::NYC days 6&7::

zoos and food and hanging out....
On day 6 I decided to take Max to the Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn. The park is really close to the place we're staying. The problem that I didn't think about is, the park is HUGE. It's like 585 acres or something. (I learned that off of their website of course).
It took Max a good while to get started in the morning. He wanted to hang out and read books and stuff like that. So we did. We left around lunch time. So the first thing we did was walk up to the park and find a place to eat somewhere on the outskirts. We found this cute little italian pizza joint that was just delicious. Unfortunately we couldn't eat our whole pizza. We ordered a "personal" sized pizza. It was by far the biggest personal pizza I've ever seen. A definite steal for $5. We needed Kris there to help us finish it up.

So now, you guessed it, more eating pictures. Hooray!!!

I'm sorry, but I really think Max makes some of the most hilarious faces when he eats. I don't ever notice them until I take pictures and he's frozen in time.



The above photo is my favorite.

You can't really see the pizza because I had to make Max double it over. It was way too gooey and delicious and was getting ALL over him.

After lunch we headed out to try to find the zoo.
Unfortunately for us, the zoo was completely on the other side of the park. Across in the narrow direction, but still all the way across. And the other bummer which I hadn't realized was that there is a lake in the middle of the park, so we couldn't just walk straight across. So we had to walk down and around the lake.
It was hot. We walked. And walked and walked and walked. At one point Max weaseled out of my grip and tried to jump in a really nasty green portion of the lake, but fell in a pile of sticks and rolled ten times instead. It was pretty funny. Served him right.
The rest of the time I just dragged him along by the hand and kept telling him--we're almost there, we're almost there. I didn't realize we really WEREN'T almost there until we finally got there.
I really should've brought the stroller. But, hindsight, as they say, is always 20-20. And we lived to tell the tale, so it couldn't have been that bad, right?
We finally made it to the zoo after lots and lots of sweaty trudging.
It wasn't the most amazing zoo I've ever been to, that's for sure, but it was fun.

It was definitely geared towards little kids. They had a whole "discovery" area that was pretty fun.
Prairie Dog holes of course.

I was cool with him going in every single one until he decided to hide from me in one of the tunnels. He waited to come out just long enough for me to really think he might be lost. Then popped out. Not so funny, huh?

It was so hot that none of the praire dogs would even come out!

They had a spiderweb for the kids to climb on, and lily pads to walk over the water on.
Max thought the dinosaur egg nest was pretty cool.


Being a turtle was probably the highlight of the whole day though. He loved it.



After this he just basically sprinted from exhibit to exhibit, and nothing seemed to hold his interest except the poison dart frogs. I think they're really cool too.
It was like he was a little too overstimulated from the week--the monkeys didn't even hold his interest.

We took the subway home, which took forEVER and then went out and had some dinner with Kris. It was a long hot day, but fun!

Day seven was great. All Max wanted to do was hang out in the apartment. He wanted to read and watch some movies, so we did that basically all day. We walked to McDonald's for lunch--his special request--which was about a mile away.
So we spent all day just hanging out.

Turns out Kris didn't have to stay for friday classes after all and so we left thursday night. It was a fun day, and nice to go home.

I think we'll be going back with Kris for his third week--taking a week off in between. We're enjoying the New York adventures!!

::NYC day 5::

Shopping in Manhattan....
Turns out Kris had the day off tuesday--but he didn't find out until he'd already headed over to the hospital. It was happy news when he called us and told us he was on his way home.
Once I got Max to get dressed, which took until about 10AM we headed out to Manhattan to do some shopping.
When Kris was interviewing for this program he had somehow found a camping store in the middle of the financial district. He wanted to head back there and see if they had a good coat for him. So we went. This store turned out to be very much the wrong place for Max. It was packed to the gills with stuff, and very narrow and claustrophobic. The kind of obstinate attitude he started out the morning with stayed with him, unfortunately, and he ended up throwing a couple of pretty immense fits in the middle of the store--then out on the steps of the store, which was very entertaining to passers-by, but really embarrassing for me.
The first one was because I wouldn't let him pull all the coats down on his head, and the second was because I wouldn't let him turn the spinning cabinet with the watches in it so fast that it fell over. I'm so mean, right?
We finally got done there, Kris found a great deal on a good coat and we headed to lunch. At lunch Max promised he'd be better. But you know, when the day starts out like that, everybody's a little peeved.
But he did try harder after that.
We were supposed to meet up with some people from the program for cupcakes after lunch, but that didn't work out, so we just went and got cupcakes on our own, and carried them out hoping to eat them somewhere in central park.

