::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 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)