#1 - 365 Reboot - June 3 '12

I have missed far too many days for me to pretend I am continuing a 365.  So I'll restart.  Maybe this time I'll do better at it.

Today's entry is about yesterday.  If I'm successful at this 365 thing, it will be because I do it in the morning.  My evening's are too unpredictable with other demands.  Mornings are my time to devote to what is personally important for me.  Evenings tend to focus on the family and preparing for my next workday.

We (mostly me) have been talking about taking the kids into the city for a Saturday for quite a while.  We had all sorts of excuses to not do it before, and found an excuse to do it this time.  Katrina and Aria headed into the city on Friday night for a young women/women seminar at the Manhattan Temple.  They caught the 5pm train and headed South.  Afterward they went to Aki's to stay the night.  The rest of the kids and me got home from work about 6.  Christian went immediately to bed.  The rest of us ate something and I put Libby and Jake to bed about 8:30.  I watched the Heat get slammed bu the Celtics.

I personnally like the Heat as a team.  I like a bunch of star players deciding to take pay cuts to assemble an awesome team and win.  That's what it's supposed to be about.  So despite the hoop-la around LeBron's decision, I liked the way it worked out.  So since the Knicks are out, I was rooting for the Heat.  Ugly game.  It finished around 11:30 and I went to sleep.

6.5 hours later, I am shocked awake by someone manhandling me.  It was Christian.  We had settled on 6:30 as a wakeup time, but he thought it was 6.  I'm sure the kid was up with the sun, waiting patiently to wake me up and get us moving.  My first reaction was, "ARGH!!!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME???  LET ME SLEEP!!!"  But I gave it a half-second of thought and realized that when I get the kids up for Sunday, I do the exact same thing to them.  So I couldn't get mad at him.  I accepted my lot and moved on.

The other kids got up, we got dressed, had breakfast, and at 7:35 we left the hotel for the train station.  We caught the 7:57 train no problem, and I texted Katrina: "We're on the train.  At Grand Central at 9:30."  Her reply "That's early."  The train ride was cool - it was a first for Libby and Jake, and Christian's first ride along the Hudson.  The coolness lasted about 30 minutes, and then everyone but Christian was asleep.

Arrival at Grand Central was cool.  I had Jake by the hand, and it didn't take him long to realize that he really could get lost or separated easily, and he stayed pretty close to me.  We stepped into the main concourse, and Christion looked up at the ceiling.  "Woah, those are greek mythology!"  They were constellations.  Jake was fixated on the crab, so I get a shot of it, the kids next to a teeny police car parked inside, and a couple others.  Katrina texted that they wouldn't be there until after 10, so we wandered through the hallway to Lexington, where we crossed the street together and got donuts from a street vendor.  Back inside, we went up the stairs to the new Apple store, where we could look over the entire main concourse.  I told the kids we were going to play a game called "Who can see mom first?"  Aria texted to ask where we were.  I told her that we were in the main concourse, and were trying to find them.  Libby spotted them come out of the tunnel from the subway down and to our left. 

Then we were together.  We went to the World Trade Center area first, and took some time to explain to Jacob what happened.  The kid is smart.  "What happens if you fly a big ariplane like you got in to come to New York and flew it into a building?"  "It would fall down and catch on fire."  We walked through the church there, and confused Jake by pointing out George Washington's church pew.  He does not yet have the ability to separate events before his birth.  George Washington and 9/11 are currently conflated in his mind as contemporary events.  Both equally in the past.

We hailed a cab and rode down to Battery Park next.  The kids climbed a tree and chased pigeons while we waited for Tim and Aki to come.  We met at the Clinton monument, and then walked up to the Staten Island Ferry terminal.  It was noon.  4 adults and 4 kids made the rest of the day really enjoyable.  Jake soon decided that he preferred to hold Aki's hand, and Libby decided that she preferred Tim.  The ferry goes right by Liberty Island, and Tim got some pictures of Liberty with her statue in the background.  She was all smiles. 

It turned into a perfect day - a little bit of a breeze, mid-70s, clear sky.  The boat passages were nice.  Not crowded (not summer yet), not long to wait, and with the kids spread out, it was a nice way to relax a bit.  Not something we get to do much when we're out with all the kids at once. 

After a quick turnaround at Staten Island, we arrived back in Manhattan and got lunch.  There is a deli and a McDonald's next to each other.  Libby chose sheese pizza, and so did Aki.  Tim took the other kids to McDonald's, and we ordered yummy food from the wide selection there.  There were tables on the 2nd floor, so we ate together there. 

Lunch over, we took the subway uptown, where Katrina put my mom's name on the prayer roll at the temple.  She had back surgery later in the day, and we were all thinking about her.  The temple is next to Central Park, so we walked around a bit and found a nice spot on some sun-warmed rocks.  We gathered everyone together and said a prayer for mom, and then the kids ran around and played in the bushes.  We had our weird adult banter.  Nice time.  I got a little bit of a nap. 

It was finally 5pm, and time to start moving home.  We searched for ice cream on the street but were unsuccessful.  We needed a Mr Softee, but had no luck as we walked down Madison Avenue and Park Avenue with our retinue of children.  The subway took us back to Grand Central, where we said goodbye to Tim and Aki, and we got out.  A potty stop at the Dining Concourse and some searching later, we found a little gelato place.  The prices were silly, so we offered the kids a choice: a little gelato here, or whetever they wanted at DQ.  They all wisely went for DQ.  We were 14 minutes early for our train, got our seats, and relaxed.  What a day.  Jake used my jacket as a blanket and Libby's as a pillow and slept on me most of the way while I read. 

We hit DQ at 8pm or so and sat down with our mounds of ice cream.  Jake wanted a chocolate Dilly bar, so he got it.  Aria wanted a large mint Oreo blizzard, so she got it.  Another large blizzard for Libby (cookie dough), a banas split bloizzard for Katrina, a medium chocolate dipped chocolate waffle cone for Christian, and a turtle sundae for me.  Many calories were consumed.  I asked the kids what their favorite part of the day was that was not eating ice cream at DQ.

Aria: just hanging out with Tim and Aki.
Christian and Jake: playing at Central Park
Libby: "seeing my statue"

We crawled into the hotel just after 9.  The kids dutifully brushed their teeth and slept.  I did laundry - by the time I was done, everyone else was asleep. 

Lovely day.  Couldn't have been much better.  What a life.