It’s Robyn’s birthday today. Tonight we’re celebrating by going to a nice restaurant (I can’t name it because it’s a surprise for her) and tomorrow we’re going out with her family for dinner as well. I’m hungry, so that works out well. heheheheh.
It’s also the anniversary of my first real martial arts class with Tim way back in ’86!
It’s weird how two very important events in my life coincide like that, no?
Robyn and I made our first trip with the kids to Pt. Pleasant at the [b]Jersey Shore[/b] a couple of weeks ago. It was a really fun time. Although, as always with twin almost-two-year-olds, it had its stressful moments too!
It was the perfect beach day – high 80s, bright sun, almost no clouds. The only thing that could have been better was the surf. A strong tropical storm near Bermuda was causing the largest waves I’ve ever seen in NJ and the riptide was very strong. It was weird to see so few people in the water on such a beautiful day. Needless to say, we kep the kiddies out of the water. They didn’t seem to mind this since they seemed to find the water and waves a little overwhelming.
Even so, once we were back on our blanket, Chloe wanted to go see the water again so it was back and forth from our blanket and umbrella to the water.
After about three hours Gabriel had had enough and we packed everything up. After dropping everything off at the car and getting changed, we walked the boardwalk and had some dinner. We also made a quick stop at the [url=http://www.jenkinsons.com/aquarium/]Jenkinson’s Aquarium[/url]. I guess the darkness and quiet of the aquarium put Chloe right to sleep becase just minutes after we came out, I saw that she had fallen asleep.
We walked around for a bit longer, got Gabriel some ice cream (the adults had some too!) and then headed back to the car.
It was a nice day and we’ve learned what to bring and not to bring to the beach. We’ll be prepared when we go again later in the summer.
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Yeah, another video from Matt…. But they’re just so goddamn good! I challenge you not to smile!
Robyn went grocery shopping last night as she usually does on Monday night. When she got home, the kids were asleep so I went out to help her bring the bags into the house. I grabbed two bags and brought them into the house where we proceeded to unload everything and put it away.
This morning[readmore] when we were filling the kids’ cups with milk I asked her why she didn’t pick up another gallon for them last night. “I’m pretty sure I did.” she said as she looked over her receipt from last night. “Yeah, it’s right here.”
We looked through the fridge and couldn’t find the new gallon of milk. After that I went to look in the back of the CR-V and there was another bag with milk, Egg Beaters, turkey meatballs and some of that non-dairy chocolate milk that we love. Needless to say, I caught some shit [i]and[/i] beat myself up for it for a while. $15 out the window!![/readmore]
Click the image to move it and see the punchline.
I was a HUGE fan of Saturday Night Live back in my early teens. Here’s the script from a classic SNL “documentary”. I’ve highlighted the line that I still use at least once a week.
[b]Lifestyles of the Relatives of the Rich and Famous on SNL[/b]
[i]with
Robin Leach…..Harry Shearer
Nelson Hepburn…..Martin Short (as Katherine Hepburn’s nephew)
Anthony Haden-Callas…..Christopher Guest[/i]
[b]Robin Leach V/O:[/b] This week, meet the distant cousin of a famous actress. He talks about their relationship, and his career, this week on “Lifestyles of the Relatives of the Rich and Famous”.
[b]Robin Leach:[/b] I’m celebrity interviewer, Robin Leach.
[b]Robin Leach V/O:[/b] Central Park. New York’s tree-lined melting pot. At a prime location halfway between the zoo and Dick Buttons’ favorite bush, sits the hot dog stand owned by Katherine Hepburn’s maternal third cousin, Nelson. We caught up with him recently.
[i](cut to Nelson Hepburn working a customer)[/i]
[b]Nelson Hepburn:[/b] That’s one dog, thank you. Come again, and don’t gobble that!
[i](cut to Nelson Hepburn being interviewed)[/i]
[b]Nelson Hepburn:[/b] For many years, Dom DeLuise would stop by. One time, he was famished and in a hurry, he said, “I’ll have four to go.” And he gobbled one down, not waiting, and it got choking in his throat! I ran behind him, I gave him the Heimlich, hit him in the stomach, and it popped out, fell into the water, I resold it, no one was the wiser..