Unfortunately for us, the rain started just about then. We ran for some scaffolding, along with half the city and tried to wait it out. But it just kept on going. We watched some poor man try to hail a cab for about 20 minutes straight with no success. Max was very interested, and kept wondering why the cash cab didn't stop. After that Max kept practicing his cab hailing hand movements. It was really funny.
We ate our cupcakes while we were sitting on the curb. When the rain finally let up a bit we ran for the subway and headed downtown towards Rockefeller Center.
It was interesting to see the difference between the subway station there in Rockefeller Center versus the rest of the city. It was a really big difference. Much nicer there, much cruddier everywhere else. Hmmm, I wonder if they care about impressing tourists and such?
Anyway, we just went down there so we could go to FAO Schwarz. Well, with a stop at H&M along the way where I picked up a couple of great shirts.

Max was delighted with FAO Schwartz.
He was super excited when he found this huge playmobil guy.





But of course he didn't want to stay in the playmobil section too long, because what if he missed something somewhere else? He ran from thing to thing to thing. Just how he likes it.
We found the big piano and he got to try it. He loved it of course.



I'm just really sad the below picture isn't in better focus. Can you see that he's leaping? Both his feet are off the ground. It's so cute.

Getting him out of the store was QUITE the difficult task, but we finally dragged him out, kicking and screaming.
Kris and I were both exhausted, so we headed back to our place by way of 5 Guys Burgers of course, and put Max to bed.
Sometimes that's just the best part of the day.

::NYC day 4::

Coney Island and the Aquarium.....
Max and I started out monday morning thinking we were going to go and visit a zoo, by way of a library storytime. But the sky was looking really cloudy to me. It wasn't a good sign.
We headed out towards the library, but when we got off the subway stop I realized I wasn't in the part of Brooklyn I was used to. It wasn't a bad part of town, but just someplace where we didn't exactly, fit in. I got several funny looks while trying to find the right road and I finally decided that maybe this wasn't the library story time for us!! So we hopped back in the train and I had to think fast to decide what to do--since it was getting more and more gloomy by the second.
I looked up at the train and saw that it said "Coney Island". So Coney Island it was! I was planning on taking him down there during the week to go to the NY aquarium. I figured that would be a good rainy day activity because aquariums are usually inside--at least in my experience!

We came out of the train onto a high walkway over the street that led to the aquarium. Turns out it spit us out right onto the boardwalk! We were just feet away from the beach. I had to scramble to grab Max before he took off running for the water.

Turns out not all aquariums are indoors!! This one had some indoor features, but a lot of it was outside. Luckily the rain only lasted for a really short time so we were ok.
We started out by checking out some penguins. Max has a thing for penguins evidently.

He thinks they're good swimmers. He's told us that before.

We got to watch a zookeeper feed them a little bit. Some of them were really picky and didn't want to eat any of the fish. It was pretty funny.


After the penguins we got to look at otters, seals and walruses. The walruses were so cool. There was a mom and baby. It's just amazing watching those huge animals swim so gracefully through the water. I could watch it all day.

Max thought the baby walrus was pretty interesting. It was one of the only things that held his attention enough for him to stop for a bit. Otherwise he just wanted to run from place to place and grab glances of whatever was there.


We took in some more sights and then ate a very overpriced lunch at the aquarium cafeteria. Max really appreciated the decor, so maybe it was all worth it.

Look Mom, Fishies!!!!


Their beach exhibit was cool. This tank was just exploding with fishies. I couldn't get Max to stop long enough to be in the picture. That's ok though. These fishies can hold their own.


On the way out of course I had to stop at the gift shop. I'm a gift shop sucker, just like my mom.
Somehow my son talked me into buying this huge penguin puppet for him. Along with a baby penguin that was supposedly for me. Yeah, right.

They're very cute. I didn't really get a picture of the mommy that's flattering (how appropriate!)

So far the penguins have offered hours of wholesome entertainment.
However, I wasn't too excited on the subway after the aquarium. I've been working with Max a bit on prices of things. So like if he asks for something that's too expensive (which is almost anything) I'll have him look at the price tag and tell me how much it is. It's usually good and he's like. "Oh....Thirty five dollars...." and I can explain that it's just too expensive. Anyway on the subway he's saying to himself "I got them anyway". I couldn't figure out what he was talking about so I asked him. He said "They were very expensive but I got them anyway." I was like OH GREAT! So I explained to him that they were expensive but that they were a special present for him because he's been so good on this trip and he's been holding my hand so much (which he usually hates to do). I don't know if it helped or not...blah.

