A couple of weeks ago I whipped out my iPod to show Mike, Brian and Mia some photos of the kid. As I did this Brian looked at me as if I had put a gun to my head and said, “you’re carrying that thing around without a case?” Yes I was. It’s not because I didn’t want a case, rather it was because the one I wanted wasn’t out yet.

Yesterday I hit the Menlo Park Mall and the Apple Store and was pleased to see that the case I wanted was in stock. It looks like this and is made by Agent18:

I accidentally tested it’s protectiveness today as I dropped it at the gym while taking it out. No scratches or cracks and it fell pretty hard too.

This week’s pizza consisted of Whole Wheat Pizza Dough from Whole Foods (bought the day before), sauce, shrimp, turkey pepperoni, cubes of low-fat mozerella, artichoke hearts, mushroom, sliced tomato and red onion. It was great. It’s nice to be able to put whatever you want on your own pizza:

After pizza time we headed to Woodbridge and Iselin to grab some new boots for Debbie. We stopped at the DSW in Iselin (after a brief delay when I missed the funky turnoff into the parking lot and had to get on the Parkway again) and then hit the Menlo Park Mall (Kenneth Cole, Guess, Nordstrom and Nine West) and the Woodbridge Mall (Steve Madden and Nine West).

The weather was pretty decent today so we took Lillian to Holmdel Park and the adjacent Longstreet Farm. Debbie used to go there when she was a kid and has a good story about getting kicked by a horse way back when. We went through the visitor barn where Debbie thought the lady behind the desk said, “Enjoy the apples” and then we checked out the horses, cows, vintage farm equipment, pigs and chickens. Then we watched a guy milk a cow for a bit.

After the farm we took Lillian to the playground and got her to go through a couple of tunnels before taking her down a small slide and then the requisite swings.

After the park we went to Whole Foods. We picked up some vegetables for the big salad we were having for dinner, a boule of whole wheat pizza dough, 2 pink lady apples and 2 samosas.

About a week ago Debbie and I switched gyms. I was uneasy about leaving Golds Gym in Middletown because it was the place I was familiar with, the staff was great, it was a 24 hr gym and I saw great results there. Unfortunately it is also 20 minutes away. The new gym is literally 2 minutes from our house and within walking distance. It just made more sense to switch.

Sadly that meant that we had to pay a stupid initiation fee (none of that crap at Golds) and sign a 12 month committment (non of that BS at Golds either). After paying a huge up front bill we signed up for an initial free session with a trainer. I was hoping they would give us updated programs and show us some of the newer machines along with some instruction.

My appointment was this morning at 7:00am and I met with a guy named Charlie. He reminded me of Gil from ‘The Simpsons.’ After a questionnaire and some fitness test (a squat, a bridge, walking on the treadmill) we showed me a couple of the FreeMotion cable machines. Then we went back to the office and he started the personal training sales pitch. 1 session runs at $85, but I could also sign up for 30 at the low low price of $1650. Yeah - no thanks. I don’t need someone to babysit me while i work out and not for a 3rd of the price of a Breitling Navitimer.

On the bright side, this gym has a good mix of machines and plenty of cardio machines and has not yet been close to crowded when I got at 6:30am. I wish the trainers and staff were more into helping people out rather than selling their training. I guess the problem is that they know they have our initiation fess already and we’re locked in for 1 year so they don’t really have to do anything else to encourage you to keep coming.

The tradeoff is that the place is 2 minutes away which will give me no excuse to go everyday.

For the second Sunday in a row I decided to make a pizza for lunch. Before I picked up the ingredients at the store Debbie, Lillian and I stopped at Babies R’ Us for some childproofing gear and then we went over to Circuit City to check out the Motorola Razr V3 and to see if they had the iPod radio remote. After quick stop at Home Depot for shelves I grabbed the pizza gear at the A&P: white pizza dough, raw shrimp, sauce, cheese and red onions. The black olives were sitting at home already.

This is the result:

Today was supposed to be nseasonably warm - somewhere in the 50’s or 60’s so we decided to take Lillian over to the layground at Dorbrook Park. After some bedroom cleaning we packed Lillian up and we were off. Clouds had rolled in by the time we got to the park and it was a bit colder than I thought it would be but still very nice. We started off on the kiddie swings and then let Lillan go down a small slide a few times. Then we took her over to the sandpit where she played with some sand for the first time. After a little more roaming around and another swing session we left.

