William is at a wrestling tournament two hours away in Newport, PA. I tried to find the information online and I think it’s somewhere on this site but I can’t find it. GO WILL!

Nikolas is pushing his SpiderMan car around the living room.

I’m cleaning the house.

I guess this is a typical Saturday. I wish I was in Newport.

We had our first Pennsylvania Ornament Party yesterday and all the kids made ornaments and played in the snow.

At Phifer Ice Dam Dec. 4, 2009.

Brian and I went to the Liberty @ East Stroudsburg quartefinal playoff game last night in East Stroudsburg. We had no idea the Liberty High Marching Band played in the Rose Bowl. And I soon discovered why at half-time. It was simply amazing. They had bagpipers, drummers, majorettes, every instrument a marching band should have, and the performance as far as I could tell was flawless.

I’m reading Truman by David McCullough and was struck by McCullough’s continued references to bits of letters and notes left behind by Truman and his family and friends. It occurred to me that blogs are today’s letters and notes. Below are some notes I would have written down on paper had I the mind to actually bring any paper or pens with me to the beach!

This beautiful home is right on the beach and we passed it every day walking down the boardwalk. The URL caught my eye: oceanporch.com. too bad the owner hasn’t done anything with the Web site. I’d love to see what the home looks like on the inside.

Jacob asked me why there are so few homes in Ocean City. I told him the boardwalk used to be lined with beautiful homes like the one with oceanporch.com as an Internet address but that over time the hotels came and bought up many of the homes. I told him we should appreciate the ones still standing.

We bought Jacob and William shark-tooth necklaces at Sunsations for $2.00. Jacob thinks it’s really cool.

We bought breakfast at the Commander‘s restaurant, Skipjack Grill. It was okay. This was our second year at the Commander and we spent a little more to stay on the first floor. Not having to use the elevator was well worth the extra dough. The Commander is one of those older hotels that’s been remodeled. There were pictures of the original hotel in our room that show an uncrowded boardwalk with actual open space.

Of course we went back to Phillip‘s for seafood. Jacob ate carb legs. William had a corn dog. Nikolas ate whatever anyone else had on his/her plate and then some.

We rented bikes at the 14th St. Bike Rental. Each bike was $6 except mine which was $8, $2 more for the baby seat.

We ate Dunkin Donuts for three days straight.

Trimpers rides were probably the best back in the day. Now, they are just okay. We spent $9 for me and the two boys to visit the Haunted House. I noticed one of the mummies had only thumbs. You’d think Trimper, at $3 a head, could afford to replace the poor guy’s hands!

We needed milk one night for Nikolas’ bottle and coughed up $11 for two half-gallons. Yes ELEVEN DOLLARS! The Boardwalk Convenience Store (BCS for short) doesn’t have a Web site.

Nikolas’ Orange Floaties were purchased at the Commander’s Outrageous Beach Outlet for $2.99 and his big orange bucket with a yellow shovel was $4.99.

My five boys

Originally uploaded by Kathy Schwartz

All the boys sitting nice for a picture — amazing!

We took the kids to Cabelas today to get Grandpa a gift certificate. They had never been to that store/zoo/restaurant/amusement park. It’s pretty amazing — life-sized animals staged on a mountain, real fish swimming under the watchful eyes of stuffed life-sized bears, and an ELEPHANT.
You should go sometime. Click on his picture to see more pictures from our trip.

It snowed a lot today and, in fact, it’s still coming down. We bundled up all the boys and they played outside. Nikolas only stayed out for about ten minutes. His mittens wouldn’t stay on!

The boys had pig noses at Roba’s Family Tree Farm! I know, Nikolas is out of uniform!