*7/2, Thursday - I got out of work at 1pm.  Woohoo!  Loved having a half day to start the three day weekend off early.  Henry and I ate lunch, watched So You Think You Can Dance, played some StarCraft, packed and showered to get ready to head for Henry’s 大舅舅 (uncle)’s place in New Jersey.  Helen was caught up at work so we took off a bit later than expected.  I think we left at around 9 or 10pm or so.  Great thing about having other people along the ride is that I don’t have to stay up to make sure Henry stays up while driving.  I dozed off along the way.  We got to NJ pretty late so we just chatted with Henry’s uncle and aunt for a bit before figuring out room assignments then heading to sleep.

*7/3, Friday -I woke up early the next day thanks to my new early work schedule.  I got up at around 6:30am.  I was still sleepy but I couldn’t go back to sleep.  After I showered, Henry’s 大舅舅 and wife woke up (I don’t know what I’m supposed to call them) and told me I could grab some waffles and syrup for breakfast.  I was happy to have my routine breakfast in front of me and ate two waffles for breakfast everyday I was there.  I also broke out my Chinese for Youth Level 2 book and got a bit of help from them.  Henry didn’t wake up until 10am and everyone was up by noon.

Henry and I helped out with making food.  Henry was shucking corn while I peeled carrots.  Made me feel like making food wasn’t too much of a chore.  We ate lunch and got to taste the cooked sweet white corn.  So good!  We also watched the Wimbledon Semifinals match between Andy Murray and Andy Roddick.  So sad.  I was rooting for the Queen to show up for finals.  I wasn’t terribly invested though.  As the day went by, the rest of the Lee family arrived – Stephanie, Michael, Lisa, Henry’s 外婆(grandmother), Henry’s 小舅舅(uncle) and his wife, as well as Henry’s parents.

Stephanie and Michelle (Henry’s cousin who lived in that house) set up the Badminton net with Helen’s help.  I played that game for the first time ever.  They told me playing Badminton would be bad for my Tennis game.  My natural tendency was to play Badminton like I played Tennis but Henry helped teach me and correct me along the way.  I learned to hit the birdie up and Michelle and Henry taught me different ways to serve.  I feel like I got decent pretty quickly so its a game that’s not too hard to pick up.  I had a lot of fun rallying with the cousins.

Some new people who were family friends (Anita was the only one I sort of interacted with) showed up for the BBQ.  We stopped playing when the food was ready.  Food was great.  Mike and Lisa worked on Margaritas and Mike made me a special virgin version.  Loved it.  I called mom to wish her a happy fourth of july even if it wasn’t celebrated in the Philippines (it was the 4th of july there).  Then we celebrated 小舅舅’s birthday with a birthday cake.  Henry and I kinda celebrated too since it was our birthdays as well that month.

After food coma started setting in, people started getting ready for bed.  We were all sweating from our badminton matches so we took our showers.  Some people played Uno.  I found Helen and Henry playing table tennis.  After much hinting, I got Henry to teach me basics of table tennis like the forehand and backhand grip as well as the serve.  We played a few games of pusoy dos/big two (actually, Michelle played for us both, I just helped her along o.Oa).  Then we conked out.

*7/4, Saturday – Happy Independence Day!  To celebrate, we headed over to the New Jersey shore boardwalk.  It was a sunny day and I ended up getting cooked the entire time.  This is my third time of prolonged exposure to sun (Ultimate and Badminton were the other times) so I have gotten a few shades darker.  We didn’t go into the beach because they have this ridiculous rule that you have to pay five bucks to walk into the sand.  Only Mike and Lisa went that route.

We stopped by the Chocolate Factory then ate lunch at a nearby burger joint called Stewart’s “Drive-in”.  We walked around the boardwalk more after eating.  There weren’t any booths further along the beach so we just kept walking just to keep walking.  Henry and I along with Anita and bf made it pretty far down.  We met back up at 3:30pm then headed home.

Our van dropped Anita and the rest of the family friends off at the train station.  Henry and I headed out to play some badminton again.  The sun was too intense and made it hard to play on the net so we played along the side.  Helen, Michelle and Stephanie joined us a bit later.  We decided to try playing on the net even if it was so hard to play with the sun in my eye.  Henry and I took the bad side since we had sunglasses.  Later on it ended up with me and Michelle up at volley and it helped train my soft and more controlled hits.  I have a lot of fun playing the game.  We headed in when it was getting dark and we were getting bitten by mosquitos ><;;.

Some people started heading home – Henry’s parents, 外婆, Stephanie, 小舅舅 and his wife.  The rest of us ate leftover dinner.  Mostly wings. A little before 9pm, 大舅舅+wife, Michelle, Michael, Lisa, Henry, Helen and I headed for the Freehold Raceway Mall to watch fireworks.  We set up our folding chairs.  The fireworks started shortly after 9pm.  It was a nice experience.  The sky was clear and I took pictures and video.

We headed back right after.  Henry, Helen and I were supposed to go home that night but Henry was sleepy.  So was I. We both napped on the way back.  We decided to go home the next day.  We watched Taken before we slept.  Henry had it with him from Netflix.  It turned out to be a pretty good eye opening movie.  We stayed up a bit longer since the movie woke us up.  We slept at around 1:30am.

*7/5, Sunday – As with every other day during the three day weekend, I woke up early again.  I woke up at 7:30am this time, got my normal breakfast.  It was quiet again.  The day before was a lot noisier with the grown ups speaking in Chinese in the morning when the house was a lot more full.  I pulled out my Chinese book again to get in as much studying as I could.  Henry eventually woke up after a few hours.  One of the first things that came to mind to him was to watch the Wimbledon finals.  We ended up being glued to the flat screen tv as we watched Andy Roddick vs Roger Federer.  Having watched Federer win in the French Open vs Robin Söderling, Henry had already given me a good background of the guy and I got to like him after seeing his personality in the interview (where he made a speech both in French and English!).  Of course, I would root for Federer.  It ended up being such an epic match with the fifth set going to 16-14!  Glad I watched it and got to be a part of that world.

Mike, Lisa, Henry, Helen and I headed out after that.  I napped along the way again.  Henry dropped Mike and Lisa off near Mike’s place.  We stopped by PC Richard & Son so Helen can check out air conditioners.  Then he dropped Helen off.  Finally Henry and I got home sweet home.  We vegged on the couch.  I watched some Billiards on TV.  Was so disappointed with the Black Widow being taken down by Kelly Fisher.  Was surprised to see a Filipino, Iris Ranola,  going against Kelly Fisher in the finals so I had to watch that too.  Iris unfortunately got trampled though.  Oh well, better luck next time.  Henry and I played some StarCraft after, then ate dinner, then went to sleep at around midnight.

Gallery: http://calbearmnm.smugmug.com/gallery/8810794_jxdbP

*7/6, Monday - WordPress Update: 11 pages of blogs categorized and tagged, 83 to go!