After the park we went over to the Jackson “premium” Outlets to exchange some baby items at Carters and Little Me. After heading home I went to the Chinese market and got some rice, chinese water spinach, a rice dumpling and some soup and made some pork fried rice.

I had been dying to take Lillian to one o those Gymboreee type places ever since she was a kid. The problem is that those laces only allow you to walk in and use their gear on weekday mornings or afternoons only and never on the weekends as that’s when they host parties only. To me that made absolutely no sense as I have to work my ass off on the weekdays and can only take my kid to a indoor gym on the weekends.

Since today was a holiday I decided to honor the memory of Martin Luther King by taking my kid out for a fun time at a place called ‘Party Gym’ in Middletown. Debbie and I packed up Lillian and took her over at about 1:30pm. The fee for ‘open gym’ was $5 and the Party Gym featured carpeted tunnels, some rides, a plastic kitchen, a mini slide and a padded structure which had a ball pit and an inflatable floor which you could bounce on. We took Lillian on all of these and I think she had a good time. We left a shade before 3pm.

I asked Lauren last night if David had made her a pizza yet. If she said “yes” I knew this was true love and better than any so-called tradiitonal romantic gesture. Forget the flowers, chocolates, poems and ‘I Love you’s.” Pizza from the heart says way more than any of that ever could.

David had mentioned that the last pizza he made had goat cheese on it and I couldn’t stop thinking about it today so I decided it was time to make my own goat cheese pizza.

After stopping at Target for a second car seat for Lillian we went over to Whole Foods and I picked up:

• a boule of whole wheat pizza dough
• goat cheese
• a block of mozzerella
• artichoke hearts

I also threw in some mushrooms I had and baked it all up. It was pretty good. I should have left it in the oven for another 10 minutes as I realize now that the crust was a bit undercooked. I do feel a lot adventurous now as I am getting away from the cheese and Applegate Farms pepperoni toppings that I used when I first started making pies.

We had initially made plans to stop down in Maryland if Kristin was up to it this weekend in an effort to give everyone theie Christmas presents. I couldn’t wait to hand them over to their rightful owners and I hated that fact that they had been just sitting there for weeks. Debbie called Kristin to see what she was u[p to this weekend and as it happened the Mihalcik’s were traveling to Warrington, PA to attend a surprise party for Aunt Mary and her retirement. Better yet, Not only were Mr. and Mrs. Mihalcik going to be there but also Kristin, David and Lauren - who I was dying to meet.

I hit the gym at around 6:30am and stopped at Whole Foods right when it opened at 8am. I wanted to grab Lauren a present as well and thought she’d appreciate a bar of Valrhona Jivara Lait 40% milk chocolate (and if she didn’t I knew David wouldn’t have any problems chowing down on it). I also picked up some Applegate Farms turkey bacon and I had the sushi guy make me a brown rice spicy tuna roll. Awesome.

We had planned to leave at around 3:00pm and arrive in Warrington at arond 4:30pm or so. Aunt Mary’s party ended at 5:00pm and we were asked to come and crash it at the end. Due to a car seat that wanted to fight back and a 12″ Powerbook that didn’t want to boot up, we left more around 3:45pm and drove through torrential rains. At least it was warm out though - warm enough that none of up wore heavy jackets.

After driving down a wet 195, we took exit 6 and drove down the PA Turnpike to Warrington. We passed a myriad of chain restaurants and one interesting German place called Otto’s. We arrived at the firehouse that the party was being held at around 5:10pm and I saw who I thought was David standing outside. Debbie said the person was too tall to be David. I won out however as it really was David and he came over to the car to greet us.

Inside we said hello to Aunt Mary and greeted everyone. We checked out Kristin and her straight, blonde highlighted wig and we met Lauren for the first time. At this time we also noticed that the temperature had dropped about 20 degrees and it was freezing.

After Aunt Mary’s gifts were packed into cars we were informed that we were all meeting for dinner at none other than Otto’s, the place we passed. Awesome. Kristin rode over with us and 10 minutes later we were there.

