::NYC week 2 day 5 and final::

Max and I took it real easy on our last full day in Brooklyn. I was totally worn out from all of the museum excursions and the heat, so we just hung out in the room with the air conditioner for most of the day, reading books, watching movies and playing games. It was pretty nice.
When Kris got home we headed out towards the Brooklyn bridge to have dinner with some friends from dental school at UMKC.

Terra is doing a GPR (general practice residency) at a hospital in Brooklyn and her husband Eric is doing a masters thing at NYU. It was really fun to see some friends from Kansas City!

They had us go to this little pizza joint that was almost right under the Brooklyn bridge. It was called Grimaldi's.
There was a big line of people waiting outside to get in when we got there, but somehow we got in right away. It was packed with people--shoulder to shoulder. They have big long tables in there and just seat everybody next to each other.
The pizza was totally amazing. Suddenly we understood the big line outside!
There were photos of Frank Sinatra all over the walls. It was a really cool little place.

Afterwards we walked down towards the water to enjoy the view.

Here's Eric threatening to throw Max in the bay or river or whatever it was. It didn't scare Max, he was ready for it. He wanted to go in. Yikes.


Here's the underside of the Brooklyn bridge, and big waterfall thing (part of a series of six I think--an "art" installation) and you can see the Manhattan bridge not too far in the background.


Another view of the Manhattan bridge. It's so cool looking! I love the little tug boat in the foreground. Its so interesting to me to be around boats and the water, I'm just not used to it at all.

We walked a little further down and found this neat kind of parkish place. There were actually some patches of grass. And a huge huge sandbox. Max went crazy! He was so excited to just sit and play in the sand with all the toys people had left behind.
It was really pleasant.

We got to hang out and talk to Terra and Eric while he was very contented and occupied.

The temperature was nice with the air coming off of the water, and the view was amazing.


I'm so glad they had us come out there, we would've gone our whole trip without even knowing any of that neat stuff existed! And what a bummer that would be.

Ready for some awesome nighttime city views? Here we go.....





So pretty! You'd never think the city was so dirty if you just saw it at night like this.

It was fun to get to hang out with the Paulys, hopefully we can do it again soon since we're not really that far away from each other.

Kris's cousins Lisa, Phil and Annie were coming into the city and we were hoping to meet up with them, but we had some scheduling problems and never got together. We were sad to miss them, sorry guys! But it was a good thing we left first thing in the morning because it still took us all day to get home. The 3.5 hour drive took about 6.5. On fridays the whole state of Connecticut appears to be like some sort of parking lot for New Yorkers running away from the city.

But we made it home, and we're glad to be done with the traveling for a while. It's time to actually live in our own house.

::NYC week 2 day 4::

Kris got a surprise day off on wednesday. This is really the reason why we came out to Brooklyn again. I figured Kris might end up with some random play time, and I wanted to spend it with him.
Anyway, we had a lot of ideas for what we wanted to do, but top of the list was to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We thought it would be perfect if we could bring Max in the jogging stroller--then he'd be stuck and he couldn't run all over. And since we were both going on the train there'd be one of us to carry the stroller and one of us to corral the boy.

Anyway, we were researching the museum and found out they allow all strollers except jogging strollers. Arrgh! Not only that, but Kris pulled out the stroller to take Max on a run, and it had two flat tires.
So anyway, we thought we could still try to take him to the museum, but it was a little daunting--considering that the word museum to him is currently associated with driving cars, running around and splashing in water....

We stopped downtown to have lunch. We almost decided that we'd just go to a movie instead, but on the way to a movie theater we ran across a BabysRUs. So we went in and bought a $20 umbrella stroller.
Sounds like the solution to the problem right? Well, only halfway. He's way way way too big for the umbrella strollers, and he has been for years.
Check out this picture.

Can you see that even with his feet on the floor his knees are almost touching his chin? He can basically stand up and walk while still strapped into the stroller, and he can definitely stop it just by putting his feet down. It's a frustrating experience.
We pushed on to the museum, which was a long hot sweaty exhausting train ride away.
We got there at about 3PM and started rushing through some exhibits because the place closed up at 5.

Here are the boys in the huge room with parts of a pyramid in it. The Egyptian stuff was really cool.
We got to look at some of the decorative arts. Check out this fabulous art deco grandfather clock, and the beautiful tiffany lamp.

They had a lot of tiffany glass--some lamps, some windows. It was beautiful.
Here's some inlay detail from a gorgeous table that I would like to have.

