I was discussing with NinjaPotato about the Captain Underpants books and how
he could read them after watching the show. I thought it would be similar to
reading the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books after watching the movies. However, my
little one had a different perspective on the matter.

According to NinjaPotato, Diary of a Wimpy Kid is currently in a
transitional phase. The series is still producing new books and converting them
into movies. I was pleasantly surprised by his use of the term
“transitional,” and I commended him on his excellent vocabulary. He
pointed out that this transitional phase was not present when he was introduced
to the Captain Underpants tv show.

But then, he surprised me even further with his following statement. He said
that he reads big books and watches big shows and that even if a show isn’t
intended to teach you things, you can still learn from them. I couldn’t agree
more with his sentiment. Even if a show or book isn’t explicitly educational,
there is always something to learn. It could be a moral lesson, a new
vocabulary word, or even a new life perspective.

It’s essential to encourage our little ones to explore different media
forms, whether books or shows and to help them find value in what they consume.
We should also challenge them to expand their vocabulary and use language creatively.

As caregivers, it’s our responsibility to provide a safe and inclusive
environment for our children, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation.
By exposing them to diverse perspectives and experiences, we can help them
understand and appreciate the unique struggles that people from different
communities face.

Introducing our children to LGBTQ+ issues and transgender rights can also
help break down harmful stereotypes and stigmas that may exist in society. Normalizing
conversations around these topics can create a more accepting and compassionate
world for all individuals.

It’s important to note that age-appropriate discussions are vital in
introducing these topics to children. We need to tailor our conversations to
the child’s developmental level and provide a safe space for them to ask
questions and express their thoughts and feelings.

In conclusion, introducing our children to essential topics like LGBTQ+
issues and transgender rights is critical in raising a generation of
compassionate and inclusive individuals. It’s just as important to foster their
curiosity and help them grow into well-rounded individuals who can find value
in every experience. Let’s continue to create safe spaces for our children to
learn and grow and work towards building a more equitable and accepting society
for all.

On that note, let me make the 2nd thing I say be an apology. I’m extremely sorry for the fact that I have yet to post about our trips to Hershey Park, Disney World, Six Flags, Hurricane Harbor, Thunder on the Boardwalk, and more.

There is just so much work the needs to get done, and only so much time in any given day, and theese days I’m fighting to get back as many useable hours as I can, but with the loss of some medication due to possible complications, that’s just not likely to be true.

But as I stated at the beginning, I have recently done some long over-due photo editing and I think I am ready to at least post the next 3 blog posts, which shall be in no particular order, Hershey Park, Walt Disney World, and the Historic Ships of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. All these trips are from 2019.

But till I get them actually posted, here are some pics from yesterday’s trip to the Purple Park.

-HuGs-, -P

Even if we can’t make it up into the Poconos like we would normally do, make it out to California to spend it with my Sister and her new Husband or even just one town over to spend it with my in-laws, we wanted you to know we miss you.

Everyone in our family has done so much for us over the years helping us all in different ways. No matter if it’s a place to be for the holidays (in normal years) or flying across the country to celebrate our wedding we are so thankful for everything.

While there are so many things to be upset and depressed about this year, we are grateful and thankful for the fact that we have yet to loose a close family member to this dreadful pandemic.

And since we aren’t able to invite friends to our table on this thankful day, we wanted to offer a bit of virtual thanksgiving porn with the following gallery.

Thank you, and Happy Thanksgiving!

-P

We tried to help out with groceries and household chores, but as is always the case, I’m sure we were throwing off their routine just by being there, but it was never said out-loud. In fact, there were days when we were reminded of being welcomed in a way that was just beyond words, using random bacon.

See it was a thing that the matriarch of this family used to get up early, go to work before most anyone else woke up. When she came home in the late afternoon or sometimes late at night, she would often go striaght to bed because she was tired and not feeling well. She worked a retail job, day in and day out, and did what she needed for her family.

But on certain days we would get up, go into the kitchen to make breakfast to find “random bacon” in the microwave.

Always cooked fresh that morning, still warm even and not really needing re-heating, random bacon seemed like a great way to broadcast “we love you being here” and “we really care” without even needing to say so with words.

There were times that we would make random bacon the night before and leave it for the next days, in our own hopes of saying “thank you”.

As time has passed, and distance has grown, I still on occasion make random bacon for our little tribe here, but it’s not the same. We take the time to tell each other daily how much we love and respect each other, and how proud we are of each others accomplishments, so random bacon doesn’t mean as much (no matter how delicious it is).

