Here’s what we did for a week in Bethany, roughly in order.

We got to the house Sunday evening. On the way we found a Sonic, one that isn’t even listed in their store finder. A secret Sonic, if you will. It’s in Bridgeville, Delaware. It was my first visit to Sonic, and it made me happy.

Monday it rained. We ate at the place with the frogs. Max was fascinated with the electric toy puppies outside one of the stores. “Puppy” is one of the few words Max says with consistency and clarity. He can also say other animal names, like “bunny” and “elephant” (really), but only after being prompted. Every animal is “puppy” first. Lin and I ate that great cheese soup for dinner.

Tuesday we went to the beach. Max was freaked out by the water but really enjoyed the sand. It delighted me that he picked up a shovel and immediately started shoveling sand into a bucket. He’d never played in sand before, yet the use and purpose of the little shovel was apparent at once. He also enjoyed using the larger shovels to scoop up the gravel from the back of the house where the car was parked. That got old quickly. I got sunburned fairly badly. Max also got sunburn on the parts of his back I missed, and Lin got sunburned in weird splotchy places she missed. But mine was worst, because I am stupid. We ate at the Mexican place, which has the world’s best iced tea but where the service and prices are (in my opinion) unreasonable.

Wednesday it rained. A lot. All the towels and beach blanket and suits on the clothesline got soaked, so that was fun. Lin’s WoW guild decided to transfer servers in her absence, so we took a little road trip to go grocery shopping and look for wifi. We found no wifi, but it worked out okay without her anyway. We took naps every day. We watched a lot of TV, mostly nonfiction stuff like the Deadliest Catch marathon and the season premiere of Dirty Jobs. I do so enjoy the Discovery Channel.

I kept having to force myself to relax properly. I haven’t had that many days off in a row (not counting actual unemployment, which is different from “days off”) since Hawaii last summer.

Thursday (and thereafter) the weather was beautiful. Cloudless blue skies and all that. We went to the bookstore. We ate lunch from Five Guys. We looooovvvve Five Guys.

Friday it was nice again. The naps began to taper off; Max slept so late some days that it wasn’t naptime until 5, and that just gets ridiculous. We ate dinner at the barbecue place. We went in for “a couple of beers” and ended up also ordering crab dip and a half a rack of ribs and a spinach salad. You may assume I was not the one who ordered the spinach salad. Lin went to the Internet cafe to make sure all was well. Apparently all was.

Saturday we had Max’s picture taken at the old-time photo place. I have always wanted to do this. He was such a good baby. The pictures are darling. We had some margaritas and fries at the Mexican place. The service was terrible, and the ladies at the next table were having a discussion about a toenail problem one of them had had, which really wasn’t appropriate for a restaurant. Around dusk we went and walked on the beach. Max was still scared, but I think it was because of the roar. When we covered his ears he was happy. I took a lot of pictures of him and Lin playing in the sand. I walked in the ocean. I had boardwalk fries (with insufficient vinegar) and fried clams for dinner.

On the way home today (Sunday) we went back to Sonic. It turned out to be much farther from Bethany than we’d thought. We got to Lin’s around 7:30 and I dropped her and the baby and their lots of luggage off. I got home around 9.

And now there is no ocean whatsoever and I have to work tomorrow.

P.S. I’m not sure how people reconstructed their vacations before online credit card statements. I’m just saying. My memory for which days we did what is not really this good.