We were invited to visit our friends Justin and Denise Loeber at their beach house in York, Maine for a second year in a row. You may remember that I lost almost all my photos from that trip last year, but this year I have several photos to share, thankfully.

The beautiful beach house they shared with us.

Minutes after we arrived, Norah had salt-water taffy in her mouth.

The front porch swing.

The view from the porch.

The view from the yard.

A short walk to the beach.

Queen Anne's Lace

Milkweed pods

Tidal pools

They were perfect for Avril to splash around in.

At first, it looked like the seaweed was growing directly on the rocks.

But a closer look shows what look like tiny black barnacles at the base of each plant. And, from all I can gather about these topics online, I think the barnacles must have attached themselves to the rocks "first" and then seaweed anchored almost as quickly to the barnacles and started growing out from there. The two appear to be one, but I think that just illustrates how inter-related the plants and animals are in this ecosystem.

Sea Acorns

Bright green seaweed grows so prolifically in these shallow tidal pools because of the abundance of sunlight.

I found a flat, slanted rock to perch on while Norah collected snails.

We didn't have a bucket, so we improvised with an empty applesauce container.

These sea snails are also called periwinkles or just winkles, for short, and in many parts of the world they are collected just as Norah is doing, by hand, but then eaten. And, come to find out, they aren't actually native to North America. It seems that they came over, originally, attached to rocks used to weigh down sailing ships in the 1700s. But, now, they are so abundant on the coasts of New England that you would assume they were always here... Incredible.

The baby woke up very early in the mornings. We decided to go for walks so as not to wake up the sleeping house. But, the invigorating walks made us hungry, naturally, and the kids are always starving first thing in the morning, so we stopped in here for their breakfast special. $3.95 per person for eggs, toast, half a dozen chunks of greasy potato and a slice of bacon. The food was terrible, actually, but somehow the sea air and the hilarious fry cook made it a place you'd want to come back to again and again.

Norah played in Ellis Park, right next to Short Sands Beach.

You could climb down the rocks next to the road to this "private" beach separated from the larger beach by rocks.

Norah looks for more snails.

I helped her collect snails by laying flat on a rock and reaching down into this pool left in the rocks by the tides.

I found that larger snails were easier to grab in the first place, but harder to get off the rocks because they had a stronger suction.

This day, we didn't even have an applesauce cup, so we found a cleft in the rock filled with water and collected the snails there. If you watched closely, you could see them bunch together slowly.

The girls read books on the front porch.

For all the doubts I have as I raise these girls, I feel that I must be doing something right because instead of hauling off and hitting one another, they haul off and hug... often.

Swinging (and smooching) while the kids play in the yard.

There's a story (and a lot of giggles) to go along with this picture. Our neighbor, who is also a fireman in Waterbury, gave us a bottle of his homemade wine. We brought it to "share" with our hosts and the other guests. So, Justin drew a label and attached it with the only adhesive we had on hand: band-aides...

I had a sip and it wasn't half bad.

While the women went to lunch with the baby, Dwayne and the men took Norah and Charlie to Nubble Lighthouse to climb rocks and site see.

The kids found this "cave."

After lunch, we met up with the men for ice cream at Brown's. It's too hard to explain here, so I think it will have to remain an inside joke, but we will always laugh out loud about our children and "That's what I wanted to do with it!"

Avril plays hard to get, but she really does love, love, love Mrs. Denise.

Charlie, the Loeber's son, poses high on the rocks as we were leaving our last day at the beach.

All the kids, even Avril, enjoyed playing with Hermey, Charlie's new pet hermit crab.

Smile for Mommy! My family poses for me one morning, while we were hanging out outside until everyone else woke up.

Us.

The Loebers.

There was another couple, The Burns, who stayed while we did. We enjoyed getting to know them. But, they had to leave really early the last morning, so we didn't get a photo of them, unfortunately.