Shore Report 2k6

We just got home from our trip to Ocean City, New Jersey and we had a wonderful time.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Scrapple Sticks
• seeing Lucy the Elephant
• my dad and I playing with Fiona in the shallow water
• walking on the boardwalk
• Amy, Fiona, and I getting our pictures taken in one of those photo booths
• playing mini golf with Amy, Maureen, Mark, Nathaniel, and Neil
• Riding waves with Christo
• Hearing Reen and Dad make fun of Bruce Springsteen
• Watching Soccer with Mark
• Food (including but not limited to the following things: the aforementioned Scrapple Sticks, Chicken & Waffles, Waffles & Ice Cream, T.T.'s cake, Aunt Holly's Red Velvet Cake, Pot Pies, mint ice cream, Uncle Bill's Pancakes (mmmmm... stuffed French Toast.) Mack & Manco's Pizza, dutch-oven jambalaya, $3 Coconut Macaroons, Browns Cinnamon, Honey, Plain, and Powdered donuts, French Fries.)
• Hanging out with Dritsas on Sunday afternoon and dropping Mentos into a 2-litre bottle of Diet Coke
• Wonderland Pier
• digging in the sand
• riding a surrey bike with Amy and Fiona
• going to see Bruce Springsteen with Seamus
• going to see Bruce Sprignsteen with Amy, Maureen, and Mark

A FEW RANDOM NOTES ON THE SHORE TRIP

• Mark won the Miniature-Golf Tournament (If Reen would have had a three or less on the last hole of the last game, she would have won the tournament... she got a 6 on that hole.)
• I did not get sunburned at all.
• Amy, Fiona, and I sent a total of 18 post cards.
• I lost my St. Patrick/St. Brigid medallion in the ocean. My mom and dad got that for me when they went to Ireland in 2000.
• Mack & Manco's pizza is completely over-rated and over-priced.
• The Bruce Concert was awesome, but I was actually more excited about being there with Seamus, and Maureen and Mark then I was about seeing Bruce. And that makes me very very happy. I love Bruce, but he wasn't even close to being the best part of that evening.

A FEW FUNNY THINGS THAT WERE SAID AT THE SHORE

• While I was reading "Body Brokers," a book about the illegal sales of deceased human bodies for medical experiments, my cousin asked how much a human brain costs, and I responded "$600." My Dad then said: "Perhaps you (meaning me) should save up for a new one."
• While Bruce Springsteen was singing 'Maria's Bed' for the first time on the entire tour and I was singing along enthusiastically, Seamus came over to me and said: "What's for dinner?"
• While discussing Fiona's Strawberry Shortcake shoelaces and Amy's need for Fiona to like Strawberry Shortcake and my NEED for Fiona to like Scrapple, Mark and I both said some thing that ended with the words: "Scrapple Shoelaces." (I think if I ever have a band, it will be called "Scrapple Shoelaces.")
• After telling Caitlin that she should try to never get old, she said to me: "You're not old." I then said, "Thank you... how old do you think I am?" Caitlin then said: "Ummm... 46?"

FUN FACTS

• Mack and Manco's Pizza and my Uncle Tim are both 50 years old.
• Samantha and Sara's first solid food was Mack and Manco's pizza.
• The She Sharks beat the Sea Monkeys at Wiffle ball after Amy "Zimmy" Holland blasted a three-run homer over the head of her husband.
• Amy and I got some Christmas Shopping done.
• As for Ocean City license plates for bicycles, they did not have Fiona, Nona, Kellen, or Madison. They did, however, have Omar. (Incidentally, they did have SARA and SAMANTHA.)

If I remember more fun things, I will update them later.

OCNJ 2K6

Yeah, we are heading out to Ocean City N.J. bright and early tomorrow morning.

I am all packed, thanks to Amy. She packed all my clothes and whatnot and I have been put in charge of remembering to bring the Bruce Springsteen tickets.

I have already placed them in the suitcase, but knowing myself as well as I do, I will probably check the suitcase again tonight... then tomorrow morning before I put the suitcase in the car... and then after I put the suitcase in the car because you know there is a chance that they could have fallen out between our front door and the curb... i will also probably check when we get to the Frank S. Farley rest stop... and then again when we get to the apartment.

And then i will check again on saturday night, sunday morning, sunday night, monday morning, monday night, tuesday morning, tuesday afternoon, and tuesday before we leave for the show. I will then check again when we are about a block from the apartment, perhaps again 10 minutes later, again 30 minutes later and then when we get to the parking lot of the Tweeter Center. I will then walk to the gate with the tickets in my pocket and my hand on the tickets while they are in my pocket and when we finally arrive at the gate and I give Amy, Maureen, Mark, and Seamus their tickets, and then hand MY ticket to the ticket-taker... then I will relax about the tickets.

Then I will be able to enjoy the rest of my week, knowing that I have absolutely nothing else to worry about for the next 5 days... except losing at minigolf.

peace
mph

New Movies

MOVIES OUT NOW (OR COMING OUT SOON) THAT LOOK REALLY GOOD
1. Nacho Libre
2. Cars
3. Strangers With Candy
4. Superman Returns (I want to see this movie at an IMAX theater.)
5. The Break-Up

MOVIES OUT NOW THAT LOOK LIKE THEY TOTALLY SUCK
1. Garfield 2: The Tale of Two Kitties
2. The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift

Peace
MPH

SUMMER OF MPH V2.0?

Could this be the Summer of Michael P. Holland Version 2.0?

Let's look at the summer so far:

I had a few warm up days in late spring with a Springsteen Concert and a trip to the cabin with Dad and Larry.

