in over a year! Sam’s been going to the Cape every single summer, so I was really excited to get to experience such a big part of his life with him… AND I was meeting all of his family for the first time too. I’d met his Grandma Margie before when she was out in the Bay Area visiting a friend, but I’d never met his parents, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins or grandpa before, so I’ll admit I was a litttlleee nervous. We took the red-eye out Friday night, which was way harder than I expected! I usually do okay on planes, but I only managed to get two hours of sleep on that flight, so I was pretty tired when we arrived. Sam’s dad and sister Hannah picked us up from the airport and we headed immediately to the Cape to avoid Saturday morning traffic, because, apparently, /everyone/ goes to the Cape on August weekends.

A couple hours later, we were in Orleans and spent some time catching up, getting settled and taking a quick nap while a bunch of Hannah’s friends arrived. The plan was to head to the beach and have a cookout for dinner, so we all piled into the boat with two sun umbrellas, several camping chairs, lots of towels and a cooler full of meat and veggies. We boated out to the “far point”, taking care to avoid the sand bars so the boat wouldn’t get stuck. I was too nervous to bring my big camera, so I brought my Fuji X100T, which I have an underwater case for. I quickly realized it was a pain to keep it in the underwater case, so I took it out and decided sand be damned ;). Sam’s uncle, aunt and cousins were already at the far point with a grill when we arrived. As soon as we arrived, Sam’s cousin Leo was quick to tell Sam that he was going to beat him in the s’mores eating contest after dinner. It was still too early for dinner, so Leo still had to wait a few hours. Sam’s dad went off searching for round, white rocks (which he apparently does every time he goes to the beach) and the rest of us either walked along the beach or sat under the umbrella talking and reading.

When dinner time came along, Sam’s uncle Noah manned the grill while the rest of us cut up vegetables and did some other prep work. And, of course, Sam and Leo got into an Indian wrestling match as a little pre-cursor to the s’mores eating contest. Because… boys 😛

After dinner, it was time for the s’mores eating contest! Apparently a regulation s’more is two toasted jumbo jiffy marshmallows, 1/4 bar of Hershey’s chocolate and two squares of graham crackers. Sam got an early lead by toasting marshmallows while he was finishing his previous s’more, trash talking the entire time. By the time Sam hit 9 s’mores, Leo was two behind and starting to slow, so of course Sam goes, “Man, Leo, if this is how you’re feeling at 7, the next 7 are going to be brutal. You know the record for me and Max was 14… and we only stopped because we ran out of supplies!” Poor Leo finally admitted defeat two s’mores later, at which point he whispered to his dad, “Sam’s an animal!”

It was starting to get pretty dark at this point, so we packed everything up and got back into the two boats. Noah’s boat headed off first, but our boat had a bit of an adventure going back! The clouds had rolled in and we were starting to see lightning, which was making us a bit nervous. It was also /very/ low tide and the light was fading, so it was difficult to see where the sand bars were. We got stuck a couple of times, but Sam got out of the boat each time to help push us along and we made it home with no incidents… other than hitting a rock and taking a chunk out of our propeller. Oops! All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a better first day at the Cape. It was filled with beautiful beaches, good food, wonderful people and a stunning sunset.