When I walked out of the office Tuesday evening, my lone goal for the extended holiday weekend was to work as little as possible. Limited e-mail, no phone calls. Lots of family, friends and fun.

Mission accomplished...





























(I realize that is an obnoxious number of photos, but that is just too damn bad. You try to eliminate any of those darling faces.)

Five days full of soccer games, golf, boardwalk games and rides, watching the sunset, sleeping on the boat, hanging on the deck, fishing, eating, drinking and relaxing. Also, we were all treated to the younger crazy nephew's new original song, "My Butthole" (which, much to our joy, comes with an appropriately choreographed dance).

Even a spur-of-the-moment five-mile run was a good time. That's right, on Wednesday KJ asked if I wanted to run the Firecracker Five-Miler two days later. I temporarily lost my mind and agreed and the next thing you know we had convinced my cousin, brother and sister-in-law it would be a good idea. And except for some unexpected hills along the route, it was just fine.

In fact, we all learned something - apparently, a night-before meal of hot dogs, hamburgers, corn on the cob, beans and the better part of a bottle of merlot works well, because I set a personal best time of 54:31.

And we were afraid that sort of pre-race feast might have caused problems.

The only problem around here is going to be returning to the office tomorrow...