The Hamptons

Chris and Kimmy Crosby are so in love

Yesterday we spent the day in the Hamptons, and it was a blast. We left really early in the morning, to try to make the most of the day. Kimmy and Chris Crosby were nice enough to let us mooch a ride off of them, since they have a car. We had a very enjoyable, traffic free ride into Long Island, getting to know each other through our "how did you meet" stories in detail.

Three hours later we meet up with the rest of the gang, the Simmons and the Wheelers, who camped there the night before on the hottest night of the year (way to be adventurous!). We met up in town where we stumbled upon a antique rummage sale where Pat scored an "awesome" leather fanny pack for $5 (I was able talk the guy down because the sales guy knew how much I didn't want Pat to have it) and where I bought a $5 antique seltzer bottle (who knows what I am going to do with it, but I couldn't resist).

Because of the heat, we decided to head to the beach. Because it was so hard to find parking, the drivers of the cars dropped us off to set up out beach site, while they tried to find parking. One and half hours later, they finally found spots! Yikes, I guess you can guess that we were not the only ones trying to cool off in the ocean.

The rest of the afternoon we spent playing in the ocean and laying in the beach. Pat is not much of a beach goer because he gets really bored by just sitting in the sun. He brought our badminton set to try to entertain himself; however, after a half an hour of trying to set it up, a lady walked straight into it, knocking it over. That was the end of that.

Despite the badminton incident, Pat really enjoyed himself at the beach because of the massive waves. These waves were the biggest that I have ever experienced, some of them seemed to be at least 10 feet tall. Ever since I was a kid I have been terrified of waves. When I was around 6 or 7 a wave overtook me, causing me to be tossed me around underwater, disorienting me so I didn't know which way was up. Ever since this experience, I have never ventured too far or too long in the ocean. However, twenty years later, I tried to convince myself that these waves could actually be fun and this time would be different.

Surprisingly, it was really fun, but not much different. I, along with many others of our clan, got ROCKED by these waves. I don't know how many waves I face-planted or how many people I flashed when my boob popped out of my suit (Ryan graciously denies he saw anything...even though I know otherwise! hahaha) But despite all the fails, we all had a blast in the ocean that we had to retreat to quite often due to the overpowering heat.

I was so impressed with Candace and Ellis, they both handled the day so well

You can tell how much Pat really enjoyed the waves

Once everyone was sufficiently exhausted from the waves, heat and sun, including baby Ellis, the Wheelers three month old baby, we packed up and headed into town for some dinner. We had an amazing meal at a great burger joint, where we got complimentary shakes and appetizers due to our wait and waiter error.

As if the night couldn't get any better, after dinner we had a beach bonfire and treated ourselves to some s'mores for dessert. This COULD have been my favorite part of the day. The beach was perfect with millions of stars twinkling above, a cool constant ocean breeze, the sound of waves crashing just beyond the camp fires light, and....ghost stories. We scared ourselves silly, correction--the girls got scared silly, as we told ghost stories, some of which were the scariest I have ever heard and will most definitely haunt me the next time Pat works late.

The day was a complete success that left us totally exhausted from all the adventures that we enjoyed. Before this trip, we did not know the Simmons, Wheelers or Crosbys all that well. We have always wanted to get to know them better, and are so glad that we had this day to spend with them so we were able to find out, even more so, how amazing they all were.