Good Morning, Sunshines! The Beach Says Hello!

Greetings from the beach!  The last couple of days have been crazy…  Friday was spent coming back from PA.  We got back kind of late, so no real hard-core packing for the beach was done on that day.  Saturday was go-day, and we had to pack up everything we needed to get out of the house by 4/5ish PM so as to get to our destination in a reasonable amount of time.  It’s hard to get seven people out of the house in a hurry without some hiccups…

"I can't find my other flip-flop!"

“I need water!”

“I have to go to the bathroom!” 

“I forgot something!”

Yeah.  Real fun.  We had to turn the car around once because we forgot to pack Boo’s playpen in all the frenzy.

Vacation spot of choice is Ocean City, MD—about four hours away.

An arial view of Ocean City-- it's not very big-- that giant grey rectangle near the bottom right left of the land mass is the boardwalk parking lot, by the way.  It's big.  XD

The waves on the beach were nowhere near this big (not today, anyways) but the water color is purty dead on in this picture.  It looks weird, but the waves are green and then the water is blue.. it's just weird like that XD

And O.C. is home to their famous "boardwalk", basically a really long stretch of wooden walkway that extends for like, 2 miles!  Along the boards are shops and restaurants-- there are tons of people and it runs parallel to the beach.  The smell of Thrasher's famous vinegar fries.. funnel cake...the salt water air... it's like smelling surfer person heaven :D

**These photos are not mine, rather they are courtesy of Google and their respective "original image" links. (;

  The car ride was long.  I wrote, I listened to music, and I tried to get work done.  In fact, I tried to read my oh-so-thrilling book required for my AP History class this coming fall! (yay me, right?) Heh.  That proved to be hard. Intolerable, even.  Especially since the book probably more boring than watching paint dry…

I am ashamed to say I gave up.  I couldn’t take it anymore. I swapped to a 10000000 x more fascinating book called “Brain Rules” by John Medina. It’s an excellent read about how the human brain works and how we can preserve it / use it more to our benefit.  Even better, it’s written in a semi-simple way, so basically anyone of any education can pick it up and understand it (within reason--- I mean, I doubt little kids would really understand/want to read it… but you know what I mean.) I started the book on the trip and was almost halfway through it by the time we got to some place in Maryland.  Why can’t I read THAT book for a summer assignment?! It is SO much more intriguing than “The Lemon Tree” by far.  My friend said, “Oh, things start to pick up when you reach chapter six.”  -_- 

Well, with every chapter averaging about 20 pages or so… and the fact that chapter six is basically HALFWAY THROUGH THE BOOK…. I’m afraid I won’t make it until it “picks up”.   I know, I know.  It can’t be that bad.  And it probably isn’t, but I’m one of those people who actually wants to read things that interest me.  I’ll finish the book eventually, you can bet on that… but it’s going to be a long painful process.  XD

I’m slowly making progress on my German work… so that should be interesting by the time that’s all done.  I know I could, potentially, do all of the work required for that class in a day, but… that’s where the procrastination comes in.  Yeah, I have a lot of habits to kick before school starts—heck, even college!

But I digress.  Ocean City thus far has been purty fantasmical.  The first day was spent sleeping in, eating breakfast out and about (since we didn’t really have any food in our fridge yet), going to shop for groceries to put in said previously empty fridge, then swimming in the outdoor pool on the condo property (it was too cloudy to be a good beach day), and finally, settling in to eat mom’s cooking in our condo unit and falling asleep somewhat late after a bit of TV.  

Today wasn’t quite as sleep-in oriented; we got up, ate a breakfast fit for kings (consisting of turkey bacon, and bagels with cream cheese) and got ready to hit the beach!  Our condo building is not even 100 meters from the beach, we’re so close.  So the walk isn’t bad.  The day was beautiful; the sky was blue, the breeze was just right, and the feeling of sand between your toes was priceless.  The only downside was the fact that other people realized all of this too.  There were hardly any spots open for us to set up chairs and an umbrella… XD  But good ol’ Dad found us a spot and us kids quickly reduced our clothing down to our bathing suits, and we hit the water.   It was cold at first, but we adjusted and stayed in the gentle green glassy waves for quite awhile.  It was really nice—the swelling and falling of the waves was quite therapeutic. (:  A couple hours later, we emerged from the water and headed up towards the condo a bit sunburned (me, at least) and tired, but happy.  We showered and got dressed and headed out to dinner at one of my mom’s favorite places to eat—it’s been here ever since she was little.

Warren’s Station was originally established in 1960; it was initially a life-saving station that eventually got turned into a restaurant.  It's location is technically in Delaware, but it's literally on the line that divides Maryland and Delaware, so... 

Warren's Station! A great restaurant, especially families! (The sign says so!) XD

It's a nice place, full of great home-made food-- they've got a ton of seafood here, and I got a cream of crab soup which was absolutely fantabulous.  And now, I think I'll opt for some vanilla ice cream and sleep (:  OH and I must remember to put on more sunscreen tomorrow morning...  My skin is a peaches and cream complexion, not a tomato paste one, and I'd like to keep things that way (;

xoxo