There were 9 of us seated at a long table at Otto’s. Uncle Paul Betz, Mr and Mrs Mihalcik, David, Lauren, Kristin, Debbie, Lillian and I. Lillian started out in a high chair but then moved to her own snap-on chair. While we were seated Mr Mihalcik, David and I went out to move the present they had bought for me into my car. I was instructed to leave a lot of trunk space as the present was large. I was curious to see what could be this big and a minute later I found out as I moved a portable papasan chair from Bass Pro Shops into my trunk. The green color matched the papasan I just threw out and the papasan was portable enough to take to the drive-in. Sweet.

Just out of curiosity I asked David when the last time he had weinschitzel was. He said that it had been years - probably when he was in Germany many years ago. When I thought about it myself I realized that it was the same for me - the last time I had it was on top of a mountain in the Alps in Innsbruck, Austria in 2001. This is why I love traveling - so I have good answers like this in case anyone ever asks me questions such as these.

Inside we all ordered out dinners. I was going to go with a basic weinerschnitzel but David and I both noticed a schitzel variation called ‘a la Holstein’ which featured schnitzel topped with a fried egg, anchovies and capers. I had to do it. Debbie got the sausage sampler and Mr. Mihalcik got a cheesesteak which looked very much like a brass rail cheesesteak. Lillian enjoyed pears and something else which was fed to her by Mrs Mihalcik.

We exchanged gifts while waiting for our dinners to arrive. Kristin and David dug theirs and in addiiton to the papasan I got a Homer Simpson attenae topper. Mr and Mrs Mihalcik gave Lillian a bath book and Kristin gave her some stacking rings which she loved. We also received some champagne and ornaments.

Dinner came and it was delicious. As usual we did the passing around and I got a bit of everyones dinner. The weinerschitzel a la holstein was very very good.

We asked for the guy to bring the dessert tray out and we all split a bunch of cakes and shortcakes. Dinner ended around 8:00pm and as we exited some snowflakes started to fall. Nothing major but the temperature drop still shocked me. From 57 to 32 in a bit over 3 hours. Lillian had to e changed so we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts where I got some chai tea and we bought a jelly donut. The guy ended up giving us 3 of them for the price of one and gave Lillian a munchkin.

As I droe down the turnpike towards Jersey the wind started picking up as well as the snow. It got to a point where the snow was blowing directly into at the car and visibility became a problem. By the time we got back to 195 I could hardly see at all. It got so bad that I had to use the lines on both sides to guide me. Luckily there were no other cars on the highway and I lowered my speed to 35. At exit 16A I decided to get off and maybe wait it out or something. However when we got off it looked like it had lightened up a bit so we drove on. As we hit Freehold we passed by a new ice cream parlour and I decided to stop in after seeing it was still open. The place was called Applegate Farm (no relation to the meats as far as I know) and I ran in and ordered a couple scoops to go - one cherry vanilla and one cake batter that had bits of chocolate cake in it. Very good.

We hit home around 10:45pm and put Lillian to bed.

Before heading home Dad and I hit Nancy’s Home Cooking for lunch. Being that it was a Tuesday and being that the day before was a holiday, we had no idea what the lunch would be today. Thankfully it was the all-time favorite, chicken and noodles. Actually today was a first - there were actually 4 choices today: chicken and noodles, hamburgers, bean soup with cornbread and bratwurst. Dad and I both had a generous portion of chicken and noodles and diet Pepsi’s.

We pulled a very uncharacterist move by leaving 30 minutes earlier than we said we would at 2:30pm. Dad was so surprised that he faked a heart attack that freaked Debbie out for a second. Too funny. We packed Lillian in among the boxes and junk and said goodbye to Columbus.

Lillian napped through Ohio and woke up in West Virginia. We stopped at a Pennsylvania welcome center and checked out a big stuffed bear. We then stopped in New Stanton in hopes that Tee-Pee Tim’s would be open. No luck. Instead of barbecued ribs and pulled pokr we settled for The Cracker Barrel. Lillian had fun walking around the table and I enjoyed the sampler plate which consisted of chicken and dumplings, fired ham and meatloaf with sides of corn and fried okra. Not bad.

I took over driving in New Stanton and drove and drove and drove. We hit home at around 12:30am and after a bit of effort got Lillian back to sleep.