Painting Table Saturday - Knights

After not lifting a paint brush for most of the summer and early Fall, I've been back at it in small spurts over the last week or so. The first order of business was to finish up the batch of 18 German mounted knights that have been sitting there since...May? Yes, probably since May.

These guys were the last of the "refurbishment" batches, along with a few new figures to round out the number needed for 6 stands of 3 each. The plan was always to go with fairly basic paint schemes for these, but I did add some additional detail to a few of them. They look OK, and when the bases are finished and flags and lance pennons are added, they will be a nice addition to the medieval horde.

Early Medieval German Knights

Next up, at least for the moment, are 10 more Hundred Years War crossbowmen, but I suspect that these will get set aside for something else. I have 4 units' worth of Norman heavy spearmen prepped and ready to go (60 figures), and adding these as nice large infantry blocks to the early medieval forces sounds appealing. Those are also easy figs to paint, and can be turned out quickly in large numbers.

Hundred Years War Crossbows

For today at least, I'll get some paint on these crossbowmen.

Fall In 2014 - Saturday, Day 2

Day 2 of Fall In was fairly uneventful for me, and somewhat brief. I arrived mid-morning and had plenty of time to watch various games and do some shopping before setting up a flea market table for the afternoon session.

I've been giving some thought recently to what my miniatures collection would look like if I started with a completely clean slate and were not burdened with a basement full of false starts, sidetracks, and periods that have gone by the wayside. Suffice it to say for the moment that the "ideal" vision differs a good bit from the reality. With that in mind, it was a very successful flea market session, where I sold practically everything I brought. This included three boxes of 25mm Saxons and two boxes of 25mm Vikings (reserving enough of each for modest skirmish armies), my American Revolution Continental army (2 large boxes of Brandywine regiments), Warhammer fantasy battle dwarves, a few miscellaneous odds and ends, and a half dozen board games. I came home with one board game and one rulebook. The carry-out was delightfully lighter than the carry-in.

This was a good step in the right direction towards (profitably) jettisoning the things I will never use. Hopefully they have found a good home where they will be of more use to somebody than they have been to me in recent years.

My two flea market purchases over the two days were a box of 54 nice 15mm palm trees and a set of uniform guides. The palm trees were based very nicely on round masonite bases (flocked), and look beautiful after I got them home and gave them a light overhead dusting of two shades of lighter green and a matt sealer coat to knock the edge off the dark green plastic look. These will be useful for either my 15m Crusaders or WW2 Pacific War.

Age of Chivalry, two volumes, in French

The real find was the uniform guides. Liliane and Fred Funcken did a whole series of uniform and equipment guides (back in the 1970's primarily, I think). The sets came in pairs of two books per period and go for a very hefty price for the English versions. You can also find them in French and less commonly in German. When I see them at shows, they are generally in French. I have Napoleonics in French and Lace Wars (1700's) in German. To this I added the two volume set of Medieval and Renaissance (in French) for the reasonable price of $45. They are in great condition, and I use them primarily for pictures and painting inspiration, so the fact that I can barely fumble through some of the text makes no difference.

All in all another successful show, and it certainly has gotten the painting juices flowing again, as these shows always do.

Fall In 2014 - Friday, Day 1

Things have been pretty quiet (OK, very quiet) on the wargaming and miniatures front over the last few months. Family stuff has been keeping all of us busy, and the time I have had to allocate to hobby stuff has primarily gone to working up the basics of a D&D campaign (for this first time since the late '80's or early '90's).

Knowing that Fall In, the local/big fall convention in Lancaster PA, was coming up soon has gotten the painting juices flowing again, and over the past week or so I have gotten back into something of a painting groove. More on that soon.

