NYC Trip part 1

Despite an inauspicious start to our trip, the fam had a great time in the Big Apple. Just a few of the highlights from the trip:

Pigeons
Grafiti
Playing with Harper

Okay, there were a lot more highlights than that, but if you ask the kids thats probably the first thing they will mention. As for that inauspicious start, we left our house at 0 dark thirty Wednesday morning and pulled into the terminal on the parking shuttle at 6:27am for a 7:25am flight. After waiting in the checkin line for 15 minutes I swiped my card to start the process and was greeted with a message that check-in for our flight had closed. Check-in closed 45 minutes before take-off. We missed it by 2 minutes. Thanks for the warning United. So, we stood in another line for 20+minutes to be told that if we wanted to get confirmed tickets we could book a flight out on a Monday night red-eye. That would be less than 24hours before our return ticket thank you very not. Crystal was more than a little worried that I might have an unpleasant encounter with airport security. I still think I would have been justified. Our other option was to fly standby. So we did that. Crystal and I agreed that we would be able to split up so that we could increase our chances to get out of Portland. After three hours of waiting Crystal and Gabby made it out and basically were home free on their trip. Cade, Kellen and me? Well, not so much. We waited for one flight after another, we explored flying through Seattle, Denver, San Francisco, Chicago, Los Angeles - even explored flying myself on another airline to those points, but were told that we still wouldn't get a ticket to New York. Bunch of damned liars. Towards evening time Kellen starting crying when he saw airplanes taking off without us and Cade was himself on the verge of tears. Finally at 11pm, after the final flight out of Portland for the night, I was on the verge of tears myself when one of the two helpful agents we had encountered all day took pity on us and finally finally finally booked us through on confirmed tickets the next morning. We had to fly through San Francisco and Chicago, but still we were on our way.

While Cade, Kellen and I were winging our way across the country, Crystal and Gabby had a lovely girls outing in the city going shopping, eating a place called Alice's Teacup and then wrapping up the day with The Lion King on Broadway. I'd provide more color to the day, but I was on an airplane at the time.

Friday morning or more accurately Friday early afternoon we all headed downtown to take a tour of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island and wrap up with a tour of the New York Fire Museum. Cade did not think it was a funny joke when I told him while waiting in line for the ferry to Liberty Island that we had standby tickets. Despite that we had a good tour of both Liberty and Ellis Island. I personally learned that Liberty Island used to be known as Bedloe's Island (and a few other names too) and that Lady Liberty's copper skin is approximately as thick as two coins together. She is an impressive and moving symbol of the real American Dream - hope for a better future and freedom to pursue it however one pleases. The Emma Lazarus poem - written to help raise funds for the pedestal to put the statue on - is also somehow more powerful at her feet.

Ellis Island was also a good tour - the kids really liked the statistics room where they could see how many people immigrated to the United States by decade and whether they were men or women, where they originated from - what words we have incorporated into our language that are of foreign origin - my personal favorite was "gung ho" which is Chinese in origin.

After returning to Manhattan we ate some really stale and nasty pretzels and took the subway up to TriBeCa to see the New York Fire museum - there were some really interesting old fire engines and a lot of fancy fire hats and from over the years, but by far the best part for me was the room dedicated to the heroes of the 9/11 tragedy. The museum had photos from the days surrounding the event, artifacts from the Twin Towers - including - morbidly - a piece of the plane wreckage; dust coated fire helmets and breathing apparatus; and more. It was also emotional to sit there and look at the very tangible effects of the attack and the impact it had on the firefighters who rushed in and their families too.

We wrapped up our day by meeting Sunny, Marc, and Harper for dinner at Bubby's Pie Company where we had some good food and better dessert.

In Part 2 tomorrow we'll explore the American Natural History Museum, Central Park, the Whitney, Les Enfants Terribles, Patsy's Pizza, FAO Schwarz, Nintendo World, Toys R Us, the NBA Store, Times Square, Madison Square Garden and the Knicks, Serendipty 3, Amy Ruth's, the Met and getting to the airport ON TIME (aka really early)!! and why Marc and Sunny are really happy that we left when we did.

