Sunday, September 6, 2009

The Summer of Fun (part 2)

From Great Wolf Lodge, we moved on the the longest stay of our trip, Sag Harbor, NY. My brother Joe and his wife Liza moved there from Manhattan a few years ago and opened a burger joint called Bay Burger.

The best part of staying here was that my entire family was all together for the first time in a few years. My other brother, Mike, had just moved in with Joe after quitting his job of 9 years and moving out of our hometown for the first time. He's now enjoying his new job working at "The Burg'" My parents had also timed their vacation for the same week and were staying at Joe and Liza's too. It was one crowded house of Tremblays.

This being my first vacation in a long time, one of the highlights of my stay in Sag Harbor was watching how hard my brothers and sister-in-law were working at the restaraunt everyday while I had nothing to do. For example. While Joe and Mike were at work, this is what I was up to:



We combined a lot of lounging by the pool with lounging on the couch and eating free food at Bay Burger.


One of the fun things we were all able to do as a family is have a great picnic dinner on the beach. Once a week, hundreds of people make there way to one of the beaches in Sag Harbor to "celebrate" the sunset with drums and dancing. It was an interesting and fun crowd of people at the beach that night. (The highlight for the "foodie" Tremblays was a sighting of Eric Ripert.)




While we were staying in Sag Harbor, we decided to make an overnight trip to NYC to behave like tourists and visit Melissa's old friend Sharon. The highlight of that trip was definitely our time on Broadway. We had already got ourselves tickets for the whole family to see the Blue Man Group. We also purchased tickets to see Mary Poppins while we were there.

If you've never seen it, the Blue Man Group is an interesting show. It's hard to describe. The simplest description is that it's music mixed with performance art. Sounds kind of weird, but it's a very cool show. Jack loved it.

While I wasn't too excited to go see the Mary Poppins musical, I have to say that I enjoyed it very much. Last year, Jack's music class had spent a lot of time singing songs from Mary Poppins, so he had already seen the movie and knew a few of the songs. The most impressive aspect of this show was definitely the sets. Huge, beautiful sets that included entire rooms dropping in from above and scenery rising out of the floor. The show ended with Mary flying out over the crowd as she left the family behind.

Our trip to New York, both NYC and Sag Harbor, was definitely the highlight of our summer.

After New York, we took the ferry from Long Island and then drove to Massachusetts to visit with old Matt's old friends.

We were very thankful to be able to stay in the condo of an old family friend who was out of town for the summer. It was a nice little two bedroom condo not too far from where I grew up. My parents stayed there with us for a few days before they had to go back to the Bahamas.

Our time in Mass. was essentially spent taking it easy. We spent a lot of our time with my friend Jeff and his family. He and his wife Leah invited us to their place for a great diner on our first night there. They also held their annual cook-out while were were in town and we got to see all of our old friends for an afternoon. The Spiderman bounce-house and the never ending game of wiffleball were the most popular events of the afternoon with the kids.




It was a great weekend seeing very old friends that we rarely get to see. We're already looking forward to planning our get together for next summer (Disneyworld anyone?).

After Mass., we jumped back into the truck and made our way to Jack's uncle Andy's house in Virginia. Melissa sisters had decided to make a trip (from Chicago and Austin) so that we could all see each other in VA. They each brought their two kids and we had a 2 day baby cousin convention. It was great to have all of the cousins together. We took advantage of it by getting pictures taken of all the kids. Imagine organizing 6 kids from age 1 to 6 for at least one good photo!

The next day it was back to Grandma Chris' house to pack up for the long flight back to Singapore. Packing all of those suitcases took the better part of an entire day to get done. We looked like we were bringing all of our earthly possessions with us on the plane. 6 large suitcases, 3 small carry-on suitcases and 3 carry-on bags. It was so much stuff, we had to have an 8-person van drive the three of us from the Singapore airport to our apartment.

Now that we've been back in Singapore for a few weeks, we've settled back into our regular routine. Jack is loving his new 2nd grade class and his teacher, Ms. Cuthbert. Melissa jumped right back into her scrapbooking groups and PTA jobs. I've been working a lot (as usual) but I'm also taking a scuba diving course. Next weekend, I go to Malaysia for the "open water diver" certification.

All in all, a great summer. We were sad when it ended but excited to get "back home" to Singapore.

5 comments:

Andy said...

Your dad looks cool.

Melissa said...

Speaking for Sharon she is not my "old friend" but my long time friend.

Jeff Kobs said...

The Red Sox game wasn't too shabby either. Mmmmm, cheese sticks.

Alberto & Meredith Jimeno said...

I'm bummed that we missed you. I probably would have enjoyed the cheese sticks.

Sharon Aiuvalasit said...

This long time friend feels older all the time. lol. It was absolutely WONDERFUL to see you guys. Can't wait to see the best version of the cousins picture.