For now, today was the first day of Fall In. As usual, I took the day off and made my way out to Lancaster in time to get there and wander the in-progress games before the dealer area opened at noon. On picking up my preregistration badge, I was surprised at how thin the weekend's program book was. In the 15+ years I have been attending these Lancaster conventions, I think this must have been the lightest program yet. Wandering the show over the 6 or so hours I was there would bear this out; not a ton of games being run, and not a ton of gamers. I guess it wasn't too far off what I remember a Fall In Friday as being, but with the good weather today, I still think it was light.

Romans and barbarians in Germania (25mm)

Although the number of games seemed light, the quality was high, and there were a lot of attractive games to check out.

Early WW2, "Brazen Chariots" rules (15mm)

As always, there were friends and acquaintances to run into and chat with, games to watch, the dealer area to cruise, and the flea market (bring and buy to our English friends) to troll for that special "ah-ha" item.

Fish in a barrel...I mean 15mm Napoleonics

As has also been the case at recent conventions, I dove into the dealer area fully expecting/hoping to leave some cash behind, but didn't find all that much that struck a chord. I needed some dice for our foray into D&D (wargamers are swimming in d6, d10 and d20, but have little use for d4, d8 and d12, thus the need to stock up on some of these). I believe I now have at least a modest handful of every type of dice made. Actually, that being said, I think that there is a such thing as a d100, and if so, I don't have one of those.... yet...

WW2 Pegasus Bridge in 25/28mm

Other dealer area purchases were 7 medieval flags and cavalry banners from The Flag Dude and a few packs of 25mm medievals from Old Glory (2 packs of generic 12th century infantry and a pack of early medieval mounted German knights with lances). When in doubt, I buy more medievals. It's a "happy place" thing I suppose...

SAGA "Crescent and the Cross" in the desert (25mm)

I was on the road and headed home by 3:30. Garnet Valley had a home playoff football game at 7pm (we won convincingly, 35-15). I also needed to spend some getting together the things that I will be taking to the show tomorrow to sell at the flea market table I have from 2pm to 5pm. Selling hobby stuff is a bit like selling off members of the family (fill in your own joke here), but in my advancing years the one, perhaps only (probably only), bit of wisdom I have managed to attain is that if I lived to be 200 years old I would still not have the time to delve into every potential hobby interest that I have stumbled upon (and bought figures for). Thus, tomorrow, with any luck, lots of 25mm Vikings and Saxons, some 25mm English Civil War, a few Warhammer Fantasy odds and ends, and an American Revolution 25mm Continental army will all be going to live on a farm up-state. Or wherever it is that the hamsters, goldfish and other ex- members of the family go.

"Fall In" Saturday to follow (after it happens)...

Halloween 2014

Grace still loves dressing up for Halloween, and Julia still likes candy, so last night was a fun one for the girls.

Bellatrix

Grace was Bellatrix, the crazy evil wizardess from the Harry Potter movies, and Julia was (you guessed it) a big blue M&M.

Crazy and Candy

As usual, they loved the idea of carving pumpkins until the time came to actually do the work. So after a week and a half of cajoling, I carved a couple pumpkins very quickly by myself at 4:00 this afternoon. Grace wanted a Harry Potter lightning bolt, Julia wanted a scary face. As I told them, if you won't help, you get simple pumpkins. Very simple. I do still enjoy carving. Next year I'll just give up on the girls and carve them myself earlier.

Homecoming Week

It was homecoming week at the high school this week. Is it really possible that I have a kid in high school? Anyway, there were dress-up events throughout the week (pajama day, etc), a homecoming parade with class floats on Friday at 5pm and a football game after (beating Haverford to go 7-2 overall, 7-1 in the league, with our only loss coming to my alma mater, Springfield).

Julia and some classmates

Last night, Saturday, was the homecoming dance.

Julia and some classmates (again)

These kids need to stop growing. We always teased them about putting them in a pickle jar to stop them from growing up (not exactly sure why a pickle jar...something about preserving them I guess), but it would seem to be way too late for that now.

Book Review - Two Against One

Having read a fourth Frederick Barthelme novel recently, and with several more of his on the shelf, I kept the momentum going by reading Two Against One (Collier Books, 1988, 264 pages).

