Abby, Zoë and Enzo

We met up with Tom, Sue, Jack and Anna at the 2nd Annual Merrimack River Maritime Festival in Salisbury.  We hadn't seen them for a while and this was a good chance to get outside and let the girls run around a bit.  We saw the tall ships, the pirates, cannons and concessions.  After the play ground, we got some ice cream and food.  Like previous years everything was expensive.  Park admission was $9 per car.  Waters were two dollars.  7 grilled shrimp for $5, lobster rolls for $10.  I bought the girls each a soft serve ice cream cone for $4 each.  We all split a fries and chicken fingers portion for $8.  With the food and ice cream in hand, we strolled up the boardwalk to the beach.   We stopped at the shaded rest area to relax and chat for a while.  The kids ate the food and played.  The beach was crowded and we were not dressed for sand/water activities so we packed up the kids and headed to the arcade.  Abby and Zoë had a great time with all the games and quarters.  We blew through $20 in quarters what felt like no time, but was about an hour.  We exchanged our ticket winnings for candy.  The girls got ring pops and an bag full of tootsie pops, which we shared with Jack and Anna.  Everyone had a great time and was tired and ready for bed when we returned.  I made a pineapple, mandarin orange and mango smoothie to rehydrate us before having a small dinner and getting ready for bed.

We had been waiting for Target to come to the area for a long time.  We would drive to the nearest one 25+ minutes away on occasion.  When we learned they were opening a store nearer to us, we were super excited.  We called and kept up with the progress and the opening.  We attended the Grand Opening this morning, only to find out it wasn't so grand after all.  They had a "silent" opening on Tuesday with all the hoopla and fanfare.  So I guess we missed it.  The customer service lady said it was only for the word of mouth crowd.  This disappointed us extremely.  We felt let down by Target, arriving at the opening time on the Grand Opening day, we really wanted to celebrate with Target, instead we just browsed an almost empty store.  The carts were new and Enzo enjoyed the stroll at least.