Madeline's first...

Trip to Brown's!  

I don't remember my first trip to Brown's Seafood.  Probably because I was about the same age as Madeline is now.  My family has been going there for as long as I can remember.  When I was a kid, summer vacation meant trips to Seabrook Beach and, if you were lucky, dinner at Brown's.

 If you want to go to Brown's during the summer months, you have to be prepared for a long wait.  There's usually a line going out the door and into the parking lot.  It's best if you send a member of your party to the dinning area to try and throw elbows for a decent picnic table while someone else waits in line to order.  In fact, Eric and I tried to go a few weeks before Maddie was born, but the line was epic.  Under normal circumstances,  I would have waited, but since I was a fat, hungry, grumpy pregnant lady at the time...we sadly had to move on.  

Today, there were rumors of a snowstorm and it was blistering cold, which meant there was no line at Brown's.  We got a picnic table right by the windows, and I didn't even have to throw elbows.  

Nothing there has changed much.  It's still painted mustard yellow.  The gigantic tank of lobsters that I used to watch crawling around as a kid is still there.  The bathrooms still read "buoys" and "gulls."  It's still BYOB.  The old picnic tables have been replaced, but they are still laid out in the same way.  And, most importantly, the fried seafood is still delicious!

I love the beach in the winter.  It's so quiet and peaceful.  Eric and I like to daydream about living in a beach house during the winter months.  I'd drink lots of tea, write children's books and learn to paint.  Eric would play his trumpet and take our dog for walks on the beach.  During the summer months, we'd rent our house out to vacationers and travel up and down the east coast in our boat.  It's a nice dream.

We'll continue to dream and go to Brown's.  And when Madeline is a big girl, we'll say, "We used to take you here when you were a little baby, and you'd sleep on the table the whole time.  Do you remember that?"