I could repeat what I said about the last one with regards to this, as this was like it, only more so. To quote one of the review blurbs on the back cover: "On Edward's fortieth birthday, his estranged wife, Elise, appears unannounced at the door, triggering a series of events that will involve the couple in a bizarre triangle and lay open the workings of a fifteen year marriage."

I guess that's one way of putting it. These people were unsympathetic and often downright bizarre, toiling through a plot that was...I don't even know what it was. I liked this less than the other books of Barthelme's that I have read (obviously). The saving grace was some salvageable commentary on expectations, relationships, love and sexuality. Unfortunately, as I couldn't help but keep thinking as I was working my way through this, the nice bits were buried in way too much not-so-good book. My opinion, anyway.

Only 2.5 stars out of 5. Don't bother with this one, as there are better Barthelme books out there. Like maybe all of them.

This gets me to 14 books and 2 partial story collections on the year, totaling a shade under 4,300 pages. Best book of the year so far is still The Painter.

Of Mermaids and Pirate Ships

Julia is in the high school Fall musical again this year, and they are doing Disney's The Little Mermaid. It should be a fun show, with lots of good songs. Having had a student in one of these, for the second time now, I have developed a ton of respect for the amount of time and effort that goes into a production like this; not just for the students, but also for the teachers and parents.

The students have a lot of singing, music, dancing and staging to learn. The parents have a lot of sewing and set construction to help with. There are over a hundred students involved, and sometimes more than one costume per kid. The basis for some of the costumes come from costume storage, where all the costumes of shows and years past are stored. Even with this head start, there are a lot of changes and alterations that need to be made, every student fitted, and many entirely new costumes that need to be sewn from scratch. Amp helped out for Les Miz, and is even more involved this time around. Spare time for her these days means pattern making, cutting, sewing and planning. I'm sure it will get worse before the end. But it is fun and rewarding work.

Pirate Ship to-be (really!)

As for me, I'm pretty good with tools, so when the call went out for more people to help construct sets, I chipped in for a few hours today, and will probably be spending a bunch of weekend hours lending a hand in the coming weeks. They need a pirate ship big enough to hold a bunch of kids on deck, some beach scenes, King Triton's throne room, Ariel's grotto, Ursula's lair... And more. Lots to be done. A staggering amount, really. As I've said, my level of respect and appreciation of what goes into a show like this is growing every day.

Book Review - There Must be Some Mistake

It's been a while since my last reading binge (fiction reading, that is). However, I was in a bookstore a little while back, and saw a new novel (There Must Be Some Mistake, Little Brown and Co, 2014, 294 pages) by Frederick Barthelme, a writer who I have read before. I picked it up, plowed through it, and finished it a few days ago.

This is the story of Wallace Webster, a semi-retiree living in a condo development in the Gulf Coast area of east Texas. The residents of the condo development begin dying at an alarming rate, to accidents and other circumstances. We follow Webster through this maze of events as he deals with his ex-wife, her boyfriend (who happens to be the ex-husband of a younger female work friend whom he spends a lot of time with and has an...odd...relationship), his daughter and others.

I found the novel similar to the three previous Barthelme books I have read (Waveland, Elroy Nights and Second Marriage); which revolve around a not-overly-sympathetic aging male character thrown into all sorts of odd circumstances. Barthelme's characters can be head-scratching in their thought process and frustrating in the choices they make, but are for the most part interesting to read.

This is a solid if unspectacular read. Maybe 3.5 stars out of 5. The ending was bizarre, even given what had come before...

Next up...I've begun another older Barthelme book I had on hand (Two Against One, 1988).

Disney's Aladdin - 9/27/14

This past Saturday was Julia's big day; a day trip to Broadway in New York City to see Aladdin with the original cast. Her birthday trip last year was to see The Lion King, and she loved it so much that it might be becoming a tradition. If The Lion King was spectacular, then Aladdin was even better.

