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A Great Place To Be A Kid

Well pardon me…

Its time for another great version of:

What I did on my summer vacation!

(How has everyone been?)

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Three guesses where we went?

Yes, the very day school let out here we packed our bags for …

“our favorite beach town…its Ocean City, NJ”.

Actually you all know this by now I guess.

Again this town, now TOWN(!), is a GREAT FAMILY Resort.

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It markets itself that way and does a great job to brand itself that way too.

Imagine a resort where they don’t sell alcohol (at least not on the island)? All that tax revenue gone.

But the no alcohol sends that element somewhere else and you are left with a vacation spot full of young families, older folks looking for a quiet town and some really well raised teenagers.

It truly is a great place to bring be a kid.

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This is the place where my parents brought me and my siblings when I was young. We made some great memories!

Now its our turn to bring our girls back OC and let them make some fun memories; as well as recreate some of our own.

What were those memories?

As Junie B. Jones would say,

‘It is my favorite thing in the whole wide world! And it starts with the letter B.

And that stands for….

Boardwalk!’

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And Ocean city’s boardwalk is a great place to be a kid!

(click  HERE or at sunset HERE and take a peak at whats going on right now

…and get fat!

Yep, you just try and run all this food off...

Yep, you just try and run all this food off…

Ahhhh…. yea!

Some of the best food known to kid-dom resides on ‘the Boards’! And when I say the Best, it is truly the best of the best…

“Laura’s Fudge is so so nice
Kohr Brothers is cool as ice
And top it off with a slice
And they’ve got FroYo, too

Eating all you can
Pants start to expand
Even ate some sand
Where you think you’re going baby?”

Well, we went each morning to Brown’s Donuts on our bikes. We strategically rented a home a block away from Brown’s.

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This is the spot where I try to sell you on brown’s, again. But this year it was summed up our very first day.

As we walked through the front door to get a table two ladies in their 50’s were sharing some donuts on the bench by the door. And as I walked on by one won-over lady was licking her fingers and said,

“Best donut ever!”

Ahh yea! They are.

Warm, fresh, made to order Brown’s donuts.

Accept no substitutes!

Powdered, Chocolate, Cinnamon, Vanilla, and Honey

Powdered, Chocolate, Cinnamon, Vanilla, and Honey

After Brown’s its a trip down the boardwalk on our bikes as we try to decide what stores to stop in and where to play miniature golf at on our way back.

'how hard did you hit that Daddy?'

‘How hard did you hit that Daddy?’

Getting back to the Boardwalk, it now carries several regional brand names synonymous with the Boardwalk. (You will see below in the vid)

If some one say Kohr’s you think the best soft custard ever!

If someone says Johnson’s Popcorn you think warm fresh, smell-to-die-for caramel corn.

If someone in Philadelphia says, Manco and Manco they know they are talking about delicious 26 inch pizza pies.

And I already told you about Brown’s Donuts.

Yes, the stores carry t-shirts, pictures, key chains, and refrigerator magnets with these brands on them

So? Best place to be a kid?

Howabout a place with world famous soft custard, warm caramel corn, pizza and donuts. I promise you we ate 3 of the 4 EVERY day (I’m such a pig) including Browns donuts every morning and Kohr’s soft custard every night.

We did!

lose 10lbs

Its like being a kid in a candy store!

Like a kid in a candy store

Like a kid in a candy store

Oh yea, they have a few old, established famous ones there too!

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Did I forget to mention fresh fudge kids?

Now here is the part where I try to find a video that summed up OC’s boardwalk but I found this gem instead.

Kudos to Mom and Dad and their talented kids for pulling this off!

Their smiles and enthusiasm are A-typical of the kids in OC and the kids in all of us!

Sing along with them to the familiar tune:

We come here ev-ver-ree year.

To the beach where there is no beer.

We really like it here.

We think you will too…

We take a walk on the boards
This pizza won some awards
We’re on the Jersey Shore
But not the tacky one”

I love it!

Now if you ask our kids what the best part of their vacation was they will tell you

THE RIDES!

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There are two amusement piers on the boards with a lot of carnival type kid rides. One pier may be geared more to younger kids than the other.

We went to both.

OMG don’t ask me how much money we spent on tickets!

It starts to put a Disney trip in perspective!

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This year we thought we would hang out with some Pirates too.

Savvy?

We took a trip on a pirate cruise.

Again, this adventure, that we have always been curious about is geared to small kids.

Skylar let one loose....her 'Stinky Pete the Pirate' joke..

Skylar let one loose….her ‘Stinky Pete the Pirate’ joke..

We sailed around in the OC Harbor.

Tried to sink that smelly ol’ Pirate, Stinky Pete.

