Summer has arrived!!!!

I don’t have any pictures from the first weekend down in Manasquan, but it was definitely a great time. It felt so good to be back!!!
I ended up going down on Saturday morning, after sticking around Friday night to baby-sit. I got up at my normal time, and walked down the street to the train station. It only took about 15 minutes to walk there, and I got there on time for the 8:50am train. I had to transfer twice (once in Secaucus and again in Long Branch). I managed to leave my backpack on the first train (no surprise there…I’m always losing something) and make it down to Manasquan by about 11:00am. Luckily, my bag was found and held at the Hoboken lost and found until Monday when I was able to go pick it up.
After arriving into Manasquan, Adam picked me up and brought Kory, Lauren and Walt with him so we could grab some food.
It felt sooo good to be back!!! The house was pretty much the same, except cleaner. We’re getting a new stove, which was installed on Monday. I’ll be using it this weekend to cook some of the side dishes for our party on Saturday.
After grabbing some food, Adam and I went to lay out by the beach. It was about 68 degrees and fairly breezy by the water. When the sun was out I was warm in just my bathing suit, but when it would go behind the clouds I would be freezing. After returning to the house, Lauren and I ran to Shoprite to grab some stuff for dinner. We ended up BBQing burgers and dogs and Jim and Billy showed up for the night.
On Sunday, since I didn’t get any color on Saturday, and the weather was much nicer (about 74 degrees) we all headed to the beach to lay out. I didn’t realize until getting home that I got too much sun. My chest and face are almost done peeling and I’m waiting to see if my legs, arms and stomach will peel this weekend. Needless to say I will be wearing sun block this weekend…
This week I didn’t do anything too exciting… I went to Detroit for business and got to see my family and KENDRA!!!! I hadn’t seen Kendra since the holidays, and it had been way too long. It felt great to just relax with my family and best friend at home in SCS!!!On Friday I’ll be picking up Rachel after work, and heading down to the PNC arts theatre to see Rascal Flatts!!! I can’t wait!!!! They’re by far my favorite band, and although I’ve been in love with them for years, this will be my 1st time seeing them live, probably because I could never find anyone to go with me before. After the concert we’ll head down to the Squan to help kick off the first official weekend of summer!!!! Our party is on Saturday and hopefully it will be a good one. I know we’ll have plenty of food and booze, I just hope the weather holds out for us.

Aaron's Graduation and the Long Island Beer Festival

Two weekends ago Adam and I flew back to MI for Aaron’s (Adam’s brother) graduation. Aaron graduated from the college of Natural Science, majoring in Mathematics. In the Fall he will be back at MSU to work on his PhD in Mathematics education. He hopes to be a college professor one day.
After the graduation ceremony, we all stopped off at the Michigan Brewing Co. We grabbed a quick beer and headed home to change into “evening” attire for dinner at Penna’s. The food was great and my mom, sister and grandmother met us there for the festivities.
On Sunday, Adam came back to my parent’s house after spending the night with his family in a hotel near the restaurant. His parents continued on their journey back to Rochester, NY, only this time with Aaron following behind, as he’s spending the summer working at home.
My mom had invited my Aunt Theresa and Uncle Jeff over, and my Aunt Pennie and Uncle Jim made a surprise visit as well. My grandma came over too, and we had plenty of food. It was nice to just relax with my family outside. My dad did the grilling and I helped prepare the other food. After dinner we just relaxed and packed. I was showing Adam some pictures of me when I was little when I ran across a picture of me and my cousin Andrea when we were young (see photo).
Our flight out of Detroit was on time and we made it back home by midnight, after sitting in traffic on the turnpike for an hour.
During the week I didn’t do anything too exciting. I went to see United 93, which was sad, but it made me angrier than anything else. It was a little hard to watch at parts, and I can see why a lot of people are hesitant to see it.
On Thursday my dad drove from MI to NY and stayed with Adam’s parents for the night before tagging along with them on Friday for the ride to NJ. They arrived at our apartment around 1:00pm, and Adam had taken a ½ day so he had lunch with them. I got out of work at 3:00pm so we could drive to LI for the beer fest.
As for the beerfest, it wasn’t everything we were hoping for. The organizers did a terrible job of running the beerfest and after waiting almost 30 minutes in line, we were finally in. There were a lot of breweries, many of which we hadn’t heard of before, but in almost 1 hour it started to get packed, and it was difficult to get around. With the room becoming more cramped and hot, Adam’s mom played it smart and went back up to the hotel room. My dad proceeded to keep drinking and by the time the Fire Marshall came and kicked everyone out, my dad was too drunk to realize that we really only got 3 hours of drinking when we were expecting 4.
We went back up the room and ordered pizza since the “food” at the beerfest was only samplings from a couple local restaurants. I won’t go into too much detail, but I did spend a good hour of the night cleaning up puke from the bathroom floor, which was surprisingly not Adam or mine…hmmm…
On Saturday, Adam and I headed out to Port Jefferson to look at more apartments for Kendra. My dad spent the morning in the hotel recovering from the night before, and Adam’s parents hung out in their room until we returned just in time for them to check-out. We headed back to NJ and after much deliberation settled on the Bennigans across the street from my apartment for our lunch accommodations. After lunch Adam and I showered and we took my dad to Campmor before meeting up with Adam’s parents at their hotel for the night. I got some awesome sunglasses at Campmor. They were on sale because the color (can you guess???) was discontinued.
After Campmor we met up at the hotel Adam’s parent’s were staying at, and went to dinner at The Mason Jar in Mahwah.
Yesterday was spent cleaning, grocery shopping, cooking and watching some quality television. All I can say is that I can’t wait for tonight’s 2 hour season finale of Grey’s Anatomy.
On another note, I started my diet this morning… we’ll see if I can keep with it this time. I only have 4 days until the shore house, and although I’m sure it won’t make a difference in 4 days, I’m going to try to work out and eat right during the weekdays, because we all know that I won’t be eating well on the weekends from now on.
I hope to have some good stories this weekend from the shore house, and possibly the first of many great pictures from the summer!!!

New Jersey

It's crazy to think that in a couple weeks I will have lived in New Jersey for a whole year. Because I'm not nearly as homesick as I was 1 year ago, I thought I'd compile a list of things that I love about New Jersey and living here:

• The shore
• The ridiculous accent
• The weather (not as cold and doesn’t fluctuate like Michigan weather)
• All the small privately owned restaurants (especially the Italian ones)
• Atlantic City
• The majority of my friends here (when they’re not being assholes)
• Hoboken and Tuesday wing specials at Black Bear
• Only being a train ride away from New York City and Blondie’s
• Cricket Hill Brewery
• The Bennigan’s across the street and $4.99 burgers on Wednesday
• Wegman’s
• The guidos and monsters
• Bon Jovi
• The Jets
• 211 Third Ave, Manasquan
• Getting to see Adam everyday!!!

I'll continue to add to this list, but I think this is about it for now.