Weekend 'o Fun

This was a lovely summery weekend! Playing outside makes me seriously wish I was a teacher looking forward to two months of this, but I guess I have to just appreciate what I do have. Friday night we finished watching Nurse Jackie and then Valentine's Day while Becky threatened to die of a cold. Saturday we woke up and the weather forecast said 90 degrees and sunny so we took off for the shore! We're both scared of sand in our cameras and leaving valueables on the beach while we swim, so sadly there are no pictures from this adventure. But rest assured, we conqured waves for hours, ate too much delicious Nagle's ice cream (but they were out of their flavor of the day - chocolate cake better!), and made our feet hurt from wandering on the boardwalk too long. I seriously can't believe how far the Asbury Park boardwalk has come since we first started going there a few years ago. Where once we tried Taylor Ham at a rundown beach grill with one table, now there are fancy restaurants. We planned/schemed/dreamed of our upcoming shore vacation with my family. At one point Becky commented "I hope everybody else has as much fun as I plan to have." Me too!

Today we headed the other direction into New York. We went to Governor's Island for the Veuve Clicquot Polo Match, featuring His Royal Highness Prince Harry (last name, Windsor, as Google tells us - who knew?). By far the highlight of the day was when the prince fell off his horse just in front of where we were standing. He laughed it off and climbed right back on while the crowd cheered excitedly. That's him in the white outfit walking up to the horse. Apparently the crowd around us knew about as much about Polo as we do, since we overheard them asking each other things like "how do they score a goal?"

Unfortunately the weather was just as hot and sunny as Saturday, but with no swimable beach in sight. We asessed our finances and determined that we are a bit too poor to enjoy the $70/bottle champagne being served. $3 bottled water seemed overpriced but do-able. Except that one cafe, two food stands, and a hot dog cart were all. sold. out. Seriously people? Did you not anticipate high demand for water on an island with no potable drinking water in 90-degree sun? We eventually did find something cool to drink, but not before we'd ruled out bike riding as a viable activity for the day. We'll have to go back another weekend, especially since the vendors seem to have vastly increased the amount and variety of bikes available for rent! 6-person surrey bikes seemed to be the Sunday activity of choice for several Orthodox Jewish families visiting the island. Come July and we'll be hauling Jen and Sean and Matthew and Thomas on an Asbury Park surrey bike!

Although we were tired and hot, we did decide to swing by the NYC Pride festival on the way home. Sadly I think we missed most of the free stuff and hadn't had nearly enough alcohol (aka none) to make it a good time. But here's some photographic proof anyways.


Back at home we enjoyed a relaxed dinner and a movie. Goodnight weekend, we'll miss you bunches.