After almost 10 years here on Xanga, I am moving the blog over to a new hosting platform. I have a sentimental attachment to Xanga (much like the attachment to my aol email address) but sadly, I have been lured by the temptations of other hosting platforms (better templates, a nicer text editor and the ability to turn a blog into a book....)

And so, please follow us over to: http://smitheroni.wordpress.com/

All the old posts have been moved over so if you think you are ending up at the same spot - it is the same... but different!

See you soon!

School starts next week?! Are you kidding me?! And how did Shaeleigh get to be a FIFTH GRADER?! Scary business man.

We went to Pennsylvania for vacation this year - Trains, Amish Countryside, Chocolate

I had decided to surprise the kids with the first motel we stayed out (a very cool motel where all the rooms were like train cars). However, Shaeleigh had it in her head that Ronks, PA was going to be like New York City - I guess after last year, this is her frame of reference for vacations. And so when we pulled up to this:

And kept getting closer:

Instead of surprise I got baffled.

Shaeleigh: Wait... Wait... This is our hotel?

Me: Yes. It's like a train - get it?

Shaeleigh: Wait....

Me: Because we're in train country.

Shaeleigh: Hm. I thought it was going to be like a hotel.

That was our "room." The Southern. Inside the Southern things were a little tight but hey, an adventure is an adventure.

And they had bunk beds - two sets. They had a queen bed too (well, not really a queen - more of a small princess) that was supposed to be for Kenn and me. There was even a nice little curtain divider to keep the bunk bed creatures on their side of the train. However, Kenn had a Mountain Dew too close to bed time. Apparently he isn't qualified to be drinking the Dew past 9:00 pm and so he was all hyped up and wouldn't let me get any sleep. And so, I snuck over to one of the bunk beds. Then it started storming (big storm - thunder, lightning, lights flickering) and Chance snuck over to my bunk (which was barely big enough for me without him trying to squeeze me out).

Then it started raining on top of Kenn in the other "room" but despite there being two bunks free, he decides to stay in his room and whine. Then he starts snoring. Then Chance starts snoring. Good grief. So I sneak up to an empty top bunk while I ponder whether or not train motels are like motor home parks and will be easy targets for tornados and then just as I am drifting off to sleep HERE COMES CHANCE. Sigh....

But... rest is over rated. The motels had a most excellent "View Tower"

You can to climb up some pretty creepy mostly dark windy steps to get to the top BUT, the view was pretty cool:

Look closely and you can see Kenn:

Speaking of views - from the window of The Southern, we can a great view of the Strasburg Railway and the train came by every hour or so blowing it's horn.

I didn't realize how fun trains were. We took a 45 minute ride to no-where in particular. The train literally rides one direction for about 20 minutes then stops while the engine switches to the other side of the train and then goes back on the exact same track. The whistle blowing pretty much non-stop.

The Motel, the Strasburg train and three different train museums were just plopped right in the middle of Amish farmland - tobacco and corn mostly.

Nothing like driving over horse poo covered roads to keep the kids laughing.

Especially the boys.

We took an Amish buggy ride to tour a dairy farm (which was really interesting). There were two other families in the buggy with us so the driver put Chance, YiLin and the other boy up front with him. Shaeleigh rode with me and the other adults in the back. This put Chance right behind the horse, next to the driver and just far enough away from me to feel lose all sense of parental guidance. And so dear Chance entertained the entire lot of us by feeding the driver all the questions that had been burning in his 7 year old brain.

"Do you drive the wheels right over the poop or do you steer around it?"

"Why does the horse poop while it's walking?"

"Aw that stinks!! Is that horse making bonkies???" (bonkies = gas)

"We milked goats at camp, well, I didn't milk, I watched but it was gross, like shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, in a little line, but YiLin milked one, but it was gross and then I got tired of waiting so I went outside...."

Bu the driver was great. He laughed and kept teasing Chance about all the work he'd have to do if he were an Amish boy.

