Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns. ~George Eliot

A hint of autumn is in the air on the Eastern Shore. Nothing I could put my finger on, maybe a drop in the humidity, but the air is different. Bluer skies, cooler mornings, and the running of the woolly caterpillars. My second-favorite season...my favorite being autumn's sister-twin, spring. This transitional season is too, too brief and the Turmanators are soaking in every bit of outdoors time we can.

Friday I took the girls to Assateague Beach, which is off Chincoteague Island and about 40 minutes away. Not my first choice of beaches here, but some friends chose to go and invited us along. Assateague is on the seaside and is considerably rougher than the bayside, so I haven't been up there since I was pregnant with India. The girls didn't do much swimming because the waves were just too gnarly for the short people, but they had a great time playing with friends, digging holes and chasing seagulls.

The first photo is of Tom's Cove, a great little cove for canoeing and kayaking, as you can see, or for crabbing and bird watching. You might even see the occasional Chincoteague pony if it is low tide. To the right (out of range of the picture) is the famous Assateague lighthouse. BC (Before Kids) we did a lot of kayaking up here.

The seagulls on Assateague are evil, nasty vultures in disguise. The instant they spy folk eating they spread the word and, suddenly you are surrounded by every beach pigeon on the Delmarva Peninsula. The kids took to throwing sand balls at them after they took a cracker right out of Henry's hand. Yuck! This brazen behavior is shaped by obnoxious tourists to Chincoteague who love to feed them and go home to leave the rest of us to live with the insufferable birds. Poor Ellie was dive-bombed here like Tippi Hedren in "The Birds". One can only imagine the bird-poop; I won't go into details here.

Friday night we held a camping dress rehearsal. We chose a wonderful locale as near as possible to the relative safety of beds, nightlights, and familiar surroundings...the backyard. Luckily we have a big one with no visible neighbors. My girls (whose first words were both "side" for "outside" LOVED it. Loved it, that is, until 10pm when these 8pm bedtimers still weren't able to sleep and requested that we take them back into their home for the remainder of the night. Too bad, Tracy and I had a great view of the stars and were lucky enough to witness a couple of shooting ones. The fire kept the mosquitos from carrying us away but I will say we're all covered in Benadryl creme this morning. Oh, well. We'll try again next year. "Til then, maybe we'll just stick with making s'mores.