Aladdin Playbill

We hit a lot of traffic getting into the city. In an ideal world, we would have gotten there and parked with enough time to spare to have a nice lunch before heading to the theater. In the real world, we grabbed a snack at a Starbucks. Not ideal, but not the worst thing ever.

Girls and the Marquee

To say that Julia was excited would be an understatement. To say that she was ready to burst into flames at any moment would be more accurate. Uncontrollable smiles. Excited chatter. Hopping around in place. Good stuff...

5th row balcony (I like the balcony)

We had seats in the fifth row of the balcony, overlooking the stage. These are my preferred kind of seats, whether for a show like this or a concert. I like the perspective of being up and above the action, with a good panoramic view. According to the notes in the Playbill, Disney's first Broadway musical was Beauty and the Beast in 1994, and in the same year the Disney Company signed a 99 year lease to renovate the 1903 Amsterdam Theater to its original glory. All major Disney musicals since then have had their opening run in this theater. Corporate money can do good things, and this is one of them; the New Amsterdam is a spectacular old theater. Just sitting in this restored ornate old gem is like taking a trip back in time.

View from our seats

As for our show itself, Aladdin opened this spring. James Monroe Iglehart won the Tony award for lead performance in a musical (as the Genie), and I can certainly see why. At 6 foot tall and 295 pounds, football fans could imagine Warren Sapp who can sing and dance. Amazing. I could gush for a long time over this show. The music from the film was terrific. The additional music they added to turn this into a full length stage musical was equally good. The performances were great, especially Iglehart and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin. The staging was terrific. In two and a half hours of show there was never a let up. Singing, dancing, jokes, effects. The time flew by. There were so many little jokes and references embedded in the show that you had to pay attention or you would miss things.

New Amsterdam Theater

All of the cast was great. Jonathan Freeman as Jafar. Courtney Reed as Princess Jasmine. Don Darryl Rivera as Iago. All of the secondary characters were fabulous. It is a real treat to have seen the original cast; something that I hope the kids will appreciate later if they don't now. The effects were amazing. I'm still not 100% sure how they did the magic carpet...

Of the dozen or so Broadway shows I have seen over the years, I would rate this behind only Les Miserables and Miss Saigon. There was general agreement that this was better than The Lion King (which was also excellent). I thought it better than Phantom of the Opera (most overrated musical ever...), and it was better than Victor Victoria (even though we did see Julie Andrews, which in and of itself is a Broadway lifetime highlight).

Writing this two days later, Julia is still abuzz with excitement. As a parent, I guess that is the best you can ask of a birthday gift to a daughter. She's probably wondering what she will get to see next year. So am I.

Broadway 2014 - Aladdin

Julia loooooves music and musicals. There aren't many things she likes as much as her musical fixation du jour. Recently, this has been Aladdin.

Last year for her birthday we took her on a day trip to Broadway to see The Lion King. To say that she was over the moon would be an understatement.

When the subject came up of what we should do for Julia's upcoming birthday this year, it really came down to a question of "what musical should we see?" Julia has seen Les Miserables in Philly and The Lion King on Broadway. Aladdin on Broadway seemed like a perfect choice.

In order to have time to get properly excited and fully bask in the anticipation, she got her main birthday present a little early, and we are in full throttle ramp-up mode for a trip to New York in the near future.

Happy girls make the world go 'round. And we have a seriously happy girl in the house these days.

The road goes ever on and on...

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

Grace, age 10, is my little reader. Over the course of the summer, between 4th and 5th grades, she devoured a lot of books, not the least of which were all 7 of the Harry Potter books (4,193 pages in total). She reads new books as fast as we can find them for her.

Tonight, when getting ready for bed, she asked me if we had anything else for her to read. A thought occurred to me. We went down to the living room ("library") and I took a sacred book off the shelf. The Hobbit. If she can read all seven books of Harry Potter, she can certainly read this. She may even be disappointed/underwhelmed by The Hobbit. I hope not. It is a book that holds a special place in my heart, and I hope she enjoys it. And after that, I hope she reads and enjoys The Lord of the Rings.

