Empire State

I feel like I have been uploading pictures all day today. But it's worth it, because now I can tell you about our trip to New York!

Now, before I begin, I should explain that the real purpose of this trip was simply to visit my sister. I've been to New York a few times and seen most of the major sites that I'm interested in. Obviously, there are still about 100 billion cool things left for me to see, so it's not like I think I've "done" New York. But with three kids in tow, we really only cared about having a nice time with Favorite Aunt Tracy. So you don't need to be horrified that we didn't catch a Broadway show/see ______ museum/eat at ______ restaurant/visit the Statue of Liberty/Empire State Building/Metropolitan Museum of Art, or any of the many many other super cool things there are to do in that crazy city.

Having said that, I think for only being there for a long weekend, we managed to pack in a lot! So here goes!

We drove up Thursday night. Tracy had found an adorable one-bedroom apartment for us to rent, so we went straight there and then realized that there is no good way to haul three kids, suitcases, pillows, strollers, and bags of food up to the 6th floor while parked in front of a fire hydrant. Oops. We got it all in eventually, but it was a hassle. Tracy was able to meet up with us shortly thereafter and took the kids to a park to play while Craig drove around looking for parking and I fed Ryder. After that, we ordered pizza and then put the kids to bed and stayed up way too late chatting and trying to figure out our game plan for the next day.

Tracy left and Craig and I were just about to go to bed when Ryder woke up absolutely enraged about his sleeping arrangements. It took a bath to calm him down, after which he proceeded to hum to himself for ten minutes before falling asleep. I listened to him and vowed that we would do something different the next night!

The next morning, tired but excited for our day, we met Tracy and walked with her to work. Bentley was a trooper and walked nearly the entire way there. It was sort of misty out, though, and when he slipped a bit on the sidewalk, he decided he was done. So he got to ride in a stroller and we carried Ryder in my sister Natalie's Ergo Carrier, which she had let us borrow just for the trip. That thing probably saved our lives (and our backs!).

Anyway, we got to Tracy's office, which is inside Rockefeller Plaza. And since it was a Friday in the summer, that meant that Good Morning, America! had their concert going on outside. Which meant that we got to watch Bruno Mars from the 3rd floor conference room! It was a great way to start out the day, especially since it was just last week that Craig realized that there are a bunch of songs by Bruno Mars that he really likes! So we enjoyed the concert:

Bruno Mars himself!

All the crowds that we got to walk right through, thanks to Tracy's pass!

After the concert, Tracy needed to actually work, so we headed out in search of breakfast. Unfortunately, by this time, the mist had turned to actual rain, so we grabbed some doughnuts from a street vendor, looked around hopelessly for a covered place to eat, and finally headed down to the subway and ate on our way to the museum. I know-- can you think of a dirtier place to eat something sticky like doughnuts? Oh, well. I didn't lick my fingers clean, at least!

We got to the Museum of Natural History about 20 minutes before it opened, which gave me just enough time to feed Ryder. I was about to just sit on the ground in front of the museum to do this when a swarm of kids arrived and proceeded to stand all around, so I retreated to a nearby park bench. The rain had mostly stopped by now and there were trees sheltering me, so it wasn't too cold. Then we went to look at the dinosaurs, which are the best thing about this museum:

Ryder (and Kendra, below) admire the T-Rex

The next coolest thing is the blue whale! Holy cow those are amazing!

Bentley loved the lions:

We grabbed some lunch and headed to the Sony Wonder Technology Lab. It's fun and it's free. The kids ran around while I fed Ryder. Unfortunately, when I asked if there was anywhere private I could go to nurse, I got ushered into an employee break room, and had no way to tell Craig (whose phone had died) where I was. So he was worrying about where I had disappeared to. But we found each other eventually! Somehow we didn't manage to take any pictures there, though...

Our next stop was the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA for short). Tracy had a pass to get us in, and I hadn't been since I was in high school. Since then, being a humanities major, I had taken a modern art class and WOW that museum is so much more fun when you actually know what you're looking at! I ran all over squealing in delight with each piece that I recognized. I awarded myself double points if I could tell who the artist was before I saw the name plaque. And yes, I even took pictures of two of my favorites:

The Starry Night is so popular, it's hard to even get close enough to look at properly! It's one of those paintings that I hate to love because it's too popular. But I do love it. How could you not?


And Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon! How many times have I looked at that painting in classes? Lucky for you, I decided to not try and pose like the women. I was kind of tempted, though...

Another favorite, and much more obscure painting, that I came across was Two Children are Threatened by a Nightingale. The title alone just cracks me up every time.

I was proud of myself for not getting distracted by Salvadore Dali's The Persistance of Memory, which hangs right next to it.

We didn't spend long at the museum. Everyone was exhausted by this point, and no one else was as thrilled by it as I was. So I ran around catching the highlights and then we met up, again, with Tracy who was done with work by now. We grabbed dinner at the Shake Shack and took it back to Tracy's apartment to eat.

While we were there, Bentley got brave and climbed the ladder to her loft:


Then we left Tracy to take all three kids back to our apartment by herself (really! And she DID it!) and Craig and I went on a date. Since he was 13, Craig has wanted to see Cirque du Soleil perform. And lucky for him, they're in New York at Radio City Music Hall right now. So we had to go:

(I swear I am not actually that fat.)

The show inspired me to sit, balanced, on the 2nd floor balcony rail.*

The show was AWESOME. If you've never seen them before, definitely go! I'm already wondering how we can see them again. And it was nice to walk around the streets of New York without pushing a stroller or carrying a baby. I felt so free!

And that was Friday.

As you can imagine, we were all pretty exhausted from it.

The next day we didn't do nearly as much. Tracy took the kids to the park again:


And we visited the Central Park Zoo, where the sea lions were a big hit:


We went out for Indian food, which was fabulous. Unfortunately, Ryder had a blow-out diaper there, so Craig and I had the fun experience of changing him on the floor of the smallest bathroom ever. Gross, huh? Ah, parenthood!

We sat in front of the Hudson River, eating $4 cookies that were enormous and worth every penny, and watching the sunset:

And the next day we went to church with Tracy and then hung out at her place with a friend of hers and her kids. On the walk home, Ryder (who hadn't napped all day) slept in the Ergo-carrier:


We were sad to say good-bye to Tracy, but relieved to return home to our 3-bedroom house (so much space to spread out and close doors and let babies nap!) and our driving-places-instead-of-walking-to-them lifestyle!

Thanks for a great vacation, Tracy!!!


*Can you tell that those are fake legs that I'm standing next to? When the Cirque du Soleil guy did it, it was much more convincing!