Road trip to New Jersey ~ Day 1 Atlantic City

We had a long weekend over here for Labour Day so started the journey on Friday night up to Jersey.
The main purpose of this trip was to tick one of the items of our "to do" list.....The Stone Pony! Hubby has been a huge Bruce Springsteen fan since a young kid and his dream has been to visit the place where Bruce became who he is today :)
Prior to leaving I had done a little research on the area and discovered a little gem that I knew Col was going to LOVE! It was also Fathers day in Oz on there Sunday and as it was celebrated earlier in the year over here, I did not want col to miss out. So we planned the day trip up to Asbury Park for fathers day (more details in my next blog!)

The drive up to Jersey was really great. The kids were excited and we managed to tick 3 more States off our visited/gone through list. Those being Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey! Baltimore looks amazing so we will travel back up and spend some proper time up there! Oh and we also travelled on the outskirts of Washington DC....another place we will go and explore :)

We knew we were getting close to our holiday condo in Brigadine, which was literally a bridge drive from Atlantic City, due to the many lights along the casino strips. It looked fantastic! There was even advertising on the sides of massive high rise hotels changing the face of it many times!

We arrived at our condo at about 10:30pm, so it was simply unpack the car and get the kids into bed! hubby and I sat out of our rear patio for a little while just relaxing, listening to the waves roll in. The beach was just behind us down a short track :)
the complex had a swimming pool and the condo itself was a great little home away from home!

Saturday morning we got up, had breaky and headed into Atlantic city for the day! We hopped in the car and started the drive across the bridge. Very quickly realising that the casinos really are what makes AC! The place is quite a dump to be honest. certainly a different picture to the flashing lights and excitement from the night before. Very poor housing and barely any nice garden/grassed areas even along the foreshore. There was huge empty blocks full of rubbish and dirt mounds. Anyhow although not expected we still continued with our adventure!

First stop was the Absecon Lighthouse. the tallest one in Jersey and 3rd tallest in the States. It is 224 stairs up to the top. The lady working at the front desk could do with some lessons on how to smile, respond when asked a questions and well just customer service skills all over! The kids loved it and again the view just verified what we had seen from the ground! This is not the beach areas you see on Jersey Shore! Oh and the name Trump is on almost everything!! There was an old fella up the top who was fantastic! Told us a bit about the history of the area and lighthouse and was great for a chat :)

After the lighthouse we headed to the Aquarium. Right by the entrance is a fantastic statue of King Neptune, so we took some quick pics and then headed in. It was a small aquarium but still a good visit. there was some funky crabs called horseshoe crabs, check out the pics! These things were unreal to see and they kind of look like a hard stringray! there was a touch pool for the kiddies and then on another level it was like a little zoo. Had some lizards, frogs, iguanas, birds etc. the viewing platform was nice and we spotted a great little cafe on the river for lunch!

So off we went to Scales Grill and Deck bar! I really felt like a good feed of fish and chips, so was happy to see it on the menu!! The boys had burgers and chips and Col ordered a seafood platter with chips. Ok note the word chips........next time one MUST ensure they say FRIES! We literally got our food with chips....as in crisps!!! LOL The boys thought it great, I on the other hand was not so impressed with my battered fish and plate of oil dripped potato chips. At least the boys were packet ones, they 'tried' to make mine and Cols!

With 'food' in our belly's we decided to go and check out the Atlantic City Boardwalk. It is in every brochure in town! It was a nice walk, heaps of touristy knick knack shops and along the nicer part of the beach. The water was really brown, not sure if that was due to the recent hurricane or not, but lots of people were still swimming in it! One store, that I purchased a shot glass from, was even selling iguanas! no license needed and they looked really funky! Only $24.99 for the babies and up to $120 for the larger ones. Oh and the biggest hermit crabs I have ever seen! lol
I collect shot glasses so like to buy one at most visited places. I have quite a collection now, but most of them are in storage back in Oz!
Col had taken Mitchell to the toilet (who is 5 weeks in jocks now, woohoo!!!) and the boys and I were just watching the iguanas when this tall black guy tapped my shoulder. I turned around and he pulled his arm out a jacket he was wearing, which had a heap of 'gold' chains hanging of it. He says to me "Ma'am, you wanna buy a necklace'!!! Ummm NO!!! It took me a few seconds to realise what was even going on, kind of freaked me out!! lol
We enjoyed the stroll along the boardwalk, brought an ice cream each, which was melting faster than we could eat!!! Oh and we also saw a t shirt "I survived the earthquake and Hurricane Irene"!! lol We will buy one and were going to go back but ran out of time. I'm sure they will be in most tourist t shirt shops now! lol

It was time for the kiddies to have a bit of fun and Steel Pier is the place for this! It is a mini theme park built on a pier!! We brought a pack of 35 tickets and split it between the 3 boys. They went on a plane ride first, Mitchells request! Then Mitchell went on a roller coaster with Col, I swear this child runs on adrenaline!!! The boys then wanted to drive the formula carts but Korey wasnt tall enough. So Rhyce did that and Korey went on the dodgems. The also went on this ride that you lay on and it spins around. Check out the pics! There was also a slingshot ride and hubby managed to convince me to go on ity with him. Not that I dont mind scary, upside down and high rides. It just wouldnt have bothered me not to go on it!!
Anyhow off we went, shot up in the air like a cannon! It was a lot of fun and had a great view (of the nice part of Jersey beach!!) and Korey got some great pics of us on it. Rhyce took some video on the camcorder, so we will have to check it out!!!