I can't help but to wonder what a kid these days will think of these books, having been exposed to a lot more than I ever was at that age, just in terms of what she will have seen in movies and on TV.

These were magical books to me. I hope they are to her as well.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

Out with the Old...

The last quarter of the year would be bringing us to the end of a three year lease on the 2012 Honda Pilot (where does the time go?). This blue Pilot was the successor of a leased red 2009 Pilot, and we loved both vehicles. They were both well-equipped, big, heavy, safe and could haul any amount of people (8, comfortably) or gear (lots and lots and lots).

We have loved our Honda Pilots, and they have treated us well. However, we have been aware that the number of times we have needed to haul three seating rows worth of people or a ton of gear have been relatively few and far between. The flip side of "we have a ton of space and hauling capacity on those few instances when we need it" has been counterbalanced by not very good gas mileage and the fact that these big tanks eat tires for lunch. Needing to buy an expensive set of tires inside of a three year lease kinda stinks...

So with the realization that there are only four of us, and routine gear hauling requirements are minimal, we went to our go-to guy at Scott Honda to pick out a new vehicle (Eric Bausman, highly recommended, tell him I sent you...). We had agreed that the incumbent choice would be another Pilot, but that we would also look at Odyssey minivans and CRV small-SUV's. On the drive to the dealership, Grace asked Amp what color car we were going to get, and Amp said "anything but white."

Three hours later we drove home in a brand new 2014 CRV. White of course. Go figure.

2014 Honda CRV

Leasing isn't the right choice for everyone, but I like the fact that Amp and the girls get a new vehicle every three years. Safe. New. Reliable.

In some ways, I will miss the Pilot. It was big and could haul anything. And it was heavy and solid. Short of having Amp and the girls driving an actual tank, it is hard to imagine something that felt bigger and therefore safer than the Pilot. I have always like the thought of Amp and the girls safe and sound in their big blue tank.

But the CRV's safety ratings are excellent, it gets 50% better gas mileage than the Pilot (yes, 50%, that's not a typo), and the chances of it burning out an $800 set of tires inside of three years is basically non-existent. So... thus begins the era of the CRV.

GVHS 34, Strath Haven 14

This was a close 7-7 game at the half, but the good guys pulled away in the second half with solid defense, some good running, and a few timely passing plays. Having an interception return for a touchdown called back for defensive holding that would have put us down 21-14 didn't hurt either.

Strath Haven's 400+ marching band

But the most impressive thing of the evening, by far, was the Strath Haven band. Our band is decent sized, and fairly good I think. Strath Haven was a whole different thing altogether. One of the other parents told us that (including color guard) the SH band totals 415 kids (ok, 415 young adults).

We were sitting in the home stands maybe 10 feet from our trumpeters. Every time the two bands did one of those competing battle-of-the-bands things, we could hear their band over ours. Clearly. They filled the opposing bleachers. When they marched onto the field for their halftime show, it looked like Napoleon invading Russia. And they were good. They were tight, loud, and big, filling the field from end zone to end zone, sideline to sideline. No matter how good a small or medium sized band might be, there is just something about the spectacle of a band that size that you can't get from anything other than...well...a band that size.

Hats off to the Strath Haven band.

Football Season

It's getting toward Fall, and that means high school football (at least it does around here these days). Which I find somewhat surprising. My daughters aren't the biggest sports fans in the world, to put it mildly. But they sure do love going to our Garnet Valley football games.

For Grace, It is a chance to wander around and socialize with her friends. I don't think she ever pays the least bit of attention to the actual game. Julia loves going and seeing her friends (everyone seems to know her, and say hi), but she also surprises me by paying attention to the game itself.

I'm glad the kids are enjoying it. As much as I do like going to the games (and actually watching the football...), we wouldn't be going if the kids didn't want to. So I am glad that they have each found something that they like. It's gotten to be a routine over the last couple of years that if there is a home game and we don't have something else specific going on, we'll be there.