One time, Cher Bono stopped by. She was having a huge jumbo burger, and she spit it out mid-chew and hit me right in the face. At first, I was thrown, and she said, “I just remembered – I’m a vegeterian!”
[b]Robin Leach V/O:[/b] Business is good these days for Nelson, but all is not rosy between him and his famous relative.
[b]Nelson Hepburn:[/b] We don’t communicate at all. Never did. I tried, through letter, through phone calls, anonymous sometimes, and she’d hang up. One time, she stopped by here, and I said, “Kate, don’t you know me?” [b][i]And she just looked at me and she said, “More mustard, please!” And walked away![/i][/b] I’m taking Sunday, Sunday’s mine, it always was. And I get up around 4:30 or 5:00, and then, I-I-I-I-I read the paper, I have a huge bowl of bran. For the next three hours, I’m indisposed, and then I phone friends. Before I know it, it’s time to put out weiners, and then it’s dawn, it’s a new day.
[b]Robin Leach V/O:[/b] And, when the saurkraut has been applied to the last steaming weiner, sometimes as late as 9PM, Nelson Hepburn leaves for home in his 1978 Plymouth Valiant.
[b]Nelson Hepburn:[/b] Oh, the future. What a frightening prospect. I don’t know. I imagine I’ll be here, saying to someone like you, “Do you want mustard, or are you a saurkraut man?” Are you the type to say, “Just give me a weiner, hold the bun”, or do you want soda? I imagine I’ll say, “Whatever you want, give me the money and it’s yours.” Because that’s my job.
[b]Robin Leach V/O:[/b] Next week, we talk to the English professor who’s a nephew of comedian Charlie Callas.
[b]Anthony Haden-Callas:[/b] I don’t think people have the time to.. [ barks, then begins to jump around like a duck ]
[b]Robin Leach V/O:[/b] Next week, on the “Lifestyles of the Relatives of the Rich and Famous”.
Got back from the podiatrist a little while ago. Apparently that bump or lump or whatever on my foot is a bone chip! The doctor was surprised looking at my x-rays and asked me if I had any idea when that happened? I said “Would I have known it?” and he said “Well, most people know when they break a bone in their foot.”
I can’t imagine when that would have happened. I’m sure it was in training, but I can’t remember a definite injury. Oh well….
Couple of things while I’m sitting here thinking about them:
[list]
[*]Went to see Iron Man with John tonight. The movie was really entertaining and well done. Not too serious and just the right amount of “cheese”. The funny part about this outing was that John’s wife actually called me this morning to set up the “date” like some kind of matchmaker.
[*]Both Chloe and Gabriel have been sick off and on for the past week or so. They both had low fevers early last week and now Chloe seems like she has a full blown cold because she’s really stuffy and coughing quite a bit. They’re so pitiful when they’re not feeling well.
[*]Last Tuesday, I attended the “almost last” class at the current and long-time location of [url=http://www.bnyd.com]BNYD[/url]. A lot of people showed up who I’ve not seen for a while. It was great to see them, catch up and get some good training in as well as get a chance to spend some time looking through Joe’s review copy of Souke’s new book.
[*]I’ve got an appointment with a podiatrist tomorrow to get my calluses and the little bump on the outside of my right foot looked at. I’m a little concerned about the bump as there’s always some fear that things like this might turn into “something”. Hopefully, my worries are unfounded.
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Okay, time to hit the showers….
I have no idea what the title of this post means, but that’s okay. Maybe it came from some place deep down in my mental recesses?
I imagine that all my readers are dying to know how the rest of our trip to NC went, but I just don’t have the time to finish that story up. Not that there was much to tell, really. We made it to Charlotte about 3 in the afternoon on the second day. It was great to see Chris and Toni again after so long. They have a beautiful home and spent two days showing us around the area and chasing after our kids. Luckily, Abby was also really helpful when it came to our kids or we would not have had a second to relax until after they went to bed. The drive home was also rather uneventful. We left around 5pm on Sunday and reached our hotel in northern VA at about 11pm. Gabey and Chloe slept quietly through the night and we headed out again the next morning arriving home at about 2pm. Overall – a good trip.
