Plum Island!!

Nina was in utter heaven this weekend. Plum Island with Aunt, Unk, and Chester!

Nina spent hours in the surf. She got soaked all the way up to the tops of her thighs, and the water was freezing, but she didn't care. She was the happiest kid in the world. Even though Nick, Maggie, and I were there too!!

Maggie had fun at the beach too. Not as much fun as Nina, and she was ready to go back to Aunt and Unk's after an hour or two, but she enjoyed herself. It was chilly down by the water (and the ocean temp couldn't have been higher than the low 40s), but the sun was nice and warm.

We also had a lovely (lovely!) time visiting furniture shops. Erik tried to pressure us into buying a whole house's worth of furniture, but I managed to resist. Still, expenditures for the weekend were well over a thousand dollars. Ok, ok, that include pre-paying Erik for a year of cell phone usage, but still. Quite the sticker-shock for me and Nick.

On the plus side, I have a lovely new mattress pad that I bought from Kohl's for 65% off. I'd talked with Erik about the mattress situation at Bob's and briefly entertained the idea of going ahead and buying a new mattress. But I told Erik that I didn't really see the point of a whole new mattress when our mattress was really fine, just not cushy enough. All I really needed, I said, was a gel-type mattress pad. Surely that makes more sense.

Then, lo and behold, my brother finds me one at Kohl's that's 50% off! And a vacuum! We went there for pants for Nina, but we went with Erik, so you know how that goes. I'd almost backed out of the mattress pad (origionally $500 but it was still $250 after the sale), but THEN the woman at checkout said we could get an additional 30% off the entire purchase if we opened a Kohl's card, and I couldn't resist. We got it all, plus a dress for me and a birthday present for Maggie. All together we saved almost $500 on the purchase. Mom, you must be so proud!

Also at Bob's I picked up two waterproof, hypoallergenic mattress pads for the girls, plus pillow covers. Nina's been sneezing at night, or waking up at night in the middle of the night with a stuffy nose, and this is supposed to provide a barrier against allergens and dust mites. So, hopefully that helps the poor kid out at night. Plus they needed waterproof mattress pads anyway, so I was extra exited to get those.

I also got myself some new sunglasses in downtown Newburyport and we all got ice cream and played at some playgrounds. It was a sunny, fun, economy-stimulating weekend!!