Upper Darby at Garnet Valley

The first game of the year was a loss at Unionville (which we didn't go to). Apparently, we scored a TD early, missed the extra point, and then didn't score again for the rest of the game, while Unionville kicked a pair of field goals and registered a safety. Ugh. We have a young team this year, having lost many important graduating seniors, and I'm not sure how good we will be (at least compared to last year's state playoff team).

Last week's game was a 34-20 home win over Upper Darby (which we went to). The game wasn't as close as the score.

Garnet Valley band

Tonight, to my great satisfaction (having watched my hometown Springfield team lose to them every single year growing up), we beat Ridley at home 21-14. We went up 14-0 before giving up a 92 yard kickoff return to make it 14-7. With about 3 minutes to go in the game, we broke off a 33 yard touchdown on 4th and 3 from the 33, making it seem that the game was over. Ridley added a TD in the closing minute to get within 7, but that's as close as it got. Nothing is quite as much fun as beating Ridley.

In addition to the football, the kids enjoy watching the marching band, which includes a few of our neighbors' kids. Last year's theme was Pirates of the Carribean. This year it's Harry Potter. Early on, it looks like a promising show, but they need some work...

Next week...another home game.

Daimler Ferret Scout Car

Having driven past this at least 100 times (on route 309 near Coopersburg), I'm glad I finally stopped and took some pictures. On the side of the road, not 10 feet from a major road, is an armored car of some sort. I've always wondered what it was, but have generally been in the middle of a long drive to or from work or family visits to north Jersey.

Daimler Ferret front/side

A link to a picture closely resembling this vehicle is here, where it is labeled a Daimler Ferret Mk 2/6 Scout Car. According to Wikipedia, there are a ton of minor variants of this vehicle, of which 4,409 were produced between 1952 and 1971. I have no idea what model this is. Nor does it matter...but there it is, and it looks cool.

Daimler Ferret rear

It took a decent bit of Googling to identify it. Given the general appearance, my first impression was that it was some sort of British WW2 light armored car. I was sort of close and sort of not. It is a lot more modern than I would have guessed, and so I spent time looking at WW2 armored cars of all nations to no avail. Eventually I stumbled on something that got me close, and then I found the picture linked above that got me to the right place.

I have no idea why it is sitting there rusting by the side of the road in Coopersburg, but at least I know what it is.

First Day of School - 2014

Another summer is gone and the kids go back to school, or as parents everywhere put it, "it's the most wonderful time of the year".

The only commentary I could have is the same thing I say every year: another year? Already?

Our high school sophomore.

Grudgingly humoring Dad

And our 5th grade goofball.

Not bothering to humor Mom

Someday soon, maybe she'll grow into her backpack... Or not.

More backpack than student

Goofballs or not, I couldn't be more proud. Now if they would just slow down the whole growing up process just a little bit...

The Last of the Magoos

We were sitting and watching one of the Harry Potter movies with Grace, who plowed through all 4,000+ pages of the seven books in the last month (at age 10), when we noticed that she would only watch the movie sitting close to the TV. We asked why she did that, and the predictable answer was "because I can't see it clearly from back there lying on your bed."

And so after a quick visit to the eye doctor, the last member of the family now has glasses. She is to wear them for TV and blackboard at school - trying not to wear them for computer, reading or anything up close so she doesn't train her eyes to need them more than she already does.

When I had to get glasses for the same reason, somewhere back around 7th grade, I was devastated. She thought it was cool, and couldn't wait to pick out the frames. Good for her.

The Late Summer Doldrums

Things have been busy enough. The kids are getting ready to go back to school (5th and 10th grades...I can't believe it), we have been re-doing both of their bedrooms, and there are no shortages of other things going on. But I just haven't felt much like blogging. Call it the summer doldrums I guess.