Shaeleigh also did not milk a goat during their week at Farm Camp together (the one week of the summer when there were all together at the same camp). She didn't even go into the barn because of the smell.

But speaking of smell.....

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...... Hershey! Now THAT'S a good smelling town.

We had an excellent tour of the chocolate factory. So excellent that we toured it three times. It's a little ride-on tour with singing cows all singing a catchy little ditty that will stick in your head all day - especially if you take the tour three times and all three kids video tape it with their cameras and play it over and over in the car and the hotel and wherever you go for the rest of the trip.

But, it was fun.

We also saw a curious "4D Movie" about some little aliens that were trying to make the chocolate sour or something and so the giant Hershey bar people had to save the day. AND... we made our own chocolate bars.

Shaeleigh doesn't mind the smell of chocolate!

I believe that one is mine (dark chocolate, chocolate cookie pieces and other things....)

That one is Shaeleigh's - she went with the white chocolate. It was definitely fun.

After two nights in our train, we moved over to the Hershey Farm Inn which was about 2 minutes down the road (well, ten minutes if you get behind a buggy). It had the BEST breakfast buffet ever and a giant guy named Amos standing out front.

Every motel needs an Amos.

The second motel, like the Red Caboose, had a petting zoo area. It also had a little shopping area, two playgrounds, nice grounds to walk around AND, a pond for fishing. Their website mentions the pond so we brought along the kids' fishing rods that we've had for years (thank you Uncle Tommy!) but embarrassingly enough, never used. Shaeleigh's done some fishing at Pioneer Camp (she goes to all the interesting camps) but the boys have been wanting to go for ages. And so...

Can you see it? YiLin caught this massive catfish with a piece of chicken leftover from lunch. This one too:

We had some trouble with the chicken and fries as bait though because the fish kept just pulling them off the line. We had much better luck the second night when we switched over to these beef sticks that we'd bought at one of the shops.

It's not as easy to nibble a beef stick off the line.

Funny story about the beef sticks - they were like Slim Jims and the kids and I bought a whole bag because YiLin and Kenn in particular like Slim Jims (me too but not quite as much as YiLin and Kenn). After we got home, Kenn finished the rest of the bag and afterwards he looks down at the label. Third ingredient - Beef Lips.

And then it was back to Hershey to go to Hershey Park.

Driving the cars was the number one ride of the day. And the number 2, 3, and 4 ride (because when we first arrived it was nice and empty...)

Beyond that, the kids aren't much for the rides so I didn't get to test out any of the roller coasters. Maybe in a few years.

We did go on the Ferris Wheel and a train ride. And the boys rode a few of the other rides (YiLin rode a few by himself too). And we saw the sea lion show and played a lot of games. YiLin really wanted to go to the zoo that's connected to the park but Chance and Shaeleigh were exhausted so I promised him a trip to the zoo when we got home.

And so we headed out (after some ice cream and a few last games).

We squeezed in one last train museum before heading home the final day and I'm glad we did. We had gone to the model train museum earlier - tons of buttons to push to make the different trains go around. This time we went to the big train museum - mostly steam engines. We got to climb inside the various cars and learn a little about each one - very cool. And they had more model trains that the kids could play with and build.

All in all, it was a very relaxing and fun time.

Ah, summer... I will miss you.

As I mentioned in May - I was warming up, getting back to getting ready to blog. I guess posting that one photo was a little too much - strained myself in the warm up. Actually, I got annoyed. I was trying to move the blog to blogger and failed in my efforts. (I can hear Kenn now, "Any port in a storm Magellan"). But it was irritating. And fruitless. Like the tree on the side of this blog which is really what I wanted to get rid of. (wait, I can hear Kenn again, "I think you stayed up too late last night, your xanga post didn't make any sense"). hehehe.

Well, this should make sense:

Woo Hoo Summer!!!

