7/11/10 - 7/18/10: Whew! What a week! How can a week at the shore be both relaxing and exhausting? Try 7 kids and up to 6 adults! So, this is the fourth installment of the Rush/Mayro summer convention “down the shore,” and it was as awesome as ever. Better, maybe. It started with Tonya, Jeff, Zachary, Molly, Nina, Owen and Ton’s mom, Heather. That’s their part of the party. Then there’s my mom, Brad, Grace, Caroline and me. And then, our true saving grace this week, Tara, Tonya’s “mother’s helper.” Tara saved our kids’ butts by keeping them occupied and out from underfoot.
The house gets a little more “run down” every year, so we giggled a bit about the state of affairs and set off for the sand and surf. Day one the water was actually pretty warm! Of course, days two through seven were not as warm. Figures. The boardwalk was great. I discovered my new funnel cake place, we ate Johnson’s popcorn, Kohr’s Brothers ice cream, George’s ice cream, Mack & Manco’s pizza, Angelo’s pizza, and Brown’s donuts, rode rides at Wonderland and bought all sorts of stupid stuff. The girls all got fake nails, which Caroline put on her toes (totally the creepiest thing you’ve ever seen!), Zack won multiple free rounds of miniature golf (Grace won one too), Zack, Tonya, Grace & Brad parasailed, I saved two horseshoe crabs that were caught in fishing line and Grace spent hours combing the beach for critters. Brad and I also got to spend an evening at Harrah’s Atlantic City enjoying Straight No Chaser in concert. That was an awesome show.
We ate well, drank moderately and spent a lot of hours on the beach chilling out. Everyone else rode their bikes at least a couple of times. Brad even rode all the way through Atlantic City & back and down to Stone Harbor another day. Tonya and Jeff ran several times and I just shoveled food in my face and got fatter. Tonya and I also caught up on our trash magazines with a couple that had been left there by other renters. I started to listen to the Eat, Pray, Love audio book and decided it might be better on paper. Tara braided the girls’ hair on multiple occasions and Owen ate several pounds of cheese and yogurt. Nina became the tripper, taking over Molly’s place from last year, and I think Zack really wished there was a boy his age there with us. The Mayro family won the new annual baseball game, while Tara took her place as the premier pitcher and Tonya finally learned how to put the bat down before running.
The lifeguards had to spend some time digging their guard stand out of the sand after removing the boat that had been placed on top of the toppled over box. And one day they wore bright orange rain gear – quite ominous for us beach goers. It stormed the night before and we had some lightning strikes on a couple other occasions. Cool, I thought. I got to see one of my college friends, Marshall Ogen, and his family in the midst of the craziness that is Pirate’s Cove and I got some of the best nights sleep I’ve had in ages.
Of course, we’re already planning for next year. What would the summer be without Ocean City, New Jersey?
No comments:
Post a Comment