We got to spend a good amount of time in the modern art area. Of course they had some really cool and really famous stuff.
Kris likes this one.




This piece took up the whole wall. It was so cool! Just looking at the colors really made me feel good.



It was getting really close to 5, so we ran over to the musical instruments exhibit. It was really cool, but things were shutting down. We tried to go to the gift shop, or "store" I guess as they like to call it, but they kicked us out of there too! IT was very unceremonious.
Here's Max and I at the bottom of the huge stairs after getting kicked out. The line at the coat check area was huge! I'm looking a little peeved because I hate getting kicked out of stuff before I'm ready to leave.

Anyway, it was a great day, but I was already totally worn out from the day before with the children's museum. So I was wasted by the end of the day. We all were. Max wasn't great in the museum but he was ok enough that we got to see some stuff, and that's all we wanted.

::NYC week 2 day 3::

I finally decided I would take Max to the childrens museum of Manhattan. It's way up by central park which is a pretty long ways away on the subway, with about 3 train changes along the way. But I had looked at the website and it looked like he would love it, so we got up and went for it.

There were a lot of moms and kids there, in fact we had to wait outside in a line for about 10 minutes just to get in. But once we got in it was fine and really not too crowded.

Max was super excited because they had a special Dora the Explorer exhibit. For some reason he's kind of obsessed with Dora right now, so we went to see her first. The exhibit wasn't that exciting really. I think he was a little bummed. But we did get a picture of him "with" Dora and Boots, which is fun.

Here he is playing some drums at Dora's "fiesta"--which was really just a room with a whole bunch of figures on the wall. Kind of blah. But the drums were fun at least.


After that we went to the like play and learn area, which turned out to be his absolute favorite. They had a lot of different things to do in the room, lots of things to climb on and draw on and twist and turn. His favorite thing though was this big bus that had four different steering wheels so that everybody that sat on the bus got to be a driver.

I have to admit that the bus was pretty cool. It had a rotating destination sign on the side that could say different things--central park, etc. He could've stayed in the bus all day. And probably would've if it wasn't for the fire engine! They had a fire engine that was similar to the bus. It had all sorts of switches and things inside for the kids to play with. They also had a few small fireman outfits in there that the kids could put on. Max really liked to drive it (of course).

Somehow there were no fights about driving these things. I don't know how it happened, but everybody seemed to get along well.
Here he is driving some other crazy vehicle somewhere. It's really all he wants to do.

He's very serious about it.

I finally tore him away from that room and we went to look at the other stuff. The only other exhibit that held our interest was an outdoor water one.
It was out on a balcony off the building (because of course the museum is in kind of an apartment building). They had the kids put on smocks and then they got to play with all sorts of water toys and race rubber ducky. There was a water wheel thing there that Max really liked.



It was hot outside though, so soon we went back in--back to the bus and the fire engine. I let him play there until I was about to die with hunger and/or boredom, whichever came first and then I dragged him away.

All in all we liked the museum but I actually think that the one at the Gateway in SLC is better. It had more cool exhibits that were actually fun. The one here had a lot of exhibits, but several of them were pretty boring.

After that we took it easy and then went to get a burger with Kris when he finally got done with work. Sounds like a kind of easy day, but with all the train travel and the heat I was totally exhausted by the end of it. In a good way.

::NYC week 2 day 2::

Max and I spent most of the day exploring Park Slope on monday. Park Slope is a nice area of Brooklyn that's just a couple of subway stops away from where we were staying. I had read that there was a good toy store over there, so we went to find it.
I thought it was kind of ghetto, but Max liked it. We stayed for a long time. He rode trikes and scooters and played with all sorts of toys. I found him some workbooks--alphabet and numbers. He can read pretty well by now but can't write many of his letters and numbers. We're going to work on that.

When Kris got done with work we decided to go down to Coney Island to have hotdogs at Nathans and so Kris could have his own personal Coney Island experience.



Here's Nathan's. Can you see the countdown on the left side? 361 days until the next hot dog eating contest!
I'm thinking maybe some of you readers don't know about the hotdog eating contest? I hope you all do actually. It's quite the exciting event that happens every 4th of July. It's been going on ever since the early 1900s when a couple of immigrants got together to see who could eat the most hotdogs. I'm assuming this happened at Nathan's. Pretty funny, huh? We usually like to watch it on ESPN. It's hilarious. But we don't have cable this year, so we didn't get to.