Okay, it seems like I took a bit of a blogging hiatus but I intend to return. I have 5 months worth of photos. Snow pictures, more snow pictures, more snow pictures....

Just getting warmed up....

Oh dear... only 64 minutes until midnight and I had planned for the big post at the end of the year. You know, the one to make up for the dearth of posts the past two months.

Sadly, I don't even have all the photos lined up. AND... I have presents to wrap because yes, with Shaeleigh's b-day tomorrow and YiLin's two days later we are still wrapping in these parts.

Still time for a few "Chance-isms" however:

Shaeleigh asked me last week how old I was when I got my first phone. This led to a conversation about how back "when I was kid" people didn't have phones that they carried around - phones were attached to the wall. I was explaining about dials and cords and such and Chance asks: "But how did you turn it into a rectangle?"

Me: Turn what into a rectangle?

Chance: The phone.

Me: Why would you turn the phone into a rectangle?

Chance: You know, to play games and stuff.

Because Chance loves a good video game... and rather likes a bad one.

Luckily, at this point (as proven in the shot above) he is plenty active so while he may indeed engage in too much screen time, there's no concern of him being a couch potato.

Chance was sheep in the school Christmas pageant.

He was lying on his back his sheep costume and YiLin looked over at him.

YiLin: Chancie! What are you? A rabbit?

Chance: I'm a sheep... you don't know anything about being a Catholic!

YiLin (our public school kid) stuck to his elf hat.

Shaeleigh was a Hebrew Townsperson.

Shaeleigh turns double digits tomorrow. Yikes. How did that happen? 10!

She wants a cat for her birthday. A cat, an iPad or a laptop. Luckily she did also ask for legos so at least we won't completely disappoint.

She also wants a sister but she will have to suffer her brothers the best she can.

She is hoping for LOTS of snow this year.

YiLin will need to work on his photo smile in the new year. He has such a great smile but when you put a camera in front of him well... see above....

And in case you need help with your New Year's Resolution I leave you with a few final words from Chance who might have what you need. I was walking into the family room and happened upon a piece of paper with a 1-800 number scrawled on it in big ol' Chance handwriting. It was on the end table near the tv so I had figured it was from some commercial for a toy that he wanted. But, it's always worth asking Chance because you never know what kind of answer you'll get. Case in point:

Me: Chance, what is this number for?

Chance: It's something to help me get un-fat if I grow fat. It's for when I get older. You just call them.

Much older I think (that's Chance dressed as St. Francis for All Saints Day - he came home from school and raked all the leaves in a pile while in costume and then did a little jumping like a good saint would).

Farewell 2013!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Well, after two weeks of government holiday (aka: furlough) I "get" to go back to work tomorrow. I put that in quotes because we are still not getting paychecks. Meanwhile, I would like to report that I feel rather relaxed having two weeks off and got quite a lot of things accomplished.

On the first day of government shut down I was already planning to attend the morning part of Shaeleigh's all day school event - Colonial Day. Instead I had to leave after the candle making so that I could participate in an "orderly shut down." And thus begins the irony - I can't take a scheduled morning off because the government is closing down. However, having been given but vague guidance as to what "orderly shut down" means, I went in, submitted my timesheet, spritzed some Lysol on my desk and got back to Colonial Day in time for lunch, a game of Rounders (Colonial Baseball) and the firing of the cannons.

I then spent the next 9 days off getting my hair cut, going to doctor appointments (both YiLin and I have new glasses on the way), cleaning the house (Kenn would say we need a few more weeks of furlough yet...), trying out jogging, deciding jogging is not for me, going to school appointments (4 of them), getting YiLin successfully transferred to a new school (starting in November), picking the kids up from school and helping with afternoon activities, having lunch with the husband, having lunch with my parents, and generally becoming lazy.

And someone asked, "Joanie, why didn't you update the blog?" Oh.... that....

The kids started school last month.

