Back From the Beach

The week-long vacation is already over. Time went by fast even though all that I did was relaxing and hanging out by the beach in Wildwood, New Jersey. We were back yesterday and I am still recuperating before diving back into the regular schedule tomorrow.

Woke up early this morning and I already missed jogging on the beach biking on the boardwalk and listening to music. My favorite morning listenings were Art Pepper & Hollywood All-Stars’ Art Standards and Kenny Garrett’s Pursuance: Music of John Coltrane. I returned to these two again and again in one week.

For the first three days, we were completely shut off from Cyberspace, which was really nice. When the whole family, which consisted of eight adults and one kid, took a long nap or watched some TV, I did my reading. I finished a 1000-page book in less than week without Internet. By Wednesday, my sister-in-law’s husband could not stand it so he went out and get the MiFi from Sprint. Even though we were connected, I tried my best to stay offline and I did pretty well.

Dao was the only kid; therefore, he was spoiled by his aunts and uncles. They took him to the arcades on the boardwalk and got him all kinds of toys. He was having a great time, but refused to go on any of rides on the amusement park. The water was a bit cold so he didn’t like that either. In fact, none of the adults went into the water except for me. It was a little cold at first, but it felt nice especially in the afternoon when the temperature hit above 90 degrees.

We went to Atlantic City twice, but I hung out with Dao most of the time rather than playing cards. Pai Gow poker minimum was $25, which was too high for me. I don’t really like slot machines, but Dao loved them. He loved the lights, the spinning wheels and the sounds. I did let him play the slot machines at the arcade.

We didn’t eat out much, except for the first day Dana and I treated the family to a Mexican cuisine to celebrate our anniversary. We cooked most of the food at the house we rented. Dana FedExed 30 pounds of live crawfish from Louisiana. It turned out that 30 pounds weren’t enough for the nine of us. The crawfish were delicious because my sister-law-law used up most of my beers to cook them. In one pot she used 5 bottles of Yuengling and we cooked three pots.

It was really nice to spend some time with the family. I am glad that they have turned this into an annual event.