Conference time at the shore!

We had another busy weekend. Our weekends are the busiest part of our weeks since my husband is a pastor and we have tons of church related activities. This past week was our annual conference for the United Methodist Church. We used to hold it at Valley Forge Conference Center, but they put in a casino there so we moved to Wildwood. We are part of the NJ Greater United Methodist Conference. That includes a few in Pa. and NY too. We used to meet at Ocean City (South Jersey) at the shore, but then the number of people became too large so we had to move it. That's when the South Jersey conference and the North Jersey conferences merged. Now we are one and huge! I always have to laugh to myself thinking that no one had better need a Methodist Pastor on conference weekend! They are all out of town!! 

Of course when we met at Ocean City it was great because there was the boardwalk and the beach. On our time off- especially spouses and kids who came- we would enjoy the beach. Then after conference was over for the night the pastors would come out and we'd all hit the boardwalk.

But now, we are at Wildwood. This was our first year. I read some online reviews of the hotel where we were going to stay and started getting a little nervous. One review said there were no towels, another said the bathtubs were dirty and so on. When we got there we were pleasantly surprised with a spacious room! There was a bedroom with 2 full size beds, a kitchenette, a nice bathroom and a livingroom with TV on the wall, a pull out couch and a table near the kitchenette. I guess it was a family suite. The only thing they could have included would have been a stuffed chair in the living room to go along with the couch. They had a couple of hard patio type chairs. There was also sliding doors and a little patio with a view of the ocean beach and boardwalk. We were 6 floors up! We've never stayed so high up before in a hotel! But it was OK. No nose bleeds or anything! Ha ha!

Our hotel- The Montego Bay Hotel in the gaudy bright seashore yellow!

You can see from this picture that not too many people were in the water! It's still pretty cool. Someone said it's 65 degrees. My son and I took a walk on the beach. It was fun just walking in the surf. We got used to the temps of the chilly water after a few minutes! -- The Wildwood beaches are really wide- a longer walk to the ocean than any of the other Jersey beaches that I have seen.--- I also noticed that there were no life guards. I thought that after Memorial Day there would be life guards. Hmmm...

We were there for son J's 15th birthday! He was on a quest for a new hoodie sweatshirt and a new hat.
They had to be just right! He really looked in a lot of shops to find them. The sweatshirt he finally picked was one that he chose a decal to be pressed onto. Then we had to get the wax put on to make sure it stayed after laundering!

Here's he and I teasing about his new hat. (A Chicago Bulls hat.)  My husband caught a quick shot of him actually smiling and not trying to have "swag!" (New vocabulary word for us parents! It means to be cool of course! Ha ha!)

 

And finally, a picture of J and Dad. New sweatshirt, new hat, new fifteen year old and happy pair! 

It was good to be at the shore!