::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.

::A Jaunt::

I haven't been able to post for the last few days because my friend Carie and I were taking a little vacation in Minnesota!
Here's a fun picture of Carie for you.

Carie is great. Its so nice to have a friend that's close that I have so much fun hanging out with--it's been a long time. And no Carie, I'm not just saying that because I know you read this thing.
We took a quick 3 day jaunt up there because our husbands wanted us to go and have fun! Isn't that nice of them? Well, it was something like that anyway. We went up there with the intention of going to Ikea, a place that we both enjoy, and the trip didn't disappoint!
We were in Minneapolis, and the Ikea was right by the Mall of America. Heard of that place? It's supposedly the largest mall in the US. And boy is it ever huge. It has an amusement park in the middle and basically any (mall) store you can think of. We started out there and had dinner. What's better to eat at the mall than mall food? We had orange chicken from Panda Express (or Stomachache Express as Carie likes to call it.) I have to mention this because I took such a great picture of the food:

and yeah, if it looks tasty to you that's because it was! Yum. It was great until later when our stomachs were sorry we'd eaten it.

Anyway, we shopped at the mall on the first day and the third day (spending plenty of time trying on clothes of course), and then the 2nd day we spend the entire day shopping at Ikea, going through all the things we wanted carefully and slowly. Since there was nobody to rush us it was great! So great in fact that we got there at like 10 in the morning and didn't leave the place until 5. Amazing, huh? We got a lot done though, and no, neither of us spent our life savings--somehow. The picture you see is of a bed I'm hoping to maybe get later on, for our new house, maybe.
We had lunch there and I got to eat the swedish meatballs. They were really good. Oh, to have an Ikea close. Poor Kansas City, it might never happen.

It was a really fun trip. It's the first time I've gotten away by myself in forever, maybe ever actually, and I think it was the same for Carie. We're lucky to have husbands that are so good with our kids, that don't think twice about stepping up and taking care of things!
Max did pretty well while I was gone, but was actually much more upset than when Kris and I went to Providence. He didn't seem to care when we were gone together but he did break down a couple of times this week. He was happy to see me when I got home (and I was happy to see him and Kris--it's nice to be gone, but always so great to come home.)

Now I'm off to do more school work. I have a big project due monday and then hopefully some of the school pressure will be lessened. I have more posts on the way about Grandpas and cute little boys. Stay tuned!