Drove down to NYC with a lunch stop at Cracker Barrel (Brian especially was overjoyed). But something (my fish sandwich?) that Sarah ate ended up making her mouth break out in a terrible rash (Brian remembers differently, that Sarah woke up that morning with the rash. Mysterious!). So in case you notice in pictures, that's what that's all about. We got stuck in periodic traffic as we approached the city, but were able to find (free!) on-street parking 3 blocks from our place. We almost got everything in from the car before the rain hit, though Brian did get wet as he came in with the last load. We waited for the storms to pass and then walked the 4.5 blocks to Central Park. We were able to find a playground but everything was wet, wet. Ate dinner at Nick's pizza - it was delicious!
Sunday (Day 1)
The kids were up early (around 6 am partially due to the bright bedroom), so we were ready quickly and out of the apartment by 9:00. We took the train to near where the Manhattan C of C meets and headed into Central Park (only 3 blocks away from the building) to spend some time before services. The kids had a blast climbing on the Alice in Wonderland Statue, then we watched the toy sailboats in the Conservatory Water.
You can see the kids just to the right of Alice (Nathan in gray shirt, sunglasses and hat, Sarah behind him in pink).
Sarah was not intimidated by all the big kid climbers.
Nathan loves climbing high these days and was thrilled when he got up onto this very highest perch. He even cheerfully gave me a smile for the picture!
A memorable Mother's Day with the kiddos in front of the toy sailboats on the Conservatory Waters!
We then walked to the Angel of the Waters Statue and around part of The Lake, where Nathan and Sarah both expressed interest in riding in the rowboats.
Next we strolled back to church where we had a nice service... except for Sarah's mid-sermon meltdown. She was already so tired from two early mornings (Saturday and Sunday) and the one missed nap (so far), it made us a little worried since it was only "Day 1" of sightseeing. After church was over we walked 10 minutes to our lunch stop and Sarah was asleep half way there. We ate at Papaya King, where we ordered hot dogs, corn dogs, fried pickles, onion rings and a papaya smoothie, which we then enjoyed picnic style on a (relatively clean and) shady piece of sidewalk that we found. Probably the most memorable Mother's Day lunch I've had!
Afterwards we hopped on the subway to downtown and rode the Staten Island Ferry (our boat was the Spirit of America) and got to see the Statue of Liberty, the harbor and the Brooklyn Bridge.
To avoid another impending meltdown on the boat ride back, we told the kids that we would get some ice cream when we got back to land, which we enjoyed in Battery Park. As was mentioned numerous times in the videos, Nathan got vanilla with sprinkles and Sarah got plain white (vanilla).
Though by this time (5:00) we all were really dragging, we had one more stop that we needed to make - to buy my Mother's Day present... a camera battery charger! Unfortunately our first night I realized that I had forgotten extra batteries and my battery charger for my camera, so Brian had done some research online to figure out where in the city we could buy one for me - and found a used one at B&H, an electronics super-store that we've ordered from before online. So even though we were all getting tired, we took the subway there - it was a crazy huge and awesome store. They have this system of overhead conveyer belts that shuttle your purchase from the department where you select it to the checkout area. I've never seen anything like it before!
From there we hopped the subway again (already thankful that we decided to go with the 7 day unlimited Metrocard) to get back to our condo. It was 6:30 when we got off at our stop, and Brian still wanted to make one more stop at a store to pick up black garbage bags and tape to rig up a more effective light-blocking shade for the kids' room. So I took the kids home and fixed sandwiches for them while Brian went in search of the necessary items. Sarah was SO groggy when I woke her up I was worried that she wouldn't wake up enough to eat anything, but once she got a cucumber in her mouth she perked up slightly. After dinner it was straight to bed for the kids, though Brian was still taping up garbage bags as we were reading books and brushing teeth! The Brian and I collapsed on the couch, wondering how we would all make it through three more days of craziness, but also very glad that we had decided to brave the city with the kiddos!
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