Cape Cod!

The bulk of our trip was spent in Cape Cod at the beach.  I was so glad to see the girls really exploring the beach and finding LOTS of treasures and life to examine and learn about.  With the help of my mother-in-law, we made some bags from screen and and webbing for the girls to collect treasures.

One of the first things they found were some scallops attached to seaweed.  They really loved watching the scallops, which moved and snapped around in the bucket.

Here is a picture of Hailey and her cousin intently watching the scallops.

The also found many slipper shells on the beach.

One of the most interesting things we found on the beach were these:

Madeline found them when she was digging in the wet sand.  It took us a bit to figure out what they were.  Turns out they are sand fleas, also known as mole crabs, sand crabs, or sea pigs.  They were very interesting to watch.  We learned that the females carry their eggs on their bellies, like the crayfish.  You can see a bit of what we think are the orange eggs in this picture (we did not learn about them carrying the eggs until later, otherwise I would have tried to get a better picture):

We also learned that the males are much smaller than the females, as seen in this picture:

We were really lucky because the weather was unseasonably warm while we were there.  We even actually spent time in the water.

Of course, there was also digging in the sand...

sand castle making (this one included a really large hole)...

and burying of kids in the sand.

Madeline made this sundial in the sand, which was accurate for the time she made it.

We also had a great time finding tracks on the beach in the wet sand.

It was amazing all the things we found to learn about and explore at the beach!  I think we could have stayed for a much longer time and not run out of things to keep us interested!