Beach Blanket Bingo (Day 5) [a.k.a. Sundae Will Never Be the Same]

Wednesday was an eventful day. Weather forecasts predicted scattered thunderstorms all day, so my mother headed down to the beach early to stake out an area for whatever sunshine there would be. She remarked how much she missed Niki and Derek because Derek helps her take things down to the beach early. She missed them for other reasons too, like because they're awesome, of course.

It was pretty cloudy over the ocean,

but you could see the clearer skies coming from the west.

Unfortunately, that sun didn't last too long - the rain and thunder started by noontime. My mother had already departed to go to lunch with Aunt Mary Lou, but the rest of us were left to our own devices for the afternoon. This explains why I wrote, like, four blog posts that day...we were a little bored. I also finished the fifth season of The Sopranos. A productive afternoon, if I do say so myself. That evening, we headed out to dinner. Pay no attention to my hair; this is what happens about 60% of the time when I let it air dry.

We went to a restaurant about 5 or 10 minutes away called the Fat Tuna Grill. We've been there before, but it had been a few years.

The food was very good - I got penne (or peenie, as my Uncle Ray pronounces it) with pesto, sundried tomatoes, shrimp, and scallops, which gave me enough for lunch leftovers. After dinner, we headed down to the boardwalk again.

We ran into Maura and Justin, who had escaped their parents and the rest of the entourage at Grotto Pizza to say hello.

And we succeeded in locating different types of ice cream. David got custard, my dad got Dippin' Dots,

and my mother and I went to Candy Kitchen. Sadly, they didn't have vanilla ice cream, so she bought peanut butter fudge instead. But I visited the Make-Your-Own-Sundae bar, the happiest place on the beach. I didn't make it for lunch, Niki, but at least I made it for dessert! We missed you!

There were a number of other sights on the Boardwalk that night, including multicolored hermit crabs,

and multicolored shoes.

The pending thunderstorm combined with the sunset to create some very pretty multicolored clouds, too.

Unfortunately, it started to storm soon after David found those pretty shoes in that store, so we headed back to the house to watch Role Models, a cinematic masterpiece if there ever was one.