Family vacations can be a great time. However, you need to remember the children are the first priority. So, I don’t care if my shirt turns into a towel or a tissue. My children had a great vacation. And so did I!
Family Vacation!
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Tag Archives: Children
A Family Trip to the Ocean City Historical Museum
“Who founded Gillian’s fundeck? Who founded Gillian’s fundeck?” My children wanted to know. They were on the last question of a scavenger hunt at the Ocean City Historical Museum.
My family and I first vacationed in Ocean City, NJ in the early 80’s. An August vacation in Ocean City quickly became a family tradition, as we’ve been visiting the beach town nearly every year since. Over the years, the tradition has included renting surreys, playing miniature golf, and renting bikes.
However, at this point my desires for my Ocean City vacation are simple: Go to the beach, and take my children to the rides on the boardwalk. I have little desire to do anything else. Ms. MMK, on the other hand, likes to try different things. She’s the type to read travel books, view local websites, and consult local publications. This year her research brought us to the Ocean City Historical Museum.
Thirty years of coming to Ocean City and I didn’t even know the town had a Historical Museum. Anyway, my expectations for the Ocean City Historical Museum were minimal. I figured we’d kill a half an hour and Ms. MMK would feel like we got some culture. Continue reading
Time Is Not Like Spaghetti
My children through time.
You always end up making extra spaghetti – right? Luckily, spaghetti is one of the all-time great leftover foods. I have been known to eat cold spaghetti a day or even two after it was originally served. Yes, spaghetti can be saved in order to be eaten later.
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You ever have a topic seemingly just keep popping up? It’s as if G-d or fate is tapping you on the shoulder and imploring you to listen. Well, that’s what happened for me with the movie Boyhood. First, a buddy of mine brought it up and asked me if wanted to see it. A few days later I saw a review on the How To Be A Dad site. A few days after reading the review, my brother and sister-in-law mentioned Boyhood and praised the movie greatly.
So, this past weekend I actually saw the Richard Linklater movie. For the uninitiated, Boyhood takes place over 12 years and follows a boy, Mason, from the time he is in kindergarten till the age of 18 and his first day in his college dorm. The boy is now a man. It literally took 12 years for Linklater to make the movie as he filmed for a few days over each of those 12 years.
Patricia Arquette stars as the mother of Mason and his sister Samantha. Ethan Hawke is her estranged husband. Arquette goes through some turbulent times as she suffers through two marriages to drunken men. She does grow tremendously professionally and becomes a college professor. Hawke goes from a shiftless guy who means well to a responsible man with a new wife and child. However, the focus of Boyhood is the children and Mason in particular. The audience learns about him through snippets of his life and sees him grow into adulthood.
My Children Have Changed Me
My children have made me a different person. Not so different that you would not recognize me if you haven’t seen me in years. I’m still the same height, about the same weight, and my hair is still black. Well, my hair is another story. I also still enjoy the same hobbies: sports, writing, reading, and music.
Yet, my boys have changed me. Profoundly. I don’t mean in the love and protection area either. Though there is an article on wired.com about a study which showed that there are “brain changes associated with fatherhood.” Yes, it’s true: I’ve changed in those ways as well.
But this is not about those types of changes.