You guys, I’m not exaggerating when I say that the ride to the beach was a disaster! Without going into too much detail (because certain family members would AND SHOULD be embarrassed by their behavior), let’s just say that it started with Ana screaming, escalated to others screaming, tapered off with a lot of crying, and ended with a mass silent treatment- everybody not talking to ANYBODY.

LET THE VACATION BEGIN!

Here are a few highlights:

Miniature Golf

Miniature golf began like every other fun-filled family activity, with smiles and good intentions.

Then, like every other fun-filled family activity, it quickly unraveled …

It could have been her ball was the wrong shade of pink, or that I opened her water bottle even though she’s “…A KINDERGARTNER NOW AND NOT A BABY!”  I can’t remember, I just know that we decided to ignore her, hoping she’d get out of her funk.

It was somewhere around hole #12 that I no longer sensed her intense anger trying to ignite my body with the heat of a thousand suns. In fact, I felt nothing but a cool breeze- and that’s how I knew she was gone.

Panicked, we quickly spread out in a familiar and often executed Search & Rescue Arc Formation, sweeping the perimeter and conducting a thorough search as we returned to home base.

At  approximately 1:07 pm, she was found in a roped off area, sitting on a mushroom and contemplating her awful, unfair life.

Lunch Date

My mother-in-law was kind enough to take the kids to the pool so Brian and I could go on a romantic lunch date….apparently with this lady.

OMG! The moment we were seated, this lady turns towards me, leans into our table likes she’s about to tell me a secret, and starts reading a book! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I’d rather hear the secret.

At one point, our table cloth interfered with her pages.

Do these things happen to other people or do I unknowingly cast some kind of crazy net?

Tennis

Brian’s mom had a tennis date with 2 other players and Brian offered to play as the 4th. He then proceeded to talk smack to his 70 year old competitors, throwing comments like “I’m going to run circles around you!” and “Bring it on, old man!”  His competitiveness has no limits…or tact.

Not so secretly, I was hoping they’d kick his ass, proving that you can’t judge a book by its cover and that age is just a number and all that crap. Unfortunately, he was terrific.

The Bay

We decided to forgo the Labor Day beach crowd and drove to the bay.

“Hey, this place is great! Why don’t we come here more often? Wait, what’s that smell?”

If you look behind Brian, you’ll notice a pile of dead and decaying horseshoe crabs who had washed on the shore to mate…then die.

Prehistoric ‘sex on the beach”

Funland on the boardwalk

The blur of this picture captures the way Funland makes me feel- chaotically crazed. In fact, I picture Hell as one long carnival ride line, teenagers pushing and shoving while little kids lick rusty railings and drip ice cream on my feet.

But then I look at this face and think “It’s all worth it.”

…and then I step in vomit.

On The Way Home

Someone mentioned the word “nuts”, someone else thought they said “donuts”, and suddenly we were using the gps to track down the best donut shops in Dover, Delaware- thus, the 2014 “Fatty Detour” was born.

*Did you know there’s a Dunkin Donuts almost every 2 miles?