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."  

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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.

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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.

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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.....