Here're the stats for the last couple of years. Yeah, that's 66 hotdogs in 12 minutes. Isn't that disgusting?

Look at 1988. He won with only 13 hotdogs eaten?!? What?!? Kris thinks he could've dominated in 1988. I don't really want to see it.

But while we were there he trained.

But I would only let him eat one hot dog.
Max looked on:

I'm sure he wants to be just like his dad. Yikes?

Max and I ate corn dogs. They were really tasty. And they tasted like they were very very bad for us.



After the nutritious dinner we decided to let Max have a dip in the surf. We were actually smart enough to bring his suit and a towel this time! Kris brought his suit too, in case he had to go in for any ocean rescues.
Max was thrilled. When he's at the beach he's like a ball of pure joy. I took about a billion pictures, here are only a few. Check it out.

Yes, that's just yucky crud lying there on the beach. It was a pretty dirty seedy place. But Max didn't care.







They're cute, huh?



The water was pretty cold. But again, Max didn't care. It didn't stop his leaping and jumping and dancing and pretending to swim.





We finally dragged him out by promising a $3 ice cream cone.

At least he appreciated it!
Kris took a photo of me that I don't mind to much.
Then we headed home. That was enough fun for one day!

::NYC week 2 day 1::

We're back in the big city!
We got here on sunday. The plan was for us to attend the ward that this house we're staying in would belong to.
Unfortunately, traffic did not cooperate! We forgot that it was the end of a long weekend (4th of july) and it was pretty packed all the way through Connecticut. Accidents didn't help with that either. We left in plenty of time to make it to sacrament meeting, but ended up arriving much too late. So that was too bad.

To make up for it we hopped on the subway and rode uptown to visit the Manhattan temple. We came up the stairs from the subway and were trying to figure out where we needed to go from there. I looked up and there was Moroni! It was kind of weird. The spire is really the first thing you see from that particular stairway.

I guess it's a kind of small temple with a meeting house somewhere in the same building where the Manhattan ward usually meets (when it's not being renovated like right now)
The building is a lot shorter than some others around it, but it's really neat looking. We peeked in the door and saw some pretty stained glass.

Those things on the side that look like windows actually aren't. I think they're some sort of metal decoration. They're really pretty. Kris says he's heard that it's really quiet and serene in that temple, which is amazing because the street out there is so busy!

We walked across the street to the Lincoln Center and got a better view.

It's really just smack dab in the middle of the action. Very cool.

Then Max had an emergency poop episode. All I can say is, thank goodness for Barnes and Noble and their bathrooms. They've saved us more than once.

Have I written here before about the fact that Max loves the subway? Well he does. He LOVES the trains. And it doesn't hurt that they're all designated with letters (and a few with numbers) It's really exciting to him when we go on the N train or the F train or whatever. He can tell the difference and really likes paying attention to which train we need and which trains we've been on.
I like the trains too for a lot of reasons. It's really convenient to ride them, it's cheaper than driving and it means I don't have to drive in this city, which is good because if I did have to drive I wouldn't come!
What I don't like about them? How hot and dirty the stations are. Yuck. With how hot it is out here right now, I feel like the second I step down into one of those stations I'm all sweat. So gross.
But all in all I'm a big fan of public transportation like this. I don't really like buses for some reason, but I really like trains.


This is the stop right by the place we're staying.



This place has a shower with sliding doors. I don't really know how to describe it--it's like there are three different panels, and the two on the sides can slide to either side depending on where you need them. Anyway, the point of this is that Max likes to pretend those shower doors are subway doors. He's always pretending different trains are coming and that he's getting in or out. I've gotten him to take a shower every single day because of this. It's been fabulous.


Poor Kris, good thing this trip isn't much longer or else I'm afraid his neck will end up broken. Shoulder riding is really the only way he can carry Max for any long period of time, and that needs to happen a lot out here. When Max gets tired he slumps down on Kris's head and rests his head on his arms. He did it to me one time for like two seconds and I almost died. He is so heavy. Kris is a trooper.


And it didn't help that on Sunday Dora decided to come with us on our outing. Max informed us that she was there, and the she was riding on HIS shoulders. That couldn't have helped!

Kris made this picture and then showed it to Max the next day. He laughed with glee for like 10 minutes straight. He thought it was so awesome.

It's so fun to get to spend time together. I like the city and all, but that's really the reason Max and I came back. And so far it's going well!