As August comes to an end and Labor Day is upon us, my family celebrates a couple of things:

1. Soaking up the final rays of sunshine at our summer beach house in Margate City, New Jersey

2. Labor Day Weekend, which also means a weekend of friends, family, and good food

3. Maybe most importantly, it means that I have made another trip around the sun and that it is my birthday!

I never minded the end of the summer because of these three things. It also means that my favorite season, autumn, is just around the corner. By this point in the year, I am so ready to pull out my sweatshirts and Ugg boots and get ready for football season, which really just means chili and soup season for me.

This particular Labor Day Weekend was one for the books, filled day in and day out with plans, dinner reservations with friends and a ton of time spent in my favorite beach chair staring out into the Atlantic.

The weekend started with a mom-and-daughter day down in Margate as my mom and I took off work to start the holiday weekend on the Thursday before. Nobody else was at the house yet, so we took advantage of the time and visited some of our favorite spots in town. Beginning with lunch at Greens & Grains for some green juice and a wrap that we split, we then headed to Christina’s, a local clothing boutique, to shop the Labor Day Weekend sales. We ended the day with a fabulous Italian dinner at Red Room Café, where we split the eggplant Parmesan and pasta carbonara dishes.

The next day the rest of the family arrived to join me and mom and celebrate the holiday weekend. This night was extra special because my friends also drove into Margate to celebrate my birthday a few days early at Sofia, an authentic Greek restaurant in Margate. After a delicious meal, they sang “Happy Birthday” to me over chocolate mousse cake and key lime pie martinis.

On the day of my birthday, I started out with a walk to my favorite local coffee shop for an iced coffee and a bagel, my favorite way to start any morning. Breakfast was followed by a visit to the Longport Dog Beach with my boyfriend, Christian, and our dog, Kahlua. There we met our friends who have a new puppy named Louie. Kahlua doesn’t love swimming in the ocean but had a great time digging holes with Louie before they got tired and we went home.

My birthday dinner was perfect. We had a seafood bake for 12 people at the house. Crab legs, steamers, shrimp and pasta were on the menu for my entire family and a couple of friends. We drank wine and raised our glasses to another incredible summer.

We packed up the rental house on Monday, September 4, and headed home to conclude summer 2023, one to never forget!

— Haley Fogarty, advertising manager