Myrtle in the morning

It's Tuesday morning on the Jackson/Murray vacation in Myrtle Beach, SC. Things are going great, the sun keeps shining, the waves keep rolling and the beer...well it's wet and cold! As usual Big Red opted for the less than wise approach to the art of sunbathing. She will never learn. Yeah, Big Red's a little red. : ) Cole got a little extra sun on the first day as well, but just on ONE shoulder, so he's surviving. Yesterday we opted to skip the beach and go instead to Broadway At The Beach. We all got henna tattoos and wandered around and actually had a good time. The shopping excursion didn't last too long. Cole started to get restless and I was able to convince Teresa it was time to head back to the condo. I think I owe the boy! Then we ALL headed out that evening to Murrell's Inlet and a restaurant called Nance's. Nice seafood restaurant, non-buffet...but it was very good. Afterward we walked up and down the boardwalk that connected a number of restaurants/bars. The boardwalk also led into a marina, with some enormous boats that the boys really liked. The boys have gotten along very well. You know how that's not always true when you have 3! Right now they're sitting here on the coach, playing Mario Kart on their DS's. The "gamer" chatter is entertaining to me! If it was a FPS...or a poker game, it'd be smack talk.

Speaking of poker, we've played cards a couple of nights already. One night a cheap game of TONG. Last night we started out with TONG and moved on to Hold 'em. Bob joined us, so a five person game is where it started until Jody busted out and headed to bed. Then the four of us continued. Big Red and I each started with $10 and each cashed out at around 1:30am for $40 and $37 each. I'd like to pretend that I was just playing well, but Matt was just hitting a run of bad cards. Now, having not played with Bob before, I didn't know what to expect. Of course he was in the same boat! Observations...a bit loose, but aggressive. He could be the type to blindside you with junk...which he did to Matt once, when he played the Shuman hand and nailed the straight. Matt got stuck with AQos, when he hit his two pair on the flop. Ouch! I played tight for the most part, and they remarked that it was the uber tight variety, and said I was incredibly patient for a 4-man game. I took the hint slowly, and opened up the game a degree. It worked for me. I was able to capitalize on Bob's misplaced aggression against Bob, when he made a move on Matt. He had discounted me staying in the pot when he made it $11 to go after the flop. I had hit two pair and I couldn't put him on the straight or flush draw possibility. He had top pair only, I later learned. I didn't get to see it immediately. I pushed all in for an additional $10. He dropped after going into the tank. All in all, it was a good time. And I hope to do it a few more times this week. We'll see.

I'm preparing for sitter duty today, so I'm going to wrap this up. Matt, Dillon and the Bob's are all going golfing. The ladies are all heading to the flea market, for a few hours. Whit and JoJo are still in bed, but should be beginning to stir soon. I'm staying here with the 3 boys and taking them down to the pool to worship the sun god and let them run amok in the pool.

Anyway, hope all is well in P-burg, we'll back in a few short days. We'll all get together again soon.

Regards,

cheer_dad