On Friday, we made the looonng trip down to New York City for a much anticipated weekend in the big city. Lesson one, learned, oh twenty minutes in: Ethan has not outgrown his carsickness. After many hours, and many stops, we finally made it to our home for the weekend - the Manhattan Club. Aside from hitting a horrendous Friday rush hour, the last stretch of the ride into the city was fun. There were constant "ooo"s and "aaahhh"s from the backseat, combined with some "tunnel!", "bridge!", "tall building!" thrown in for good measure. I think these boys may need to get out more... We learned about the five boroughs of the city, and that we were heading to "Hats" (short for Manhattan, I guess), which is an island. All of these little nuggets were just fascinating to the younger set.
Lucky for us, the ride in was just the tip of the iceberg of fun. After dropping our bags in a very spacious and comfortable suite, courtesy of Noni and Papi, we headed downtown via subway (more excitement!) to meet up with the Olson crew, Uncle Pauly and Annie. Hannah and Lucas introduced us to a fantastic slide right outside their apartment building, and the boys got all their pent-up wiggles out by going down and up and down again and again. They would have stayed there all weekend long, but when the grown-ups' bellies started rumbling, we headed off to dinner.
I have to be honest and say that I was not looking forward to a whole weekend of eating out. While trying new restaurants, especially in a foodie hotspot like NYC, is one of my most favorite activities, I prefer to do so without little men in tow. Eating out with our boys generally involves a race to the finish, lots of apologetic smiles to our neighbors, and constant vigilance to prevent the inevitable flying knives, spilled milk, or one or more kids wrestling under the table. So I was pleasantly surprised when our boys cooperated through not just this dinner, but breakfast the next morning, dinner the next night, and brunch on Sunday! Sure, crayons helped, as did the extra hands and distractors. Maybe it was the influence of their peers, who are trained city kids. Whatever it was, we enjoyed several delicious and moderately relaxing meals out.
Saturday morning brought the long- and eagerly-awaited highlight of our trip - a visit to the Natural History Museum. For I don't know how long, Ethan has been planning this trip to see the dinosaurs. He's been studying his books (all of which needed to come with us to NY, of course), asking lots and lots of questions, and bursting in anticipation of seeing real live dinosaur bones. The museum did not disappoint; in fact, we spent almost five hours there and saw far more than just dinosaurs (although those were pretty incredible). Thanks to some connections, Annie scored us free, loaded tickets to the museum, complete with a visit to the butterfly garden, an IMAX movie, a planetarium show, and other fabulous exhibits.
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| Adam loved that this dinosaur arm bone is bigger than he is! |
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| Prehistoric kangaroo and a very, very excited 5-year old |
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| The butterfly garden was amazing - so many big and colorful butterflies. Everyone thought the butterflies would land on Ben's shirt because it was yellow (to which they are apparently attracted), but several landed on Noni's hair instead. Adam proclaimed, "Because your hair is "lellow" Noni!" |
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| Not a great shot but I love Adam's expression. |
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| Snack time! |
Our day at the museum about tuckered everyone out, but a quick trip to the LEGO store was in order. It was an absolute zoo, but we loved the giant wall of drawers. Each drawer had a different type of LEGO and you could fill a whole bucket for 8 bucks.
After a delicious Vietnamese feast, it was back to the hotel for sleep...
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| The boys were SO excited to share a bed for the first time. |
and Catchphrase.
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| Someone had to take a picture of this because it only happened once out of seven games. I won't say who was on Team Two, but I'll give you a hint - they are really competitive and they are apparently really bad at Catchphrase. And their names rhyme with "ten" and "pan". |
Polling the fam - Favorite part of our NYC trip:
Ethan - "seeing the dinosaurs"
Adam - "seeing the dinosaurs too"
Ben - "dinner at the Vietnamese restaurant"
Liz - "too many to name - the IMAX movie, good food, just being in the city"
Polling the fam - Favorite mode of transportation:
Ethan - "train under ground" (subway)
Adam - "taxi cab" (of course - it's yellow and has a TV in it!)
Ben - "cab" (really? you didn't like the vomit-smelling prison we were trapped in for 6 hours each way?!)
Liz - "walking, walking, walking!"
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