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We They even found seem Pirate grog buried deep in the harbor.

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It turned out to be in a Treasure Chest with a lot of plastic kiddie toys and a 2 liter bottle of root beer.

It was great…if that gives you an idea of how cold that harbor water is!

Great job you scallywags!

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But while the trip was for the kids (most of it) Dad likes to go to the beach.

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..where I can listen to the tides, watch some girls gulls, (an abundance of laughing gulls), chill, and get rid of my flip flop tan..

 

"Beach-Life tan"

“Beach-Life tan”

Sadly, the air temperature was chilly for being the first week of June. We all had to buy sweatshirts. It kept a lot of the people off the beach and even more out of the cold ocean water.

I shore do love a picture where the land breeze blows the spray off the tumbling waves though!

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And this pic below is for a blog follower, Apple Pie & Napalm, who did a photography post on ‘Sky’ while I was on vacation.She mentioned that she has started noticing the clouds more lately.

Well here is your typical ‘brush-stroke clouds cruising across the skies in OC…

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Ocean City even boasts of a well trained legacy of devoted life guards overlooking each beach, complete with rowboats, jet skies, and shaded life guard towers…

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“Its our favorite beach town, Ocean City!”

Yes, a great place to be a kid!

And its a Great place to be a kid!

Have a great summer everyone!

Happy Beach Day Skylar!

Our trip to Ocean City was good for our little Sandy Monster.  While Skylar had been there 2 years ago she was sick for most of that time and really had a misaerable time of it.  This time she was older, healthy (!), and a little bit more independent.  Not unlike a 16 year old with a new driver’s permit, Skylar took a lot of joy and pride in being able to do new things this trip.

Skylar, has always been ‘her own child’. While our oldest can steal the scenes with a lot of her heroics, bravery, perceptions, and personality, Skylar has never tried t be like her older sister. She maybe be more outgoing or friendly at first, with the cutest smile ever, and very very loving.

She is the opposite Dylan when it comes to bravery however. And that’s OK. We may worry less with this one! While Dylan likes to jump off 5 stairs, into Daddy’s arms in the morning, Skylar may only jump two steps and that is when she is already holding onto Daddy’s arms to start.  She is very careful!

So it was joy to see Skylar come out of her shell a bit this trip, do her own thing, and genuinely having a great time.

First, one more advertisement for Ocean City, New Jersey. I found an amazing thing at the beach. When it comes to calling itself ‘America’s Favorite Family Resort’ it goes to great lengths to be so. This included replacing the feisty sand crabs with bunnies in thd dunes! That’s right I said bunnies.

"Happy Easter Bunny Day!"

“Happy Easter Bunny Day!”

While we didn’t see a single sand crab on our trips to the beach, every evening we saw a bunny or two eating in the sand dunes. On a vacation that came to be known “Happy Beach Day” by our youngest, when she saw the rabbit it became, “Happy Easter Bunny Day!”  Too cute!

And how does OCNJ do this?

One of the things that led to Skylar’s ‘coming out’ was that she was finally able to get on some rides this year and have experiences like the other kids; even if she had to cheat to get on some…

On tippy-toes

On tippy-toes

Here she is trying hard to reach the height requirement to get on a ride. She naturally tried to stand on her tip-toes; no one told her. Honest!

Her stoic look is what she carried on to most of the rides. All these things were first time, brand new expereinces for her and I think they left her in kinda awe. If she got on a ride a second time she would crack that award winning smile. But first times she was always kinda emotionless in her face. She was waiting to hear a “No” or “You’re not tall enough”.

She wasn’t scared to ride the huge, sky-scraper of a Ferris Wheel with her sister, even though it was windy and cold that night..

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Yes, they are sweaters they are wearing…in July! It was cold that night.

Skylar wan’t afraid to ride the rides (very unlike herself), spin around on the tilt-a-whirl, or fly high in the ballon ride. She even braved Jaws at the putt-putt course and wasn’t scared of the big shark…much:

For weeks she was asked if she “was ready to go to Ocean City”. Not knowing exactly waht that meant she equated the boardwalk as ‘Ocean City’. So at night she asked if we were going to go up to Ocean City. Then she called the amusement rides. “Games”. She enjoyed the ‘games’ at ‘Ocean City’. She really enjoyed the ‘games’.  🙂

I think she had the most fun, or best experience, of her life so far and it did our hearts good to see her enjoying herself so much. Did you see that smile in the Jaws video?

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So here’s a look at a typical “Happy Beach Day” in the life of our Sandy Monster.  You can see here brave the (cold) ocean, experience the under-toe at her feet, have some fun driving her own bumper car, as well as just going “Up, down, up down, up” …

Happy Beach Day Skylar!

Fun was had by all!

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