I finally dropped our LCD TV with built-in DVD player off at Circuit City to be sent out for repair. Now let’s see how long it takes and what kind of hoops we have to jump through to actually get it repaired or (hopefully!) replaced. I’m guessing the whole thing is going to go down like [url=http://don.oninohana.com/blog/?postid=245]this[/url], but my fingers are crossed anyway.
I also upgraded to Microsoft’s Office 2007 on my main PC. I’ve been putting it off even though our newer notebook came with it preinstalled. I think I’ve been a little afraid to make the move to the newer verison of Outlook. We’ll see how that goes in the coming weeks.
Last week, all four of us packed into the car and drove to North Carolina. That’s about a 10 hour trip with no stops. All in all, we made the trip in about 13 hours or so. That’s pretty good, I think.
Ever since Chris and Toni moved south a couple years back, they’ve been inviting us to come down to see their new digs and visit. With the whole pregnancy-thing blossoming into the newborn and then baby-things, it was tough to find a good time to travel. We finally bit the bullet and made the decision to go.[readmore]
We left at 10am on Thursday, May 16th planning to get to the Richmond, VA area that afternoon and meet one of Robyn’s Twins Mom internet message board friends and her family for dinner. Right from the start things seemed to go well. The new portable DVD player that we had purchased was keeping the kids entertained and relatively quiet and the recently arrived [amazon=B000NVZE5M]GPS unit[/amazon] was taking us on an unexpected, but more direct and definitely faster, route. Our first stop came after about 4 hours or so and landed us at a McDonald’s in Havre De Grace, MD. We stopped, stretched our legs, hit the bathrooms (I couldn’t hold the coffee that I had had that morning any longer, so this stop was mainly for me!) and got something to eat before getting back on the road. I believe we got as far as south D.C before making a quick stop to call Robyn’s friend and let her know where we were and give her our estimated arrival time. Then it was back in the car and through the thickening traffic until we made our last stop just outside of Richmond in order to get gas and let the kids cool down. We arrived at our very nice hotel in Chester, VA at about 5pm. Since we were going to meet Angie and her family for dinner, we didn’t have time to do anything but get our stuff into the room, change the kids’ diapers and tidy up a bit before heading back out.
It was nice to have dinner with Angie, her husband and kids. Although we had never met in person, there was the shared experience of having boy/girl twins and all that goes along with it. Her kids were certainly the most polite three year olds I’d ever met, saying lots of “pleases”, “sirs” and “ma’ams” throughout the meal. Chloe was keeping me on my toes and it really wasn’t until the very end of dinner that I got a chance to shove my meal into my face.
The hotel stay (which was one of the things that was worrying me most about the whole trip) went really well. Chloe and Gabriel were really wound up, so they didn’t get to sleep until about 11pm. But once they were out, they slept soundly through the night until almost 8am the next day. We couldn’t have been more happy and impressed with our kids.
After a quick breakfast, it was time to pack the car and get back on the road. Unfortunately, Friday did not go quite as well as the day before. The kids were just sick of being in the car and watching the same Elmo DVD over and over again (we had others, but they didn’t want anything to do with a non-Elmo DVD!) so we made several stops throughout the day. Our arrival time at Chris and Toni’s was about 3pm on Friday. A little later than expected, but not too bad.
[b]Lessons Learned[/b]
[list]
[*]GPS is a MUST-HAVE for long trips to unknown areas with children
[*]GPS will get you where you want to go. It’s like The Force – trust it even if it seems to be taking you in the wrong direction!
[*]In-car DVD player is a MUST-HAVE for long trips with children
[*]Always have more than one Elmo DVD for long trips with children
[*]Don’t drink a large Dunkin’ Donuts coffee before leaving on a long trip with children
[*]Chloe and Gabriel will sleep anywhere
[/list]
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