We still communicate with our larger tribe via a text here and there, or a call now and again, but it’s been quite a while since I ran to her house to help with her doggie, and left a “Dog Log Log” for her to read when she gets home.

So with this note, I just wanted to say. I made random bacon today, it will be in our microwave waiting just in case you want to stop by.

-R

In late 2019 I purchased the NinjaBaby (or NinjaPotato as he likes to be referred to [more on that later]) a 5.0MP Sony “Point and Shoot” camera for his birthday.

Some of the long time readers of this blog may remember back to 2018 when I did my “Thankyou Sony” post about when I let the NinjaPotato snap some pics with my Sony A3000 (ILCE-3000) and he come up with this shot of me blowing bubbles.

That was a great day, and I had fun with it, but I really wanted something where at his current age (6) he would be able to carry around (when appropriate, like on our Disney Trip) and take pictures at his whim, and the results were impressive.

Now many of you will likely notice, that I did run all the JPG files through Adobe Lightroom Classic, and did basic Cropping and Photo editing, but honestly it was nothing more than I do with much of my own photography.

I can say Disney World was definitely the place to introduce him to taking his own set of pictures, because he drew much attention from the PhotoPass Photographers and the Photo Supervisors which lead to some “extra benefits” we will cover in a future blog. But sufficed to say, everyone that every cast member who saw him in his Lion King dance costumer, and his point and shoot camera, wanted to know him. Some of the photographers even stood in line with him and taught him how to preview his pictures on his camera so that he could show them off.

One downside I will mention about the older Sony Point and Shoot is that it takes AA (Double A) batteries, and won’t power on the cheap ones. If you put in some Kodak AA’s bought on the cheap at the grocery store, or Sunbeam cells from DollarTree, you will be disappointed. We had an issue where the camera would power up long enough to extend the lens, but wouldn’t have enough power to retract it before powering back down. We used Energizer Lithium and Duracell Ultra which worked very well, and lasted our entire trip. However we would swap them back and forth because after a bit of use they would stop working well, we would swap to another set after it had rested and they would be fine again for a while, and we just kept doing that back and forth between the Duracell and Energizer Batteries.

But back to the blog at hand, I guess what I’m trying to show with this post is that if you HAVE a camera, and you HAVE a passion, just use what you got. Don’t go chasing rainbows, or the latest and greatest “buzz words”. Enjoy what you have, and what you can manage, till it’s no longer fun, then sit back, take a look, and decide if you want to go further, or take a longer break.

-R

P.S. The first image of this blog (the featured image) was also taken on the NinjaPotato’s DSC-W5, however it was taken by one of the PhotoPass Photographers.

For everyone with kids out there, remember, they can sense your unease, anxiety and fear. So while you should still remind them to cover their mouth when they cough, and wash their hands appropriately also make sure they have some fun and light-hearted play in their routine so that they don’t shut down.

No many of you know we don’t live very far from the shore, and we really don’t live far from Point Pleasant Beach specifically but one think you learn from living in the area is that you don’t drive close to the shore on weekends. You especially don’t try driving home from the shore on a Sunday afternoon.

So we gladly boarded our Lyft with our Beach Bag, Back Pack, Camera Bag, Beach Umbrella and 3 legged folding stool, and set off for the Beach! Specifically a beach in Point Pleasant Beach, NJ where the Best Day Foundation were holding their 2019 Point Pleasant Beach surfing.

It was the same location as last year, and just as exciting, and yet very draining. While we absolutely did not need to worry about our little ninja the whole time (the girls that surrounded him were doing an excellent job) we somehow managed to leave more exhausted than a day at Six Flags, but I can imagine that the surfers and volunteers that spend so much time arranging these events left even more exhausted than us.

The line for check in filled out quickly it felt like, with the parking trolley dropping people near by. Volunteers handed out wrist bands to get on the beach, and we waited for the time when we would meet our buddies. I don’t have any pictures of the contents of the bag that was given, but it was a very high quality offering of Sun Glasses, a really nice Water Bottle, and some other items. He was also given a new 2019 shirt, but he insisted on wearing his 2018 best day shirt. As I write this I’m really wishing I had take the time to get pictures of it and what was inside.

After getting to the beach proper, it was time for some stretching. Spider Man was there again this year, and Captain America also. We also had some choppers fly overhead, I think they were checking on Cap.

After our stretch out, the NinjaBaby got busy playing in the sand. The girls C &C were great, but with the apparently lack of surfers today, our little Ninja soon had a larger following and was surrounded by girls wanting to play.

