Birthday at the beach

We often celebrate Freddy's birthday by taking the subway to the beach at Coney Island and going to the aquarium. But this year we took the train to Asbury Park, a beach town on the Jersey shore.

It was a short walk from the train station to the boardwalk and beach.

Our destination was the Silverball Museum, home to over 200 pinball machines.

Freddy playing pinball.

Olivia, with Eric in the background. After you pay admission, all the games are on "free play," and you can play any machine, all day. And we truly played all day....my arms ached for the next few days after playing so many games!

Eric is a die-hard player and he even scored High Score on the Big Star machine. Frederick told the museum owner, who then wrote Eric's name on the card. See it?

Olivia and I like the old-fashioned games like this mechanical bowling lane.

The boys each tried their hand at the strong-man hammer thingy.

We stayed overnight and then rode the train home the next morning. It was a great way to celebrate a 10th birthday!