Our Flower Girl

Crystal's Dad sent us this picture of Gabby from last summer in Hawaii. Gabby was the flower girl at her Aunt April's wedding and was very proud and excited to be in the wedding party.

Only slightly embarassed

As many of you know, Kellen is recently potty-trained so Crystal and I still pay extra attention to his bathroom needs. In light of this, we arrived at Church a couple of minutes early and while Crystal set up for primary, I took Kellen to the nursery potty. I should note that the nursery potty is specifically designed for those who are small - I think the toilet seat is ~ 18inches off the ground and may not even be that high. Kellen is also very specific about his bathroom routine and noted that there was a little toilet paper already in the potty when he got in there. That required a flush so Kellen could have a fresh bowl to do his business in. Unfortunately the toilet didn't flush. It was plugged. Great. Now it looks like Kellen or I plugged the kiddie potty at the church. I dutifully went to the custodial closet to find the plunger (I am One-Plunge after all), but I couldn't find the plunger. Unable to do anything else about the matter Kellen and I simply headed back to the chapel for sacrament meeting.

After sacrament meeting I took Kellen to nursery. As I was entering the nursery room, someone was coming out of the nursery potty and told me that it was plugged. Rather than admit that I knew the toilet was plugged and had left it that way, implicating myself as a possible culprit in the process, I told the woman I would go to the custodial closet and look for what I thought was a non-existent plunger. I entered the closet and within moments located the heretofore unseen plunger (I genuinely don't know how I missed the plunger the first time). Having located the plunger I now had the unenviable pleasure of making the walk down the Church hallway with plunger in hand while people were filing to their respective classrooms. I should note that the route involves a widely traveled hallway between the chapel and the room where Gospel Doctrine is taught. Wonderful, and only slightly embarassing. I did my best to stay close to the wall and give my best, "I didn't do it" face, but honestly I don't know what that face looks like and the one I made probably looks more like a chagrined-face that told people I was responsible - so yes the 6'5" guy was responsible for dropping a deuce on the nursery potty and clogging it up - never mind the fact that it would have required an act of flexibility I haven't been capable of for a few years with my knees up around or even higher than my ears whilst my hindquarters hovered near the ground. I did eventually make it to the bathroom and was able to quickly unclog the toilet. I am one-plunge afterall.

Rather than a face a second walk of shame, I elected to leave the plunger in the bathroom when I was done. Was church this exciting for anyone else?

More sayings of the kids . . .

Kellen: we have a family saying that we've adopted from another family: "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!" Kellen decided (appropriately probably) that it should really be: "You get and you get and you throw a fit."

In what is perhaps a related comment.

Cade: speaking about our baby on the way, and perhaps thinking of Kellen, "I hope the baby is a quiet and calm one."

Kellen sweeps the leg

Cade's Baptism

We had a great day with Cade's baptism and really appreciated all the friends and especially the family that came for Cade's big day. I think people were especially impressed that some came from as far as Kabul, Afghanistan for the baptism. That said, they were left with some questions about Crystal and I when they learned that both sets of grandparents were named Thompson . . .

A Wilson Family Christmas

Christmas is over and everyone is back at work or school - thank goodness for that! We did have a last minute scare when our cul-de-sac was coated with snow last night. The kids were decidely more excited about that than we were. We had a great break with 5 Thompson/Nakanishis visiting, 2 Thompsons, and 4 Atkinsons all over at our home at some point during the 2 week period. We welcomed the New Year with a with Cade and Gabby at the stroke of midnight. Mom and Dad were very tired the next day. So were Cade and Gabby. We had a massive amount of food - hello holiday 10lb! (Highlights included Stollen - which most of Crystal's family stayed away from so as to not incur my wrath - cookies, eclairs, multiple bread products, cheese log, boursin & brie, beefstick, multiple bacon inspired products, and a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings). We did some sledding and snow shoveling. We played lots of "Cooties" and lots of Stratego and Gabby put on a LOT of makeup.

Cade was also baptized this past weekend and we really appreciate everyone coming to see us.

Pictures and more details on Cade's baptism are forthcoming . . .