We love Sag Harbor; it’s the not-Hampton (remember the un-cola?). You don’t have to use traffic-congested Montauk Highway to get there – a real blessing. Nor do you have to deal with all the Ferrari-driving rich that habitate in the Hamptons.  Sag is a real place with hilly streets, perfectly scaled architecture,  a charming downtown, loads of churches and bay beaches that make it a lovely place to be.

Ten of us (husband, kids, sister, bro-in-law, niece, babysitterandsomuchmore, mother, friend of son) shared two houses on an idyllic street in the heart of Sag. We call it a family vacation

Yup, a lot has changed in Sag since 1991 when I spent a week photographing artifacts at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum (for a children’s film called Long Island Discovery). Back then the Paradise Diner was a real, honest-to-goodness diner and there was a great variety store. The variety store is still there – one of those now-rare five and dimes where  you can get absolutely everything – almost. They still have Old Gold Cigarette posters from the 1920’s and ’30’s hanging on the wall. And the cashier has a real ‘seen it all look’ on her face.

But the Paradise Diner is now an expensive bistro called the New Paradise Restaurant, and there are one too many t-shirt shops and high-end boutiques with hostess gifts and gifts for dogs. I used to love to browse at Paradise Books (what the diner became before it became the restaurant ). But that’s gone, too.

Still, Sag has a lot of charm, a lot of history and personal history, too. This was our eighth summer renting there. Our first summer, Teen Spirit was in second grade and OSFO was just a toddler. It rained for most of the two weeks we were there but we still had fun. This year, Teen Spirit brought a friend and they took long walks just to get lost, went to the movies by themselves, jammed on their guitars in the air conditioned bedroom, and spent hours in the ocean (when it wasn’t too hot to go to the beach).

During the worst of the heat wave, a large grouping of us sat in the air conditioned living room and moaned about how hot it was. "Ohhh, it’s soooooo hot," someone would say. "Really, really hot."

In the back yard, we filled 2-year old Ducky’s inflatable swimming pool with ice cold water. The boys had  water fights that devolved into general mayhem. We took turns sitting in the tiny wading pool and sprayed our heads with the hose. Anything to feel cool. Anything. Thankfully, the refrigerator had one of those ice makers on the door.

Our haven for cooling off was Haven’s Beach, which we call the Cheesy Beach, because it doesn’t have waves like Atlantic Beach. That’s the Fancy Beach in Amagansett (they charge ten bucks to park but we love it anyway). The Cheesy Beach, however, is an easy walk from the house (when it’s not too hot to walk) and it has numerous charms; it’s downright blissful at low tide when you  can walk a quarter mile out without the water touching your knees.

One day at the Cheesy Beach, a group of teenage girls from Eastern Europe in g-string bikinis that didn’t cover their buttocks at all, chain smoked and took pictures of each other with disposable cameras.  They seemed to enjoy the stares they were getting from the boys swimming in the bay.

Highpoints of the week:
–Ducky’s birthday party. Hello Kitty Plates. Cup cakes. Lemonade. The Beatles singing, "You Say It’s Your Birthday" on the i-Pod.
–The great Mercedes Ruehl in a dreamy, passionate play about Frida Kahlo at the Bay Street Theater.
–The 5 p.m. show of  "I’m Your Man," the Leonard Cohen documentary at the fabulous art deco Sag Harbor movie theater with its refurbished red neon sign.
–The annual sand castle contest at the beach in Amagansett. This year the tide destroyed the sand sculptures earlier than usual.
–The light at Atlantic Beach at 5 p.m (pictures to come).
–Three hours of body surfing on Saturday (perfect waves).
–Iced coffee at Sylvester & Co. (one of those places that sells gifts for dogs but we love their iced coffee).
–The drive to Sagaponick.
–Further Lane to Bluff Road
–Reading Cynthia Ozicks’s story, "What Happened to the Baby" in this month’s Atlantic.
–Random book browsing through dozens of books in the rented house.
–Great dinners on the deck.
–Gin and tonics.

Low points
When Hepcat lost his car keys in the ocean and we had to call AAA and get a locksmith to come and make us new keys – a two hour ordeal that was actually a bit of an adventure.