After the aquarium we grabbed ice cream cones on the boardwalk. In view of the beach in front of us, and a roller coaster behind. Quite entertaining. But not as entertaining as watching Max eat his ice cream!!





and my personal favorite:

Have you noticed there have been a lot of eating and food pictures this trip? I noticed. I'm thinking it's because eating time is one of the only times I'm either not running after Max or hanging onto him for dear life. And he sits still for at least a moment. So that's why keep getting to join in on our meals and treats I guess.

Since it was kind of cloudy and cool nobody was really at the beach. Can you believe how many trash cans are out there? Do you think anybody actually uses them?


This was a long day because we had to check out of our hotel in the morning and couldn't check into our little apartment place until after 6. So after Coney Island Max and I went to a movie (Kung Fu Panda). It was nice to sit down and rest for a while. Penguins came along of course.

We ended the day at our new little place, which is small but nice. Max fell asleep with his hand in mommy penguin. It was hilarious.

(phone picture)

::NYC day 3::

church and central park....
I really wanted to go to the ward that meets in Manhattan where the temple is. But of course that meeting place is closed for renovation this summer. So I found another ward and Max and I made our way to it sunday morning. It was in a nice area of Brooklyn and was a nice friendly good sized ward. We were pretty late because of slow subway trains. I think we would've been fine if our first train hadn't taken 20 minutes to show up. Max and I are getting good at finding places here. Well to be honest, we're getting really good at asking directions. We got ourselves to the building with no trouble at all.
Somehow I talked Max into going to primary, which has been hard the last few weeks because we've been traveling so much. It was nice to get to go to class and to relief society for the first time in forever. Having a break from primary has been a little refreshing. Everyone was very friendly to us and they were all bummed we weren't moving in of course.

After church we met up with Kris. He unfortunately was stuck doing training all morning and half of the afternoon. Luckily he got done a little early, so we got together with a bunch of the other new residents and headed up to central park.
Max was really excited to get out after being stuck holding our hands or being carried for the past several days.
Here he goes.

We hadn't been smart enough to change him out of his church clothes, so he was wearing his long pants and niceish shoes. We found out that a bunch of the play stuff at the park has "water features" so he had to go around with wet feet the rest of the afternoon. I think he thought it was worth it though.

The park was beautiful and the views were really cool.

Did you know there are big rocks in the park where people hang out?

I didn't. But now I do!

Kris almost fell down the rock after this picture chasing Max. Not the first max-chasing related injury that's happened!

Max had a great time at the playground. It was very "New York" to me, all concrete and iron bars.

We could hardly keep up with him.




We finally dragged him away from the playground when he found a huge pool of water to dunk his feet in.
He was bummed so we took him over for a ride on the carousel.
It was really fun and old looking, and it had the old calliope playing music. You don't hear those very often. We had a good ride.




After the carousel we wanted to walk over and find the zoo, but it started to rain. And it kept raining, and kept raining! Luckily Kris had bought a $2 umbrella somewhere, so it kept me dry. Max was riding on Kris's shoulders, so Max kept him dry until we realized what was happening. We waited under the trees for a while until we realized that the rain wasn't going to stop anytime soon. We ran for the subway stop and only got a little bit soaked.

It was a fun day. Max still didn't go to sleep until like 10, but we're working on that!





My silly boys.

::NYC day 2::

Puppet shows and hamburgers...
This was a great day. Max was wonderful.
Kris headed off to his work stuff early, so Max and I got up and left the hotel on our own.
The hotel has delicious bagels for breakfast. They are SO good. Traditional NY style bagels I guess.
Max and I headed out to a story time at a Barnes & Noble in downtown Brooklyn. It took us a while to find it. I knew which stop to get off on, but I didn't know which direction was which when we came up out of the subway, so I took a lot of wrong turns.
We finally got there, about 20 minutes late. We still got to hear a couple of stories and play a game or two. After that we were going to go to McDonald's to get some lunch.
Max was dying to go to McDonalds of course, so I stopped and asked some Brooklynite dads some directions. They told me where the McDs was, but said that there was a MUCH more delicious burger place very close. Anybody heard of 5 Guys Burgers??
Well if you haven't you should look them up. WOW was it ever delicious! My all time favorite burgers are the ones my dad cooks up on the bbq outside. Especially when he shapes the patties by hand. The burgers at this place reminded me of dad's. So so yummy.

Max was bummed we weren't at McDonalds, and so he tried to pretend he didn't like the burger.

