Eating at the Beach

Thanks to the Frattos, Memorial Day 2007 was spent in Holden Beach, NC, surrounded by great friends.

Tim, Jo, "3", Chris and I loaded Carter and Annabelle into the car and embarked on what would prove to be a successful ride down towards the Wilmington, NC, and Myrtle Beach, SC, area (successful being defined as very little traffic - especially relative to what we are used to here in DC). Right off the bat, we knew the ride was destined to be a good one... look who joined us on 95-S!

A few hours later, we arrived and Big Lou, Sweet Eileen (Mr. and Mrs. Fratto), and Mark greeted us from the backyard with the grill blazing. We feasted on barbeque chicken, a mix of roasted potatoes and delicious green beans, and a fresh green salad. Our next order of business was to head to the Friday night tradition of Paradise Cafe karaoke and "Karaoke Mike". Since Chris and I were first-timers, we were unsure of what to expect but once I saw the WF flag hanging proudly from the ceiling, I knew we were "home".

What an absolute blast! For those of you who are lucky enough to have heard Mark croon, you know he has quite a voice. We left after numerous group songs, closing the PC down... though I will say we were not the last to leave.

Saturday would bring a long day out at the beach complete with the annual Memorial Day Fratto whiffle ball extravaganza... and capped off with a hilarious and tasty dinner at Osaka, a Japanese steakhouse in the town nearby.

Sunday some of us visited The Provision Co. restaurant out over the Inner-Coastal Waterway and enjoyed delicious crabcakes and other beachtown treats. The rest of the day was spent enjoying the weather outside and finally preparing for the big Memorial Day cookout, complete with Big Lou and Tim manning both grills to serve up all the options you can imagine... London Broil, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, green bean and tomato salad, grilled corn on the cob, and individually grilled potatoes.

We couldn't have asked for a better way to spend such a great holiday weekend... everything from the accomodations to the company was perfect and we were so sad to leave!!!