Shaeleigh is in fourth grade and having a good time. She has only 17 kids in her class this year.

Chance is in 1st and has 31 kids in his class. He has started reading and is very proud of himself.

Good luck Miss M.

And YiLin, headed into 2nd grade. The day before school started, his IEP team let us know that the services they finally put in place 10 weeks before school ended were not going to apply this year as they were a "special arrangement." Luckily, the Director of Special Education for the county was able to help us with that and we at least got those put back into place and thus began all the meetings I was able to attend while I wasn't allowed to work the past two weeks. Someday I will post the entire saga but there is really no way to justify the way YiLin's education was mishandled by our public school system. Completely unfair to a kid who has already had his share of unfair in life.

Meanwhile, he too is learning to read.

And the big news of the season - Chance has mastered the two wheeler! He hadn't shown much interest and still had the training wheels on his bike but one day came out of the garage with Shaeleigh's old pink bike that didn't have any training wheels. He literally figured in it out in 2 minutes. I held on to the back of the bike for 2 trips up and down the cul-de-sac and he just took off on his own.

And then he went straight from wobble to hotdog.

And then YiLin wanted in on the fun. I have to admit, neither Kenn nor I thought he was ready. The kid is nothing if not persistent. I thought my back was going to break (because yes, he too was learning on the mini pink bike but he is heavy and in the beginning, I was doing all the work) but he kept dragging that bike out and as a parent you just can't say, "no, you can't do it." And then lo and behold he proved us all wrong. And so it spurned me on to fight harder with the school system.

And then YiLin, who loves to do what Chance does, had to be a hotdog too.

And Shaeleigh, who honestly was still riding that silly little pink bike, finally got a new bike.

And now Kenn wants to learn to ride. (hehehe)

Recently Chance-isms:

Me (after nearly tripping over some toy): Whose is this?

Chance: Mine. I left it there so someone could slip on it (big grin)

*****

The kids are all singing along to a Cedermont kid CD (Christian kids music):
Sing Hosanna, sing Hosanna, sing Hosanna to the King of Kings....

The song ends and Chance says: What the heck is a Hosanna anyway?!

*****

It was one of those days where the kids all seemed particularly needy and I was going crazy and said something to Chance like, "Sometimes I just need a little time by myself," to which he replied, "Then why did you borned me?"

*****

Chance, not wanting to go to sleep, comes wandering out of his bedroom and claims to be having bad dreams.

Me: But you haven't fallen asleep yet.

Chance: Yes, but sometimes my brain combines everything early.

*****

And not to be outdone: YiLin -isms

(and this is admittedly much funnier if you know YiLin - he still doesn't speak in fully sentences or offer a whole lot of depth to his conversations so what he does choose to say can be pretty funny)

We're heading out the door yesterday and Shaeleigh is wearing a new pair of pants. They are made of a soft velour and are a little too big. Her shirt is also new and probably somewhat big. She looks comfortable.

YiLin looks at her laughing and says: Shaeleigh get dressed! Those are pajamies!

What?! Is that a chicken coop in the Smitheroni backyard? Don't tell the HOA!

Yes, indeed. We discovered that you can rent hens! And so we rented two hens, complete with the coop and food, for four weeks. Such fun! They were so sweet - soft and friendly. That's Old Yeller above.

And that's Rosie. There's nothing funnier than sitting in the family room and looking up to see a chicken looking in at you. Well, one thing funnier - hearing about Kenn trying to catch then to put them back in the coop at night and picturing him running around in circles when the chickens run just ahead of him their little necks bobbing in and out. Hahaha.

YiLin had a love/hate relationship. He spent tons of time out in the yard watching them and feeding them. And yet, he did not want them coming too close.

We got two eggs a day which we collected just after noon each day.

Until this came along. Raccoons showed up and there went the egg production. We went 7 days with nothing. But eventually the raccoons learned they couldn't get into the coop (and Kenn tied the trashcans down so they couldn't get into those either) and then we got our eggs back.

