Me? In New York? and Other Adventures

Four weeks ago, Matt asked me "Do you want to go to New York?" One week later, there I was. Matt had to go for his work, so I just tagged along and explored the city on my own. It was my first time in the "Big Apple," and I feel like I conquered a mountain.

This was the view from our hotel in the middle of SoHo. We flew in around noon, got a bite to eat, and checked into our hotel. Matt immediately started working, and I bundled up and went exploring. It was interesting just to walked around and look at all the shops.

That evening, I dragged Matt away from work to go to a concert at Carnegie Hall.  And we just barely made it.After a struggle to figure out the subway system, we finally got to the right place and then had to run (yes, I was literally running in heels on icy sidewalks down 7th Ave.) to get to the concert on time. We picked up our tickets at will-call and climbed four flights of stairs. We rushed in just as the music was starting and they shut the doors behind us. The usher didn't even show us to our seats, she pointed to the closest available seats and said "Sit down!" So we did.

And we enjoyed every minute of it. They played music from my favorite composer, Beethoven. It was fabulous! The audience wouldn't stop applauding. We got them to do two encores!

The next morning, bright and early (and freezing!!!), I headed up to Central Park. 

I walked around for a while and saw quite a bit. Here is the Checker House where the old men (and whoever else) play checkers. For obvious reasons, it is closed during the winter.

If Matt had been with me, I would have made him take me ice skating.

On the way out of the park, a young woman with a camera came up to me and said she was doing a documentary on the "meaning of life" for a class project and asked if I was willing to contribute. Sure!  I told her the first thing that came into my head, "The purpose of life is to become like Jesus Christ; to become as kind and as loving as he is." . . . I wish now that I had gotten some contact info. from her; it would be interesting to see the video when it is all done.

This is me walking down 5th Ave. Wow! There were so many huge beautiful buildings and fancy-shmancy store fronts! I was tempted to go into Tiffany's just for the sake of saying I had been there (Do they really serve breakfast?), but I was on an even greater quest . . . 

to make it to the New York Public Library!  For a librarian, this is almost as good as going to the Library of Congress. It is in a huge, beautiful old building, and is quiet and peaceful after the maddening noise of the streets.  They had a nice exhibition of photography that I got to tour, and then it was back to the streets to get to . . . 

The Circle Line Boat tour around Manhattan Island. The Hudson River had frozen over in parts (it didn't get above freezing the whole day), so we weren't able to make a complete circle, but we got to see pretty much everything I was interested in.

Foremost was the Statue of Liberty. It was pretty awesome, but nearly as as tall as I had envisioned it.  Maybe if I had signed up for the tour climbing up to the crown I would have had a different opinion.

And the Brooklyn Bridge.

Some cool old sailing ships.

And the re-built World Trade Center #1. --I hadn't realized before that there are actually seven buildings to the "World Trade Center."

After a day of walking all around town in the freezing cold, I was exhausted! I met Matt back at the hotel. We grabbed some food from a local deli and ate it at the hotel. Then to bed early so we could get up to catch our early flight home. It was quite a whirl-wind tour. I would really like to go back some day --when the weather is warmer.

We got home around noon to find everything A-okay at home. Matt's mom had lovingly taken care of the kids for us. For the next day or two after she had gone home, Ada kept saying "I miss Grandma!"

In celebration of Michael's seventh birthday, I took him out of school early one day to roam around the Museum of Natural Science downtown. They have an amazing collection! I think the kids were especially impressed with the dinosaurs and with the minerals and gems.

Michael is quite the geologist. He is always finding interesting rocks outside and bringing them in for his "collection." So, as a birthday present this year, I bought him a collection of real gem stones and minerals and all other kinds of interesting rocks. --And the "good stuff" was mixed in a bunch of "regular rocks" so he had to dig, sort, and identify all of them. It remains his all-time favorite birthday present. He gets it out everyday to look through and re-sort them all.

Instead of a big birthday cake, we made little monster cupcakes.

They turned out pretty cute . . .  and tasty!

Nana is making each of her grandkids their own quilt, and Michael got his for his birthday. It turned out so beautiful!  I love tucking him in at night with it.

Other miscellaneous happenings . . . .

All the kids just adore Uncle Stephan! And he is so good and patient with them. He tosses the little kids around (gently), and plays video games with the older two, and gives out lots of candy to all of them. He definitely knows the way into the hearts of children!

This is Adelaide's first haircut.  . . .  It was just a trim, really. Her hair is just plain crazy most of the time. Half of it is curly, but the top layer is growing in straight; it's not long enough to pull back into a pony tail or braids, so most of the time it looks super messy. And it seems to be taking forever to grow out. At least now it looks slightly better.

We were at a near-by park taking a walk when the kids discovered as second "wild path" down below. Since it was basically parallel to the main trail, I let them take it. They felt very independent and adventurous.

This is Michael's new favorite place. It's much better than a tree. He can actually lie down and stare up at the clouds --and there aren't any annoying branches to whack you in the face.

After being in our house two and a half year, we finally painted over the awful wallpaper that covered the kitchen and half-bath. I did all the prep work over the last several weeks and finally last Saturday we painted.

It took all day, but the kids were remarkably patient. (We let them watch PBS cartoon non-stop.)

And now, it's beautiful! I walk into the kitchen every morning and sigh with happiness.  (I really hated that wallpaper!)

This past week was Spring Break! Sadly, it was also cold and rainy the ENTIRE week.  So, we didn't get to do all the fun outdoor stuff I had planned, but we still managed to have fun.

We met up with some friends and went to a bounce house.

We went with Nana to the Bluebell Ice Cream Factory. Loved the tour and the free ice cream at the end!

Except Joseph. Funny kid hasn't developed a taste for ice cream yet.

Wednesday, we met with Matt's Aunt Adrian and she took us out for Chick-fil-A, and then (for a few hours that it wasn't raining) hiked around the trails of a big park. My kids love chasing her big dog Amos. Another day we had friends over.

Finally the rain broke Friday morning. I had been planning all week to fix up the yard and plant our spring garden, so even though the ground was totally saturated and MUDDY, we went to the nursery and got busy. Good thing mud washes off!

I actually missed out on taking pictures of all of us super muddy, but JoJo was kind enough to pose for these pics a few days after the fact.