The last item on the agenda today was a visit to Lucy the elephant! It is basically a big elephant, the tallest in the world they claim, that you can take a tour of the guts of!! lol The inside is actually really nice. it has been fully restored and people have got married in it!! lol You can lookout through its eyes, which are like portholes and also the 2 windows in it backside!! lol It is also in all the tourist brochures!

We headed back home and I cracked open a bottle of wine. Although it was Saturday night in the States it was Sunday morning back 'home' in Oz. I had a glass in memory of my Dad for Fathers Day :) He passed away 2 and a bit years ago and this time of the year is always hard for myself and my family. So BIG hugs to you all xxx
On a happier note we got to call my Fil and wish him a Happy Fathers Day. It was also my sister Belindas birthday. Although I tried many times to call her using Viber she did hear me say Happy Birthday before it cut out again!
A great day out all round and we certainly experienced lots of things around Atlantic City. Tomorrow was going to be a big day also, so I will end this blog now and do another for our fathers day trip to Asbury park :)

Happy Fathers Day Dad xxxxxxx

Read More

Candle making and Hurricane on the way!

We are only a few hours away from Hurricane Irene hitting us. It has been raining for several hours now and the roads were already starting to flood.
We took a drive to Costco and got a few bits and pieces for dinner tonight....hoping the power stays on long enough to cook it!!!
Then went and brought a new dinner set. We have had our eye on it for a few weeks now and decided to just buy it! I will take some pics and post them once it has come out of the dishwasher!

Last Sunday I did my first candle making class. I was pleasantly suprised as it was not at all what I was expecting! The lady Sherry who runs it use to have a business in town but had to close it due to health reasons. She is just starting back up again and runs the classes from her home at the moment.
Well I thought we would be basically pouring wax into moulds, making pillar styled items WRONG!!! Take a look at the pics and see just how fun it was!!

 This pic is the final product of all items made by me!!

This is a fruit parfait

Anyone for some ice tea with a slice of lemon??

Apple Martini.....smells good too!

Hot chocolate with floating marshmellows

Just a little pot of nice smelling gel :)

Last but not least, the Strawberry shortcake!

The rain and wind are starting to pick up a little now, nothing too strong. just like a typical Aussie wet day :)

Read More

Another quake & boys start school

Well today off a little shaky! At 1:07am we were woken to another earthquake. It lasted about 25 seconds and was enough to frighten the crap out of me! I had lots of trouble sleeping after, just waiting for a bigger one to hit. It turned out to be 4.5 on the richter scale.

After finally falling asleep tyhe alarm clock went off! Time to get up and get the boys ready for their first day of school! They were suppose to start yesterday but due to the bigger quake on Tuesday, they had to wait for structural engineers to deem the buildings as safe :)

The boys got organised with very little fuss and waited out on the step for their school bus to come by. It reminded me so much of a Simpsons episode, only the driver of the bus was female and much nicer! The boys hopped on and off they went....................woohooo hello sanity, it has been a while! LOL

Mitchell and I hung around home most of the day as FINALLY verizon came out to hook us up! It took the technition about 2 hours to get it all sorted. Its great having TV again and now we can keep up to date with the incoming Hurricane Irene!

We had a really bad storm hit at about 4:20pm this afternoon. It was scary too! Many people lost power, cars were crashing on the roads and trees had fallen every where. I was a bit worried about Col getting back home from work as he had left his mobile at home for Vorizon to call me on. Verizon is the cable guy! lol It was blowing a huge gale forced winds and the rain was blowing through like sheets! The thunder clapped so loud the house shook a little on one occasion!
I moved my car into the garage as the news reported huge hail stones, although we were spared of them! Here is some video footage of the storm, the wind was really blowing and I stood on the front step to get this snippet!!

I have googled some info about the pending hurricane and as we are not right on the coast (about 40kms inland) we wont get it as bad as other areas. That said, we need to be prepared. I have brought some batteries for the torches, a lighter and candles. Going to get some bottled water tomorrow and make sure we have a first aid kit and food supplies all in the basement, just incase. It is due to hit Sat/Sun.

We had to go out to the pool shop with our water sample to find out how much of what chemicals we needed so we can start using the spa! We have filled that spa 3 times over the past few days and lets just say 3rd time lucky!!! The other 2 times we looked at it in the morning to find the bloody thing empty again! Turns out it has 2 drainage plugs that had not been put back in.....of course we discovered them one at a time! lol
Its a funky spa with its own little water feature and light that you can set firm on one colour or have it change to multiple colours!! Looking forward to getting in and using it before the sun stops shinning!

We also popped into Costco and brought a telephone pack so we now havew the home phone connected too! got a funky pack that came with a water resistant portable phone, so we can have it outside whilst enjoying the spa!! lol

The boys had a great first day at school, made a few more friends and were quite excited to tell us all about their day :)
Rhyce made a quick call back to oz to wish one of his besties (Luke) a Happy birthday before Luke headed to school! He said its funny how I have just got home from school on Thursday and Luke is just going to school on Friday!

Read More