It’s an idle Tuesday in the office. I’ve got a high-priority project on the immediate horizon, but it’s not quite here yet. It’s nice to be able to ease back into work from 9 days off.

The vacation was multi-stage. I spent two weekends playing volleyball on the Jersey Shore and the week in between attending the 18th Annual Melia Family Vacation.

The Melia family vacation was begun as my dad and his six siblings had mostly grown into adults and were starting to drift apart. It’s now grown into to a tradition that sees 30 to 40 family members get together for a week every summer. We have our own golf, tennis and yahtzee tournaments. A majority of the 26 grandchildren still attend, although the pressures of young adulthood keep more away each summer.

This summer’s vacation locale was Marco Island, off of Florida’s Gulf coast. Each family unit had an apartments in a high-rise condo building on the beach. The views were gorgeous, but the beach smelled of sulfur at low-tides and the sand was extremely hard-packed.

We had fun dinners together, played lots of Boggle and card games, pestered my cousin Patrick about his wedding plans (he’s the first of my generation to get engaged), watched Wimbledon, and chilled out.

I got the runnner-up trophy in the tennis tournament, losing in the finals to my Uncle Steve, who began attending tennis clinics and playing in tournaments after he lost in the finals last sumer. I got blisters but had fun. Maybe I’ll take some lessons…!

One day, Jeanhee and my sister Jessica and I went down to the Marriott and found a another family on vacation to play a little volleyball against. They were two brothers and a brother-in-law. We beat them handily. I’m looking forward to helping Jessie learn to play the game when she moves to New York. She’s a natural!

It was great to see my Florida cousins and aunt/uncles, and my grandparents, too. Ain’t nothing like family…