From a hobby perspective, I haven't touched a paint brush in over a month. Really the only thing I have been doing is reading through some of the new Dungeons & Dragons stuff that is being released (more on that later). And doing some work on getting ready to make an attempt at playing D&D for the first time since about 1990 (best guess).

I've assembled a bunch of IKEA "Hemnes" furniture (in white stain) for Grace's room. No more allen wrenches for a while please...

I've read some short stories out of various collections or out of Amp's New Yorker subscription.

I started a new novel, got about 10 pages in, and decided I didn't feel like reading a novel.

This holiday weekend is the end of summer, and it has been a good one. The kids are happy and healthy. They are bored and looking forward to school, which is good. Julia is already talking about the Fall school musical (Disney's The Little Mermaid) and about going to the football games, and Grace is hoping that her class will be one of the lucky ones that gets to try out the new iPad-based modules that only a few of the classes will get.

Perhaps someday soon a burst of creative energy will hit me. One can hope.

Yellowstone Under Canvas

A funny thing happened on the way to the forum...

My wife pointed out the following tidbit that she had seen somewhere and thought looked interesting: "glamping" in Yellowstone. Yellowstone Under Canvas. Glamping, which I won't bother to look up, is something along the lines of "glamour camping", or luxury pseudo-camping. Or as the website says - "camping as it should be". Which I guess means "camping if you don't really want to be camping but don't want to see Yellowstone from the window of a tour bus."

I have to admit that I find the idea intriguing...in the sense that I've always wondered what I could get away with in terms of trying to get the family into some sort of outdoors camping experience. I suspect that Grace would find it somewhat cool until she realized she had no internet connectivity. I can hear her little voice in my head saying "yes Daddy, this is very cool...can we go now?" But she might surprise me. Julia would be spooked by any and all kinds of night noises. And Amp would probably (certainly) prefer to be in a hotel.

But I would love to see Yellowstone someday, and not from the window of a tour bus. Maybe something like this could make that happen.

Avalon NJ 2014

For the second year in a row, we have spent part of a week at the Windrift Hotel in Avalon. Also once again, the kids have pronounced it "excellent", and have asked that we do more beach time in the future. I guess it is hard to say no to that.

We left Tuesday morning, drove through overcast and showers, and got there in time to spend some time at the pool in the afternoon, check out the beach, and get settled. Like last year, Amp's sister and her family are meeting us at the hotel and staying in a room across the hall. It's nice to spend time with family, and the kids get to spend time with their cousins at the pool and on the beach, which is good.

We love the Windrift. The rooms have been renovated fairly recently, and are pretty nice. The location is perfect - on the beach at 80th street, straddling the border between Avalon (to the north) and Stone Harbor (to the south). There is a nice pool with waitress service for food and drinks (gotta love that!), and it's right on the beach. So you can spend beach time in the morning or afternoon, and then head poolside for lunch or an afternoon snack. And a glass of wine. Or two. It is vacation after all...

Windrift Pool

The forecast wasn't very good for the first couple of days, but we ended up making out pretty well. It rained hard Tuesday night while we were having dinner at the restaurant in the hotel, and the rain continued into the morning, but by late morning on Wednesday we were on the beach enjoying the sunny if cool day.

The days went quickly, with beach, pool, eating, drinking, a Wildwood boardwalk side trip (complete with new fancy hair wrap for Grace at the same tattoo parlor she got it done at last year), and the usual terribly-played mini golf outing. None of us will be showing up on the professional golf tour any time soon.

Mini golf

Salt water taffy. The pancake place. Running into a few different friends while there. It was a very nice few days.

Last years' shore time was three days as a test run. This years' was four days. Knowing how much the kids like it, we'll shoot for a week(ish) next year. We made this years' reservations well in advance, and although I tried to extend us (on either end of the four days), there was no availability. We had intended to leave later on Friday and drive home, but the kids were having so much fun together that we decided to all head to our inlaws house in north Jersey and continue the vacation there through the end of the weekend. That went well too...