Keeping Up With...Family (Weekly Wrap 6/10 - 6/16 - Part 1)

It's been two weeks since I did a recap since we went on vacation and then had vacation hangover.  I will be doing the recap of those two weeks as quickly as I can so I don't get further behind.  I may have to split vacation into (at least) two posts because we were busy.  In short I will tell you that our trip to NJ was amazing!!  We had a fantastic time visiting with family & friends, going to the beach, riding rides at Six Flags and camping.  It was an amazing week and it was very hard to leave and come back to reality last weekend.  Keep reading for all of the details.

Friday (6/10) started a little rough with Daniel having a horrible stomach ache.  He had to miss the last day of sports and art camp and was very upset about that.  Thankfully he rested most of the morning and was back up and running by the afternoon.  AJ finished up video game design camp and we were able to go in and see what he had created in the week.  His video game wasn't working right but it was very cool to see the whole world he had created on his own.  We left from there to take the boys to get their hair cut and then got home and spent the night packing up to hit the road bright and early Saturday morning.

Saturday (6/11) we hit the road a little before 9am and headed east.  The boys were champs again on the road and we only needed to stop twice in the 8 hour drive.  We made it to our campground in around 9 hours, got checked in and started to set up camp.  The boys ran around on the play ground and played mini golf while I helped Adrian set up camp.  We finished up, grabbed some dinner and hung out listening to the DJ the campground had that night.

 

Sunday (6/12) we had planned to meet my Uncle Tom and cousins at Six Flags Great Adventure for the day.  We got a little later than planned start and ended up sitting in a ton of traffic - and our campground was less than 5 miles from the park!  We finally got in, parked and walked up to see an hour long wait to get thru bag check.  I called my cousin (who was sitting in horrible traffic as well) and we made an alternate plan.  We decided to go out to lunch at Friendly's (one of my favorites!) and then head over to visit my grandfather for the bulk of the day.  Even though it wasn't what we had planned, it ended up being a nice day of spending time with family.

Monday (6/13) we finally made it inside Six Flags and there was hardly anyone there!  The NJ schools were still in session most of this week so we had very few people in the park while we were there.  We were pretty much on and off every ride we wanted to ride.  Zak continues to not be interested in the big rides, even though he's tall enough to ride them.  He spent most of his time in Safari Kids and Bugs Bunny Land.  Daniel rode The Dark Knight coaster twice, once with me and once with Adrian.  And AJ was the most brave and dragged me on rode the new Joker coaster.  We only had to wait about 30 minutes, which was great for a brand new ride.  We had a super fun day riding just about everything we wanted to ride and headed out of the park around 5:00 so we could head on to our next destination for the day.

Daniel, Zak & Dad on the swings

Ready for "The Dark Knight"

Zak loved these planes!

The Joker!!

Monday night we headed to my Uncle Tony and Aunt Joan's house for dinner.  We enjoyed hamburgers and hot dogs and sides, then ice cream for dessert.  They live right on the water and it's always so nice to sit in their yard and relax.  The boys enjoyed playing with the rocks in their yard since there is no grass.  They thought those and the shells were great fun.  It was a nice time to just catch up with my Aunt and Uncle before calling it a night.

I think I'll call this post done since it's getting pretty long and the rest of the week is just as busy.  I'll pick up the vacation recap tomorrow!!