A glorious weekend

This weekend was arguably one of the best in recent memory. Nick and I spent time together doing some of our favorite things. Friday night was pretty low-key: grilling and watching a movie. Saturday was our big adventure. First we dropped off my car at the repair shop for an inspection, emissions test, and oil change. No surprise that they called me later and said it needed about $400 in repairs. This is very typical.

After dropping off my car, we hit the road and headed to Ocean City, NJ. We are always met with shock when we tell people we've never been to the shore, so we set out to rectify that. We were on the highway before 8:30 am, and discovered that that is the time to go.
Nothing of the rumored horrible traffic if you leave early.
Nick is a rascal.


We found a parking spot a few blocks away from the boardwalk and thus paid nothing all day! We went straight to the boardwalk, bought our beach tags and found ourselves a spot. This was our view to the boardwalk:

Plenty of room on the beach if you get there early.

Happy Nick.

Happy Clouds.

After a little over an hour on the beach, we of the fair skin decided to cover up for awhile and check out the 2 mile boardwalk and get some lunch. We grabbed a slice of pizza at a place Nick's coworker recommended, then went off the boardwalk to get some fried clams. Nick found us a great place for that.

After lunch, we walked off our lunch on the boardwalk.

The mini golf places have the best decor. Nick vs. the dragon.

We decided we needed a bit more beach time. We strolled down the beach with our feet in the water and found a new spot amidst the crowds for more relaxation and time in the sun with our spf diligently applied.

The beach does marvelous things to Nick's hair, no?

We decided to head back pretty early, around 3:30 pm or so, to get out of the sun and to beat the traffic back to Philly. The traffic coming to the shore at that time of day was awful, but not so on the way home. This photo gives you a sense of how crowded it was when we left:

We had such a fantastic time on Saturday. We think we loved it so much because every major vacation we've taken together has involved the beach: Hawaii, Antigua. It felt just like that when we got all settled on the beach with our books, sunblock, and water. The mini-vacation feel to the day means we'll be going back every chance we get for the rest of the summer. There are so many shore points to visit, and we can't wait to find out which is our favorite. I wouldn't be surprised if we go back next Sunday.

The rest of Saturday we spent relaxing. We went out to dinner at a neighborhood Mexican place (that was fantastic) and watched a movie at the house. Sunday was full of errands for the first part of the day, and Nick decided to go on a cooking spree, courtesy of our Essential Asian cookbook, while I did laundry, hung more curtains, and played sous chef. It was such a great weekend, filled with our favorite things. Next weekend promises to be excellent too!