While the Ninja and the Girls were playing in the sand, I decided to go get some pictures of things going on during the event. I knew that when our Ninja was out in the water I would be focused on him, so this downtime was my ability to get some good shots of the various people doing good things, and those having a great time. I want to take a moment to stress that the various volunteers had to be reminded/told to get out and take a break, because they wanted to be there all day for everyone. There was definitely a feeling of wanting to make sure no one was left out or left behind, and an awesome atmosphere of happy inclusion.

Our Ninja’s first outing was on the large paddle board. He was with a myriad of volunteers who were helping kids, and paddling around. They went decently well out, and the Ninja had an absolutely awesome time. He didn’t get splashed in his face once, which made it all that more awesome for him (he hate’s having his face splashed) so unlike POAC Surfing, where he made it about 30 seconds before returning to play on the shore, our ninja made the full trip on the paddle board, and was definitely ready for more.

While the Ninja was re-connecting with the Girls (read as, they were surrounding him and asking him how it was, and he absolutely loved that) they called his name and it was time for his time on the surf board. Now I’m not sure where the true is in this, but I was told actual Surfing wasn’t allowed this year, and I noticed the kids in Life Vests and such weren’t allowed to play int he surf, so I’m going to assume it was an insurance liability issue, but once out on the board, our Ninja was paddled out by an awesome surfer who gave him the ride of his life.

I watched as the Ninja hung on, while being paddled out, he laughed as they “spun” in the water, and went further and farther, and just had a ton of fun. When I asked our Ninja about it later, specifically the spinning he said “It was the absolute best day ever, I can’t wait to do it again” and he has spoken of it fondly. I’ve even heard him using the words “best day ever” in his play since then (it’s a habit he has, where his daily life is adapted into his pretend play).

And then there was more beach play. Our ninja was signed up to go again, but time ran out before he could. And that’s fine. He got his one run on both the board and the paddle board, and he was ecstatic. It’s not often that we see our Ninja so willing and wanting to do things out of his sensory norm. He has made so many strides lately when it comes to water, it’s just amazing. Not just in allowing his hair to be washed regularly, but pushing away from the edges of the pool with his puddle jumper (life vest) on. Going in the Lazy River at Hurricane Harbor without a tube, and even experimenting in the shallow end of the pool without his life vest (when immediately supervised).

After our end bit of playing in the sand it was time for the award ceremony and then food. I’m sorry I have no pictures or video of the awards, but I do have some beach video and surfing video to post later. By the time the awards ceremony came around I was packing up A’s and my beach camp (which we barely used) and getting ready to leave.

A huge shout out to Ivan Zhirnov (@vanyasadventure) and East Coast Surf Tribe (@eastcoastsurftribe) for everything they did towards making this such a great day for our little ninja. Thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts. If you ever need a photographer in the area, let me know. I would love to try and repay the favor.

-R

P.S. I’m sorry about the lack of consistent colors. I edited these galleries over 3 days, at various levels of exhausted, and while they are all beautiful and amazing, they are less than consistent. For that I apologize.

For those that don’t know, NJAW (or New Jersey Autism Warriors) are the online-facebook support-group for POAC (Parents of Autistic Children) here in New Jersey.

The NJ Autism Warriors Facebook Page is the online support group for POAC where parents can learn from the experts (other parents) and enjoy the company of others living our life. Please note, this is a closed Facebook page only open to parents of children with autism. You can request to join by clicking on the link below.

POAC Website

Now The Jersey Shore Pirates have been plundering the Jersey Shore for 11 years and they were recently crowned the best pirate sailing excursion in 2019.

Your mini mates will have the opportunity to dress-up like pirates, get face painted with pirate “tattoos”, and learn some pirate lingo before setting sail on an hour and fifteen minute long action packed adventure. Once on board, the mates will participate in an interactive treasure hunt on the high seas. They will learn the rules of the Sea Gypsy II pirate ship, read a treasure map, discover a secret message in a bottle, and work as a team to defeat the enemy pirate who has stolen the keys to their treasure. Prepare to man our famous water cannons to win back the keys from our nemesis Pirate Pete! Once we have won back the keys, we’re off in search of the sunken treasure. X marks the spot for our crew’s hard earned spoils. The mates will use all of their might to hoist the treasure from the seas below onto the Sea Gypsy II. Their reward: each child takes with them a handful of loot and a lifetime of authentic pirate tales to tell. The adventure continues when the crew discovers a secret stash of Pete’s Grog and celebrates as we safely return to port.