However, he couldn't help himself. He ate the entire thing.
I hear there's one of these in Midvale, for those of you in UT. Definitely check it out. Oh, and for those of you in MO I hear there's one in Lees Summit! Not one in RI though, how unfair.


After lunch Max and I caught the train to go to a puppet show. It was Pinnochio with marionettes. There were very few people there. It felt like we had the place all to ourselves. Max was mesmerized by the show and told me afterwards that he wished he could have gotten in the little theater with the puppets. He told me "that was a crazy TV!" I had to explain the difference beteween a TV and a stage. I'm not sure he really caught it.

This whole time Max was really great. He had to walk a ton, and he was very brave. I didn't have to carry him at all which was really good for me, my legs and my back.
He did keep saying though, "oh, we need to find the cash cab. I'm tired!!" I wouldn't have minded a cash cab ride myself at a few points!

Kris got done with his stuff kind of early, so we came back from the puppet show in the late afternoon and met Kris in the hotel for dinner.

Oh--but I forgot to mention Max's absolute favorite thing about New York so far--besides that the subway trains have letters on them--There's a KB Toys right by the hotel's subway stop. At the door they've had a little thing with those super obnoxious moving noise making toys. You know, like walking dogs that yip and bark? They had a somersaulting dog, yipping dogs, barking dogs, and one walking snorting pig. We had to go and see them three times. It's making the whole trip for him.
Aren't kids funny?

The parts of Brooklyn we got to see were really cool, especially a part called Park Slope. It was nice. A view for you:

And could one of our favorite green and yucky grouches be hiding in these trash cans? Max and I thought so.

Good night!

::NYC day 1::

Oh what a day!
Kris had an appointment for a physical in Brooklyn this morning at 11AM, so we got up early and left the house with all our stuff by 7AM. By 10:30 AM we were driving into the big city on the freeway. It was a crazy view!
Check it out.

Do you see the little airplane flying along there? And all the smoggyness?
I think this was before the traffic really got nuts. As we got into the city the driving got more and more crazy. I was really glad Kris was the one driving and not me. He still got honked at a billion times. They would've been totally laying on the horn for me!

It's cool view, huh?

The physical went well, and we ran into one of the other residents who's starting in Kris's program. It was fun for me to get to meet her. We drove her around a little bit and got her to her hotel.
Max was good for me during all the hospital stuff. I got some treats from the vending machine and we played a little game where I had to quiz him on something (usually like spelling or addition) and when he got it right he'd get a treat. Luckily it helped the treats to strech a good long time.

After we rested up in our hotel a bit we ventured out to Manhattan to check out Times Square. Max was really good on the subway ride out there. I think the trains made him nervous. I'm sure that will wear off a lot sooner than I'd like it to.
I've never been to Times Square before. It was pretty incredible. It was a very intimidating feeling to walk up into all the huge buildings with all the huge billboards and stuff. There were several helicopters just hanging over the top of us. It was weird and I felt like a dumb tourist with my mouth hanging open.

Busy view, huh?

I think it was a little much for Max to take in, but he seemed to think it was interesting. His favorite thing was this person in a big duck suit. I'm not sure why it was there, but Max was delighted and hugged the guy for quite a while. I'm scared of people in suits like that.



Who know that Hershey's has a huge store that looks like something from Disneyland out here. Weird.

Max keeps seeing the cash cab everywhere. Every single van cab we saw out there he was like "OH!!!! The CASH CAB!!" And as you might imagine, there were a lot of those cabs.
Could this one have been the one? Who knows....


After we found Max a bathroom somewhere (he only ever admits he has to go at the most inconvenient times) we went to get a jamba juice. He couldn't get it all drunk there because it kept giving him a brain freeze, so we headed back to the subway to go back to the hotel. Not the smartest idea to take a jamba juice and a four year old on the subway? Yeah...Um. There were no seats for us, so we had to stand the whole time. And yeah, when Kris picked up Max at one point he ended up kicking the cup of juice out of my hand onto an unhappy man's shoe. The man was nice enough, luckily, but definitely unhappy about having a fruity workboot. It was really embarrassing. But worse than that, we still had quite a few stops to go when that happened, and we were stuck standing right by that man, over the puddle of goo the whole time. And I had to hold the dripping cup. It would've been a little better if Max hadn't decided to skate in the mess as well.

We were glad to get off the train.

Hopefully that's our bad luck for the week and all will go better. We'll see how it goes tomorrow with just Max and I. Do wish me luck, ok?