Which way to the beach?

Photos from this past July 4th weekend, spent up in Maine with Paul and Frances. They rented a house in a town called Goose Rocks Beach, which is not far from Kennebunkport. Very pleasant little community... almost entirely residential (except for a single "general store") but with a lovely seaside and a nice wide, sandy beach. Photos from Friday (at this point the kids had been there for a week, but it was my first day):

The water looked enticing, but it was unbelievably cold. I made several attempts but only managed to fully immerse myself once. We did have some serious sand-castle building sessions, however. Here is everyone hard at work:

Well, at least some of us are hard at work. I think this was right around the time on Saturday when I realized that there was a World Cup soccer game on, at which point I ran back to the house to be a TV couch potato.

Sunday morning (the 4th) Ethan, Scott, and I ran in a 5k road race (Amy signed me up-- I think I would have been too lazy to do it otherwise). There were about 800-900 participants, which I think is about the right size (any bigger than that and things get a bit unwieldy). Pre-race photo:

and post-race:

It's not hard to notice who's the sweatier competitor. I came in at around 30 minutes, and I think Ethan was a shade under 20 mins (he won his age group, whereas I was getting passed by guys who looked like they were in their late 60's, oh well). Here is the post-race race parade (very well attended):

and later that evening, a little in the fireworks department:

[A bit blurry, sorry about that]. All in all, we had a fine time-- it was an excellent visit.