And then a trip to see the Phillies with Dad and Fiona.

And then Memorial Day was upon us and with it, we went to Vermont and Mass.

The next weekend, Fiona spent her first night away from home by herself, hanging out with MomMom and Pop-Pop, while Amy and I went out to eat and bowling with friends.

And coming up: a trip to the shore that will be punctuated with minature golf, playing in the ocean with Fiona, perhaps going to see Cars, and of course, Going To See BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN with Amy, Maureen, Mark, and Seamus. Dude, how cool is Seamus? Going to rock with the boss when he is only 5 years old?BONUS: Dritsas might be going, too.

The week after that is fourth of July. And beyond that... who knows? All I can say is life is good for MPH.

peace

Trip to Massachusetts

Well, we are home from our whirl-wind tour of New England. We arrived home last night and all slept really really well in our own beds.

Our three days in Massachusetts were great. We ate Lobster and went candle-pin bowling. We watched 4 episodes of The Office and went to a really cool garden that had a merry-go-round.

Amy painted a cow jumping over the moon on the wall of Maureen & Mark's nursery. Fiona got to play with her Auntie Maureen and Uncle Mark a whole lot.

We got to drive our new car a whole lot and it was fine.

Couple of Vermont/Massachusetts lists:
Number of Dunkin' Donuts we saw while we were there:
1.) Like a billion.

Number of DD's we ate at:
2.) Zero (we did have some at Joe & Tammy's house and we stopped at one in Rhode Island, but we did not actually eat at any in Vermont or Mass.)

Most annoying things about Massachusetts:
1.) The way people drive
2.) All those freaking Red Sox hats, t-shirts, sweatshirts, bumper stickers (or as they say up there 'bumpah stickahs'), liscense plates, banners, flags, clocks, etc etc etc

Number of Rotaries we needed to negotiate:
1.) about 10

Number of times the guy behind me was aggitated enough with my inability to pull the trigger and merge into the rotary that he was forced to honk his horn:
1.) only once

Number of days while we were in Mass that it rained:
1.) Zero

How long it rained on the day we had to drive home
1.) Over 7 hours.
2.) From Maureen's house striaght through to Hamburg PA

Number of diapers we had left when we arrived at my folks' house at the end of our drive:
1.) 1... the one that Fiona was wearing.

Number of times Amy got Punk'd by me and/or Maureen
1.) 2
a.) I made her believe that she had forgot to tell me that Fiona's clothes were packed in a different bag from ours and that that bag was still at home. Hilarious.
b.) Reen got Amy to believe that Dunkin Donuts in Massachusetts closed at 3:00 on Fridays so they could prepare for the Saturday rush.

What the guy at the candlepin bowling place entered into the automated scoring system when Maureen told him Amy's name
1.) Katie

How our names appeared on the automated scoring system thing:
1.) MIK
2.) KAT
3.) MAU
4.) MAR

Candlepin bowling results
1.) Mark
2.) Katie (Amy)
3.) Maureen
4.) Mike

Number of miles on our new car when we left Lititz:
1.) 84

Number of miles on our car when we arrived in Lititz:
1.) 1,446

Number of states Fiona was in for the first time:
1.) 6 (New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut.)

That is all for now.

Peace,
MPH

Vermont

I am checking in here from Massachusetts. Amy and I arrived yesterday after a real good time in Vermont. We did almost all the stuff we wanted to do. And we did all the stuff we really wanted to do like hang out with Joe and Tammy, and Tim, Nicole, Owen, and Marnie. We also went to Trattoria Delia, our Favorite Vermont Restaurant.
Here is what I had:
Scamorza alla Griglia Wood-grilled handmade smoked mozzarella served on a bed of arugula with grilled tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini drizzled with extra-virgin olive oil.

Spaghetti alla Pescatora Fresh baby clams, mussels, shrimp and calamari sauteed with olive oil, white wine, garlic, herbs and tomatoes.

Semifreddo alle Mandorle Literally translated, a “semi-frozen” vanilla mousse with a “Torrone” almond nougat, drizzled with a warm caramel sauce.

And a Coke.

The next day we went to Al's French Fries for lunch. I had a pizza burger, a sausage sandwich, some french fries. And a Coke. Fiona had a Hot Dog, and Amy had a Cheeseburger and some french fries.

On Tuesday, we went up to Stowe and ate at The Shed. Mmmmmmm... Shed Burger. I had a Shed Bacon-cheeseburger and fries. And a Mountain Ale Brew. Man alive it was really good. I do not consider myself much of a beer conniseur, but this beer was very good. It was light and very crisp and refreshing. I enjoyed it a great deal, but as I don't drink so much anymore, I did not buy a growler of it to take home with me. (Joe got me a case of Magic Hat's Fat Angel Ale, which is my favorite Vermont Beer.)


We then went on the touristy tour of Stowe/Waterbury. We went to the Cold Hollow Cider Mill where I worked when we first moved to Vermont. And we went to Cabot Cheese for some free cheese. My dad still holds the record for most free cheese eaten. His picture is on the wall. And we went to Ben & Jerry's. I bought some post cards and stamps. I asked for 9 stamps, but they accidentally gave me 11. I didn't realize the error until we were down the road a ways. Ha Ha, i got one over on Ben & Jerrys. I ripped them off for 48 cents!!! DOWN WITH THE CAPITALIST HIPPIES!!

Now we are here in Mass with Maureen and Mark and we are having fun. Amy is painting a mural on the nursery wall, Fiona is watching Sesame Street with her Auntie Reen, and I am relaxing! When Mark gets home we are going out for Lobster at the Lobster Trap. All is good!