Jersey Shore Pirates Website

Now, as the quote from the Jersey Shore Pirates states, you start out with some fun on the land, before you take to the sea. You recieve your pirate tatoo’s, your pirate gear, and a rousing introduction to life as a pirate and a bit of what is in-store for your little sailors.

Once you are on board, you are faced with a search for a pirate map, treasure, and the evil pirates that have taken the keys to the treasure!

Once the bottle is found, and it is known (after a little confusion) that Pirate Pete has the keys, it’s off to find Pirate Pete! The kids get to battle Pete with the water cannons on board the ship and have a great time doing it!

Now once you have the keys, it’s just a simple case of finding the treasure using the map, and once the treasure is on board, every mate gets a share!

But once the treasure is in, the adventure is not over. After finding some GROG randomly floating in the ocean, and taking a group picture with the Jersey Shore Pirates Banner (image not used, since it shows the faces of other kids), the kids decide to play a joke on the captain that results in him being so scared, that, well… Well I’m going to leave that up to your imagination.

Now before I sign off, I want to state, that while the pirate adventure is geared towards your kids, there is plenty of humor for the adults involved, lots of word play, and fun for every family member.

If you are just willing to enter this adventure wanting to have some fun, I can guarantee you will find it here. You even get a nice view of the Metedeconk River

-R

The park features a multi-purpose field with infield for Baseball/Softball, a Basketball Court, Concrete Skate Park and two age appropriate playgrounds that are geared to all ages up to 12 years of age. There is also a Bicycle training course, for young people and a walking/jogging path that is separate so that the bikes/trikes/pedal-powered-go-karts don’t interfere with each other.

While we didn’t get to enjoy the park ourselves until Memorial Day (May 27th) and both playgrounds, and swing structures were fully loaded with kids of all ages, it really seems like the Skatepark designed by 5th Pocket Skateparks is what continues to shine about this newly renovated park.

The new skate park is so popular that the skaters were using it before it was fully ready, and have been busy on it every day I have driven past since its opened. Starting as early as 9am. And on our day at the park, I wasn’t the only person grabbing footage.

One of the best features of this park however, I have to say was the garden planted by local Daisy Troop 61843 who have a fenced off garden with a plaque that reads “To Plant a Garden is to Believe in Tomorrow” their troop number, the Girl Scouts logo, two butterfly and the statement “Helping to Make The World a Better Place”

So to all this, I say Good Job mayor Ducey. This park is most definitely a wonderful addition to our town, and we welcome more projects like this in the future.

As I’ve stated before, we are only about 25 miles away, and it’s a fairly straight drive down 195. The weather was nice, maybe just a bit on the cool side, but that didn’t stop anyone’s fun.

The lines were packed as usual, and the “Ride Information Center” was actually longer than I’ve ever seen it before, so we forgo getting the NinjaBaby’s disability access pass at the beginning and went for food.

We opted for something more simple than one of the usual restaurants we hit, and had fully loaded Hotdogs (well A and I did) while the NinjaBaby had what seemed to be the world largest/longest Corn Dog. It was good food, and tasted of quality actually and not over-processed crap which set us on a good path for the rest of the day.

I sent the Ninja and A off to ride some rides in one of the Kiddie Areas while I back-tracked to the flash-pass office for our Diamond Elite “skip the line” passes. When I got there I noticed the skip-the-line passes had their own outside cart/kiosk which was actually faster than the full flash pass line where we would normally have to wait to get them so thats where I went.

Now this was the first weird part of the day. When I made it to the front of the line, the attendant said that they weren’t supposed to scan phones there, but he gave it a try. When he did and went through the whole process for all 3 passes with 2 skip the lines each (1 for the Safari, and 1 for Justice League: Battle for Metropolis) it apparently screwed something up in the system, and he hit the “pay cash” button and just signed off on our passes. I hope it didn’t cause issues for anyone behind me, but this is really a problem they need to figure out. Since I can have Mine, A’s and the Ninja’s passes on my one phone, it makes it immensely easier for me to use that for DiningPlan and stuff like this where everyone doesn’t need to be with me, and honestly, it works everywhere else in the park.

Once I caught back up with A and the little ninja, and bathroom breaks were taken care of, we headed straight for our usual go-to ride. The Safari Off-Road Adventure.

