Roar To The Shore 2008

This past weekend we headed down to Wildwood, NJ for Joseph's first bike rally (well, as a participant anyway!). James and Sandy went too, and we were all kid-free for the weekend. I think the last time that happened was when we went to Villa Roma for vacation before Juli was born. It's been a while!

Joseph and James rode their bikes down on Friday afternoon and Sandy & I met them down there that night... at just about the same time as Hurricane Hanna arrived! Luckily, it wasn't a wash-out though. It did rain pretty hard for a bit on Friday night and then off and on on Saturday until a downpour for a few hours in the afternoon/early evening. After that, the skies cleared up and Saturday night and Sunday were beautiful!

Joseph entertaining himself with his "Crain-com" while we waited out the rain

Me, looking overly excited to be sitting on the bike, LOL

James & Sandy

My curly Wildwood hair...

Gotta love the humidity there!

Rubber Duck Boardwalk Ride
James in front, Joseph behind him
Joseph
The Boardwalk ride went out onto the streets too.
Joseph is in front now and James behind him.

Excuse me sir, I think you have something on your head!

Gearing up for the ride home

Eyes on the road

Checkin' out some hot chicks in the car next to them!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Katie!

Tonight Aunt Sandy, Juli and Livi came over for Katie's birthday dinner with me, Joseph, Katie, and Maddie. Then Grandma came over to sing Happy Birthday and Katie got even more presents!
(Disclaimer: Our dining room is being remodeled, hence the open walls and unfinished floor!)

Singing to Katie

Juli's happy to have a piece of Katie's birthday cake

The cake

Grandma snuggling with Livi

Our Lil' Party

Opening Grandma's gift, a really pretty winter coat! :-)

I think this is her look of shock because she got a "cambra"

Now she's excited!

Checking in out and ready to take some pictures!

Happy Father's Day!

James and Sandy came over tonight with the girls for a Father's Day BBQ. Katie, Juli and Livi had a great time playing on the slide and swing set while the grown-ups snacked on some yummy BBQ food. Joseph and I made pulled pork for the first time and it was so good! I can't wait to have some of the leftovers, :-).

Katie trying to go under Juli to get over to the 'drive'

Livi could do it easily since she's smaller.

Success! Livi takes the wheel!

Monkey girl!

My camera died since I hadn't charged it after the concert last night so I don't have too many pictures, :-(.

Fruit Cakes!

I think that would be a good way to describe the thousands of people (us included) standing in the pouring rain waiting for Jimmy Buffett!

For Father's Day, Sandy and I got James and Joseph tickets to the Jimmy Buffett concert at Citizen's Bank Park. We were lucky to get 17th row seats and they were awesome! G Love & Special Sauce, a Philly band, opened for Jimmy. Then right before he was going to come on stage a huge thunder/lightning storm rolled in and SOAKED us!

We were all holding out for Jimmy to come on stage but they finally made an announcement for everyone on the field to take cover on the mezzanine level "for your own safety" so we had to trek up there and then everyone was packed in like sardines until the storm blew over. After the heaviest part of the storm moved out, we made it back to our seats and the show went on. It was well worth the wait!!! :-)

G Love & Special Sauce with J.B. taking it in (blue shirt on the right).
He was dancing too but I missed that pic.

Aloha! James reluctantly put on his lei. Once it was on though, he was in Margaritaville mode, :-).

Before the monsoon came...

Hey, don't worry Jimmy, we've got stage security covered!

Beach balls were flying around everywhere... Joseph getting in on the beach ball action

Then came the rain...
I wish I could have taken more pics of how hard it was raining but the camera would have been ruined. It rained about 1" in an hour!
James "waiting for a bus" on the mezzanine.
(Some crabby old hag was complaining about everyone just standing there and said that - as if we had any where to go!)

Soaked...
There was not a single dry spot on either of us!

Finally... Jimmy took the stage!

Jimmy visited the USS Harry Truman, based out of Norfolk, VA in Dubai a few months ago. Tonight they were at the concert so he played "Son of a son of a sailor" in their honor.


The Phillie Phanatic even stopped by to rock out with Jimmy!

At the end of the show, there was a big fireworks display!

I have some other videos to upload too but I'm having a problem playing them to figure out what's what so I'll have to add them later! For more pics, check out James and Sandy's blog.

Happy 90th Aunt Ida!

Sandy, Marie and I went to Aunt Ida's 90th birthday party in Brooklyn. I didn't take too many pictures because I didn't feel like snapping pics (imagine that! LOL). But Sandy took a lot of good ones if you want to check them out.

Aunt Ida tearin' up the dance floor! I hope I'll still be up on the dance floor when I'm 90. God bless her! :-)Also, Happy 5th Anniversary to James and Sandy! Ironically, the first song the DJ played at the party was their wedding song. :-)

And... Happy 25th Anniversary to Father Guy! Unfortunately we won't be able to make it to the dinner his congregation is hosting in his honor because we'll be in Myrtle Beach but we definitely would've been there otherwise! They had a cake yesterday to celebrate since so many out-of-towners were there who might not be able to make it to the church's celebration.

Happy 1st Birthday, Livi!

Today is Livi's 1st birthday so we went over to have dinner together and sing Happy Birthday to her since her big party won't be until May because Juli will be getting her tonsils out next time Uncle James is home. So we had a mini-party tonight...

Make a wish!

Let me just take a lil' taste...
Cake is goooooood!
Katie and Juli agree
SCREAMING Happy Birthday to Livi!
(and possibly the last picture of Juli's tonsils, LOL)

Follow me to the presents!

What's in there?

It's a bubble mower!!!

Livi and her present from us

Livi trying out her new mower

But it wasn't long before Thing 1 and Thing 2 claimed it as theirs!
(Look at poor Livi's face, she's like "What the heck just happened???")

She did get it back but the girls didn't give it up easily!

Easter Dinner

We ended our busy day with dinner at James and Sandy's house. Mom-Mom came for dinner too and then Aunt Karen, Uncle Chris, Maddie, and Two Mom-Mom came up for dessert (which I actually remembered this time!)

'Mommy and Me' timeMom-Mom was VERY thirsty!

Robin eggs