And I leave you with Chance-in-a-basket. Because that's how he chooses to sleep on occasion.....

So I tried to fix up the New York post - got most of the photos in although the spacing and such is off. No matter. It was a pain to update. It looks like the editor is okay for new posts but the older ones (the ones that were migrated over) are showing up in HTML and it's too hard to make the updates.

And so... two weeks into school for Shaeleigh and Chance. One week for YiLin. And one week into our grand rent-a-hen adventure. Stay tuned.............

Just letting folks know that the missing photo issue will be resolved soon. Xanga (our blog host) recently migrated to a new platform and new servers. The last post did not migrate over completely. No worries - we will fix shortly.

Where was I?

 

So they had these people sitting at tables every so often selling maps for $2 for a children's charity.  We bought at map at the first table.  Then we had to stop at every other table to ask for directions as we couldn't make heads or tales out of crazy thing.

We did find the zoo.  That was goal #1.  

Shaeleigh's face cracks me up.  

 

And this was the hit of the day.  Giant rocks.  Everyone loved climbing up and down the rocks.  Probably could have spent all day doing that.

 

And....   we ate some more ice cream.

Right before we left for New York, the ever charming Kenn, introduced Chance to the ol' arm pit "bonkie" and so the ever charming Chance walked all over New York perfecting his technique.  

My sound track during our stay:  "YiLin come on.  Chance stop.  YiLin come on.  Chance stop.  YiLin come on.  Chance stop.  YiLin come on.  Chance stop."  

>

Our bus tickets included a night tour.  Shaeleigh was interested in going (me too) and of course YiLin was all in but Chance was not particularly thrilled with MORE WAITING and so we bribed him with Chicken McNuggets and my phone.  Is that bad?  Three people saw the lights of New York and one person munched on nuggets and got a high score on Temple Run.  A good time was had by all.

For the record, we didn't buy nuts from this cart. Couldn't find the nuts for sane people though.  

But finally....  our trip came to an end.  I don't have a photo but we did take a cab from the hotel down to Penn Station on the way back to the Vamoose bus.  When the hotel guy put the suitcase into the trunk he about burst a vein and grunted out, "Oh my god"  hehehe.  wimp.

See you soon Big Apple!

 

Wow, time does fly...  We already had open house at one school and our first failed IEP meeting of the season at the other

But school will need to wait for another posting - first must catch up on the summer.

Start spreading the news....  The kids and I took the bus to NYC.  Kenn, after debating for weeks, decided to stay behind to man the business.  And so I promised him I would bring everyone home in one piece and while there were a few close calls involving revolving glass doors and a few tumbles from the hotel bed, the promise was kept.  

The bus ride up was fairly smooth.  We came out of the Lincoln tunnel and Chance looks out the window and then says to me,  "You said New York was crowded.  You were wrong Mom."  

Later that evening as we walked through Times Square he admitted I was right afterall.

I'm not sure why Chance looks so tired in this photo - it was before we got on the bus and he pulled the suitcase maybe 3 feet.  But Suzanne, if you're out there, this one's for you - when we got off the bus at Penn Station I had decided it would be easier to walk 14 blocks to our hotel then it would be to wrangle the kids and the suitcase onto the subway (and my suburban head dismissed the notion of a 14 block taxi ride) .  It probably wouldn't have been bad except the kids all brought books for the bus ride and I put them all into the suitcase when we got off the bus so that the wouldn't be fussing about having heavy backpacks.  It still probably wouldn't have been bad except that the suitcase broke a wheel about 6 blocks in.  The wheel had a little plastic casing that split in half so for 2 blocks I kept stopping to squeeze it back together because the wheel would not roll.  I was about to give up and grab a cab when the whole thing just snapped off altogether and after that the little wheel inside the casing did just fine.  Of course by that time I was a bit fried.  