Now to say we ride this a lot, is an understatement. In fair weather we ride it almost every visit. More than 10 times per season each year, and every time we find out something new, something interesting, or get to look at new babies. We even found out about what appears to have been a loosely guarded secret when someone pointed out a baby giraffe back in one of the animal care areas, and our guide promptly stated “what giraffe, I see no giraffe and I have no clue what you are talking about”, and proceeded to move on with the tour. It was said with a smile and a smirk, and not in a rude manor but I definitely got the feeling it was something she wasn’t supposed to talk about.

One thing we haven’t done in a while, but did on this trip, was get off at Camp Adventura Outpost- Now it’s an interesting place, and they do giraffe feedings once an hour and you can feed the giraffe. With New Jersey being a “no touch” state, this is the only time you can be touched by an animal without being escorted by one of the wardens in a private tour.

If you caught that little change, it was intentional. You cant touch/pet any of the animals, but if you are feeding the giraffes, they will most likely touch you, with at the very least their 17-20 inch tongues.

After we took some time to cool down, enjoy the little park-like-area, look at the animals on display and enjoy some Dippin’ Dots at Camp Adventura, we got back in line to resume our ride. Thankfully it only took 3 trucks to find room for us to get back on (remember, Adventura is the half-way of the safari, and a mini-island in the safari lands, so without finishing the 2nd half of the safari there is no way back to your car/the theme park).

We had a different guide for this part, and she was great and very bold in what she spoke about. She talked about how dumb the Emu were, especially when we saw one charge a Lion’s cage, in what appeared to be a mating dance, and when we saw two bear siblings, engaging in after-hours type activities.

After our ride through the Safari, we made our way to the Ride Information building. The line was non-existant at this point, and while I knew we were likely to hit mostly kiddie rides from this point, and didn’t need the Ninja’s disability pass, I picked it up just in case, and did the more important thing. I got him measured.

Now at most parks, getting him pre-measured is one of the first things we do. Not only because the poles/sticks/signs can vary over time, and aren’t often re-calibrated, but because it allows us to know what to steer the Ninja towards and away from, so that we can have a fairly copacetic day.

So after ride information, we went to Justice League: Battle for Metropolis, which is quickly becoming the Ninja’s favorite ride. There was a comic-fest (Garden State Comic Fest) happening but I didn’t grab any pictures as A had to stop and rest on our way to the ride, and I left the camera with her.

After defeating the Joker and helping the Justice League, we met back up with A and wandered over to Granny’s for dinner. While our favorite “bowl of comfort” is gone, the food here is still decent. However they seemed to not be able to produce the Fried Chicken fast enough to appease the requests of the crowd. Both lines were open and packed to capacity, and after we grabbed our food, I actually ran into an issue using Samsung Pay for the portion of our food we needed to pay for.

I don’t often carry cards into parks, as they are easy to loose, and can be exploited fast in a park like that, so Samsung Pay is definitely my friend. SixFlags doesn’t accept Apple Pay or Samsung Pay or anything like that at most locations so thankfully my phone has an MST which works with nearly any card-swipe credit terminal. Now at SixFlags this time, instead of putting my phone up on top next to the car swipe, I had to hold it on the side. It unfortunately took 3 tries for the charge to go through, so I’m sorry to anyone behind me. I’m sorry for causing an extra traffic jam!

After Dinner it was off to Looney Tune’s Seaport and the “big big big swings” (no, not the sky screamer), which the Ninja insisted on riding 3 times, before moving on to the Jumping Joey and then the balloon’s over by that.

While our Ninja was enjoying several go-rounds on the Sky Zooma, I took a look at the spot where the “Safari Tours” kiddie ride used to be at the “Safari Kids Area” in SixFlags. I say used to be because while parts of the ride (like the line building, and the transformers) still exist. All the ride vehicles and the track are completely missing.

Now according to the person/people that run GreatAdventureHistory.Com this ride was originally installed as Taz’s Seaport Trucking Company, it was later re-themed during a “wiggles” re-theeming to be Big Red Cars in a change-up where they actually changed out the ride-vehicles and ultimately was re-painted and a few animal cutouts were added to make it “Safari Tours”. In memory of “Safari Tours” as we knew it, here are a few pictures we have of the ride in operation.

So after we got done in the “Safari Kids Area” we headed out of the park. We had plans to grab some ice-cream but as our Ninja was starting to get tired, and a little bit cranky, we opted to stop @ Wawa on the way home. However that being said our little Ninja fell asleep on the way home and we skipped Wawa, but we made it up, with Smoothies from Wawa on Sunday Morning.

And just to round this out, here are a few other images I captured on this visit, that I didn’t manage to feature in this blog