Extraordinary Stories From An Ordinary Guy: The "Family Vacation 2017 Style" Story

Saturday, August 12, 2017

The "Family Vacation 2017 Style" Story

It was an ordinary day. Just returned from a week with my family at Ocean City, New Jersey. We have been taking a week down at the shore for over ten years and enjoy it more every year. Not sure if it's because I'm getting older and the time with the family is more precious or if I need an extra dose of laughter once in a while. My family consists of these characters (mean this in a nice way): wife Carol who just celebrated 50 years of wedded bliss with me a month ago; son Derek who coaches little league baseball and runs a printing press for a major printing company and drives a big truck which I would love to have; his wife and my daughter-in-law Barbara who is the sweetest person as well as a saint and has to be to be married to my son and also is the administrative assistant at her church; grandson Caden who is truly a respectful and nice kid (I should know since I taught school for 35 years) who enjoys all sports and is friends with everyone he knows; daughter Brynn who has two teenaged daughters so she is kept busy, but who also is the administrator for a large apartment complex and makes/designs signs to hang on your front door for decoration; son-in-law Dave who spent a year with us while engaged to our daughter and who now is the Administrator of Student Athletes for the football team at the University of Maryland; granddaughter Courtney who is a fabulous student in high school as well as my technology instructor; granddaughter Camille who has so many friends she can't count them all as well as being and athlete in just about any sport; and Paul (known to all as Tad) who is my youngest son and also works in the printing trade as a pressman for the local newspaper company as well as a great ice/rollerblade hockey player and his dad's go-to person when I need assistance of any kind. The week saw lots of action on the beach, fun in the evening on the boardwalk, visits to all our favorite restaurants, but most of all, just plain family time. We laughed and laughed and just when the laughter subsided, we laughed again. My face was awash with tears so many times from laughing that I don't remember when it wasn't. Sure, we had a few moments when we all didn't see eye to eye, but they were few and far between. My three favorite moments were of vacation were: (1) participating in an extremely tough word search game, titled Beach time, which my wife found in the local newspaper; we laughed so much my paper was soaked; we had to set a time limit for the game since it would have taken all day to complete and as it was the winner only found half the words, but was rewarded with a framed box I made years ago which featured sand, shells and a beach scene; (2) our first morning's breakfast at Brown's Restaurant where we stuff ourselves with fresh-made cake donuts; (3) and my annual ride witt my granddaughter on the huge ferris wheel on the boardwalk with this year my daughter making her first attempt at it. The look on her face when we reached the top was priceless. Well, I naturally have a few photos to share with you so without further adieu ... a few photos. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.