The hotel had two entrances - one on 46th and one on 47th - I would have walked the extra block had I known that the entrance on 46th involved stairs.  But no matter - I tugged that stinkin' suitcase up a few stairs and at last we were there!  Phew.

Tourists...   Thanks to Grandpa sharing, Shaeleigh had her own camera and the boys had one to share.  I will post their photos tomorrow but we had a lot of fun watching the slideshows of what they took.

 

YiLin in Times Square - an adventure of it's own.  He is the only one of the three kids who LOVES costume characters.  And he LOVES them.  All of them.  Spiderman, Iron Man, Woody, Hello Kitty, another Spiderman, he doesn't care, not disturbed by the fact that there's a Spiderman every few feet and that at least one of the Spidey's looked like he bought his costume Wal-mart - he greets them all with a huge smile.  Chance and Shaeleigh wouldn't go near any of them.  

 

Yes, YiLin lives large and has no sense of embarrassment.  Only YiLin (well, and me) agreed to don the free rain poncho we were given on the bus ride to the Staten Island ferry.  Day One - we had tickets to the Statue of Liberty.  We also had a three day pass to ride the double decker bus.  One of the bus people told us 45 minutes.  Another told us 90 minutes.  And so the Smith clan took a 90 minute bus ride with 45 minutes worth of patience

BUT...   we did get free ponchos and earphones (to hear the "tour").  Before leaving for NYC, I bought each of the kids a pair of kid friendly earphones so that they could use their "devices" on the Vamse bus.  By the time we le left NYC we must have accumulated at least 16 pairs of disposable double decker bus earphones so on the ride home, there's all three sitting with their cheesy cheap tangled up bus earphones probably ruining their ears while the mom approved earphones remain tucked into their backpacks.  

And so we arrived.  This was probably the only really stressful moment of the trip.  The tickets were for a specific boarding time and with the bus ride taking longer than expected, there was a bit of a sprint towards the ferry.  I wasn't sure how firm they would be on the time but we arrived with a minute to spare.

>

And after about 2 minutes, the kids were done.  hehehe.  Sadly, I think the long bus ride used up all of Chance's patience.  That, coupled with the fact that he was too short to see over the wall of the observation deck.  

But, we checked the box.  Shaeleigh had really wanted to see the Statue of Liberty and so she was happy.  We ate some ice cream, walked around the island a bit and then headed back.

We ended the day with a trip to M&M World.  Our hotel was right in Times Square so this was a repeat stop during our stay.

>

It does smell good in there!

Shaeleigh picked out this birthday present for Kenn.

 

Another place we visited more than once - my favorite McDonald's of all time.  Right in Times Square and there was never much of a line in the morning.  We ate breakfast on the second floor with the best view of Times Square.  Directly in front of us was the big billboard for American Eagle and they had all these underwear ads running; young models wearing unders and doing the hula hoop and such.  We're eating our pancakes and Chance is staring out the window and says, "You should dress like that Mom....  you would look good."   Oh boy.

On Day Two of our adventures it poured.  We picked up 4 umbrellas (and yes, they all screamed, "I'M A TOURIST") and headed out.  I'm sure we collectively poked out out several hundred eyes given they way the kids navigated the busy streets with umbrellas.  Then again, they're all short - we probably only inflicted puncture wounds to the lower extremities.  We hoofed it up to MoMA to see Chance's beloved, "Girl with the Glue in Her Eyes" (aka:  The Drowning Girl).  A picture he has been attracked too since he was about 4.  He keeps coming upon the same Lichtenstien book at the library.

 

 

Unfortunately, we arrived an hour before opening.  We decided to spend the time walking back a few blocks to The American Girl shop.  Believe it or not it was practically empty!  Given that the store in our area is always packed, it was soooo nice.  The kids got a kick out of the fact that it was 4 floors but the 3rd floor had nothing but bathrooms.

Then we hoofed it back, stopping at Rockafeller Center where we had happened up on the Lego store.

