Question -What’s the number one question folks ask themselves everyday while on vacation? Answer -What are we going to do for dinner?

 I found myself in this very same predicament this past week when my boyfriend, "Mr. Cool's"  12-year-old daughter came to visit us and brought her three other siblings with her. I went from no kids to the Partridge Family in about an hour. Well it seemed like the Partridge family to me.

 So what to do on a Friday night to satisfy the hunger and energy level of kids 17, 12, 8, and 7? Oh, and I forgot, two adults. We tried Harpoon Henry’s ‘cause we live not far from there. Nope - a 45-minute wait is just a little too much waiting thank you very much. Even with a sand box. So, we’re back in the car.

 Chinese? “Do we have to eat vegetables with it?”

 Italian? “I told you I only like the skabetti not the sauce.”

 Pizza and cheese steaks?  “I don’t like cheese.”  “I don’t like meat.”

Is it Monday yet?

 “Where are we going to take these kids?” asks the cool guy with a slight panic in his voice.

“I'm thinking; I’m thinking!” I politely respond above the din.

Then – the light bulb goes on.

“Henry’s”

“We were just there.”

 “No, there's another one in Cape May, on the beach.”

 We are seated at... how shall I say this?...  not the best table in the restaurant – right next to the hostess station at the front of the restaurant –  the furthest point from the ocean view. I don’t care. You can still see the ocean and the beach. And they’re kids. They won’t care either.

 “Gee Sue. If we really stretch our necks, we can almost see the ocean.”

 “Yeah. We want to sit out there.”

 “I don’t like the ocean. It’s too sandy.”

 Is it Monday yet?

 Our waiter comes over. He is a very nice man, whose name I couldn’t quite catch over the clatter of sword fighting crayons.

 “Maybe after dinner, we can go see Batman Begins,” I say. ”But we’ll have to get some quarters for the meter.”

 We order. I run out to see what time the movie starts.

 It's 7:30. Batman started 16 minutes ago and the next movie is at 10. No way am I hanging out around here that long.

 “The movie already started. We’ll have to skip it tonight. But we can go across the street and have some ice cream at Beaches and Crème.

 I start to say that we can then play miniature golf or maybe go into the arcade but I hesitate because once the words are out my mouth – I’ll be committed. No commitments please.

 “Ricky,” says Nicole leaning over the table into Ricky’s crayons “The sun isn’t red. The sun’s yellow. Give me that crayon.”

 “You broke my crayon!”

 “Oh Ricky. You don’t need it. You still have the other half.”

 Ricky then writes “Nicole stinks” all over his picture and the two of them have to be separated - you know like boxers who have to be sent to their separate corners until the bell rings.

 Blessedly, dinner arrives. It’s perfect. chicken fingers, breaded shrimp, oodles of French fries, cokes for the big people, milk for the little people. The check at $89.00 is a bargain and I leave doing allahs to Henrys on the Beach.

 So now what? ice cream. milkshakes, sundaes, ice cream cones and ice cream in a dish. It took about 15 minutes just to get the orders right but the two girls across the counter were obviously used to people like us and before you knew it we were sitting outside at a café table watching the folks go by.

 It’s going on 9 o’clock and I’m exhausted. I don’t know about the kids but for me, it’s “home again, home again jiggedy-jig.” I’m in bed by 9:30. The last thing I heard was the soothing sounds of the cartoon network. This was our version of "Casual Night." And by casual, I mean sandy feet and play clothes – not swimwear.

 As I see it, the choices families have when it comes to dining out can be boiled down to these three.  You have the “No Worries” dining experience, ”Casual Night” and “Dress-Up Night.”