Vacation at the Jersey Shore

We recently returned from a week long trip to visit Cathy's family in New Jersey. Most of the time was spent in Brigatine (near Atlantic City) on the beach. We stayed at Cathy's brothers condo there, and sunned ourselves on the beach by day.

This year we invited Cathy and Terry Shannon and their kids Lizzie, Micheal, and Jackson to spend the week there as well. They were kind enough to have us down to their beach house in North Carolina a few times in the past. Unfortunately their house was recently sold and they were having serious beach withdrawal. We didn't spend all our time on the beach. The kids enjoyed a stroll down the famous Atlantic City Boardwalk, and being the bad influence that I am, I talked Lizzie's mom into letting her get a temporary tattoo as illustrated in the opening photo. Jaimie managed to win some stuffed animals in a carny game for Michael and Jackson.

"I'm only scared of one thing in this world...carnies. They have small hands... and smell like cabbage." -Austin Powers

Cathy's family made some trips down to visit us there. Her sister Lee and brother-in-law Jimmy in particular spent several days with us working on our skin cancer, I mean sun tans.

The kids still remember the time I took everyone out for a boat ride in North Carolina, and still call me Capt'n Charlie, so it was of major importance to get them back out again. This time Cathy's cousin Carl did the honors and the Shannons got a short tour in the bay side of the Atlantic City waterways. Good relaxing trip.