I would like to note that by the time we got to MoMA, I had opened and/or closed an umbrella 28 times since cheap tourist umbrellas don't work too well and none of the kids could open or close them.  But I digress....

We were off on our quest but decided it best to ask where the painting was hanging rather than wander about.  The lady at the info desk (after hearing our question) looked at Chance and said with a heavy Dutch accent, "Are you a particular fan of the Lichtenstein?"  Which was the line that had everyone laughing all day.  She sent us up a floor where we did find two Lichtensteins but not THE Lichtenstein.  We stopped to ask again, only to learn that it wasn't actually hanging at the moment.  Very sad.  

And so we settled for checking out Starry Night and a few Picassos (Shaeleigh had taken 4 weeks of Art Camp and had a good frame of reference for these). 

We also saw this pile of lint (art installation)

 

and several paintings depicting naked people which provided Chance with enough amusement to keep him going.  Mr. Energy can spend 8 hours straight at gymastics camp without a sit-down break but walking (which he kept calling, "waiting") exhausts him.  Walking is apparently so slow that it's just too boring to sustain.  

 

This painting best reflected Chance's impression of MoMA after he learned the one painting he wanted to see wasn't hanging.

 

And this was Chance after we hoofed it back to the hotel for a break.  Ha - so tired he told us that he had to crawl to the bathroom.

YiLin's foot after our rainy morning - all wet and wrinkly.

 

It did clear up by afternoon and we decided to head back out.

 

We went to the Top of the Rock which was awesome.  The elevator ride up was a kick - really zippy and smooth.  And the views were spectacular.  The sun was mostly out by then so we could see pretty far.

Shaeleigh fell in love with the pizza place around the corner from our hotel.  They also made great salads which YiLin loved (he is a salad lover) and they sold Gatorade for Chance so really, it was our own personal trifecta.

I just liked this photo.  Good time to note that both Chance and I got nailed by pigeon poo during our stay.  I got hit first and when I mentioned that it was a sign of good luck I was met with some scepticism (Shaeleigh looked at me and said, "are you just saying that because you got pooped on?").  However, when Chance got hit, the first thing he said was, "I must be lucky!" 

So one thing I'd like to know - how is it that the "City that Doesn't Sleep" has hotels that don't have coffee pots in the room.  What kind of hotel doesn't have a coffee pot in the room?!  

One morning, instead of going to McDonald's for breakfast, I told the kids that we should go to the coffee shop in the hotel.  Chance looks at me and says, "But I don't like coffee."  So no in-room coffee BUT, a side of bacon at the coffee shop yeilded us 8 slices (iHOP only gives 2 here at home so this was cause of much happiness for the crazy bacon loving kids).

And when we weren't eating bacon, we were eating hotdogs from the vendors of New York.

And giant pretzels.  Shaeleigh will tell you though, that after Chance got his pretzel, Shaeleigh and YiLin and I got one to share and it had 5 grains of salt on it.  That's right - FIVE.  She leaned over and gobbled them up in one bit and after that we were left with a naked pretzel (almost as amusing as naked-people art...)

Speaking of which, I learned during our bus tour that Times Square has 1 naked guitar playing cowboy (well, he wears unders) and two naked guitar playing cowgirls.  The two cowgirls are 25 years old and 90 years old.  Guess which one we kept running into?  I will note that Chance did not suggest that SHE wear the American Eagle underwear.

So when we first booked our hotel I found a great deal at the Hotel Edison.  I originally booked for 3 nights.  Later we decided to add a night (glad we did) but the Edison didn't have room for the 4th night.  And so....   I found another hotel nearby and yes, we packed up that suitcase and walked over three blocks to the Milford.  That was kind of fun actually as the new hotel was a little strange.  Check out the room decor:

Check out the tiny painted boy going into the bakery. And so it is getting late around these parts so this will have to be Part I.  More to come.....