Boardwalk Shots

We spent last week in Ocean City, Maryland, enjoying all the beach, family fun, and the end of summer vacation.  Now that we have been home for a week, all the beach memories are happy ones:  playing in the waves (no broken bones this year!), sand castles, beach combing, flying kites, playing frisbee, kayaking in the Bay, eating steamed crabs, riding Trimper's rides, slurping Dumser's milkshakes, and more.  I've almost forgotten about all the sunscreen and continuous bathing that the trip required.  Almost.

We went biking on the Boardwalk on three different mornings.  Abby and Caroline are able to pedal their two-wheelers on their own (with me constantly reminding Caroline -- STAY TO THE RIGHT, THE OTHER RIGHT!).  Ben isn't quite ready yet, so he rides along in the carrier attached to the back of my bike.  Although he's comfortable, in the past he has gotten bored with it after about 15 minutes and then starts putting his feet on the carrier wheels to make the fun zzzzzzzzzz noise which makes my bike ride significantly more challenging with all the drag.

This year I got creative and encouraged Ben to take pictures with our old digital camera while he rode along.  I had no idea how much fun this would turn out to be. Ben was totally occupied, either taking photos or previewing all the pictures on the memory card.  We were shocked -- seriously shocked -- to find out that Ben has very specific photographic interests.  He has an "aesthetic".  Who knew??

Check out these totally unaltered photos from BEN:

 
Those are cool, right??

Of course, Ben is a still only a 5-year old boy, so he also took a bunch of these:

Ben's Self Portrait
(I love how he smiled for his own picture)

My  Lower Half  

(oh yes, I'll be going on a diet)

I took this one of the photographer.