NYC Trip part 2

We started out Saturday morning with some Showstopper pancakes courtesy of Marc & Sunny - who fed us great breakfast every morning we were there - and then we headed off to Teddy Roosevelt's favorite place in the City - the Natural History Museum. The kids really really enjoyed that museum from the mammal exhibits to the creatures of the sea to seeing what we weighed on Saturn or the Sun or the moon and to the dinosaur exhibits. Kellen ran from dinosaur to dinosaur yelling, "look at this one, LOOK AT THIS ONE!" We also learned that eating at the museum is just as or more expensive than eating at Disneyland.

After the museum we met Harper, Marc, and Sunny for a trip over to Central Park to play at Heckscher Playground. The kids enjoyed climbing up and around Umpire rock - Kellen ventured up the rocky incline by himself much to the terror of his Mom. Gabby swung beside Harper with Manhattan's skyscrapers in the background and all of the kids climbing on, over, under and through the fortress-like play structure.

Cade and Gabby happily followed Marc, Sunny, Harper home while Crystal and I walked all over Central Park trying to get to the east side and the subway home. We made it home in time to see that our kids did not have the same taste in pizza as ol' blue eyes Frank Sinatra. Apparently the pizza is too tomatoey and not thick or cheesy enough. Sunny and Marc arranged a baby sitter for us so the four of us could have a night on the town. We went down to the lower east side for an African-French meal at Les Enfants Terribles and had a fantastic dinner - I think I was the big winner with the lamb stew in beans and of course I had the cheese plate as an appetizer which always endears me to a restaurant and had fantastic desserts. Prior to dinner we walked through Chinatown where Marc and Sunny got yelled at for actually trying to see if the T-shirts they were looking at might fit - "you no buy, you no unfold, happy, happy, this no mexico pay big dollah to fold, happy, happy." I was also literally chased out of another store by a saleswoman shouting lower and lower prices for a dress for Gabby. The saleswoman eventually yelled the right number and so we made a deal, but I had to promise not to tell anyone what price I paid since I got it for well less than half the original ask.

Sunday we lolled lazily around the apartment until it was time for Church at noon which we we still managed to be late for. After Church (okay, after Sacrament meeting) we took off for the Whitney museum which turned out to be the second biggest disappointment of the trip (it would have been very very hard to beat the standby flights for the worst part of the trip. We didn't find any of the Calder pieces that we had hoped to find since they were out on special exhibit and the new special exhibit was not age-appropriate. To top it off, to get to the museum we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and walk across the park to get back over the east side, but in order to avoid walking too far north or two far south, I had the brilliant idea that we should just follow the crosstown path alongside the road. Uggh, it was ugly, dirty, and crowded with cars zipping by us at 40mph and the sun disappeared behind the clouds. All in all a not lovely walk and a wasted afternoon.

Monday was our shopping day and so we spent the morning at FAO Schwarz where we took out a second mortgage to buy souvenirs for the kids (and ourselves). Cade and Kellen got matching knights and Gabby got to design her own Barbie and have it walk the runway in the store with the store announcing that this was a one-time opportunity to see the Gabby design on the runway - Gabby was even more excited when realized that she could actually keep the Barbie. After that long expedition we headed over to Serendipity 3 where we had a fantastic lunch followed by even better desserts - actually Sunny only had dessert. After lunch we headed over to 5th Ave and NBA Store for my fix. As it turns out, I have very large hands - of the 12 or so hands they displayed, only Shaq, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett had larger hands than me. And lego Yao Ming is really tall. After that it was Rockefeller Center to Nintendo World where Cade was transfixed by DS stations, Wii Stations and the Pokemon stuff. After that we rushed over to Times Square for a quick view of the lights and billboards and a trip on the Toys R Us Ferris Wheel.

Marc and I then met Marc outside the worlds most famous arena, Madison Square Garden for a showdown between the Knicks and the Magic. It was a closely contested game that the Knicks managed to choke away in the fourth quarter, but still an entertaining game to watch and Dwight Howard was unstoppable - except for his teammates inability/unwillingness to pass him the ball. On our way uptown we stopped by Empire State Building and Cade was suitably impressed by its size and grandeur.

For our final day in the city, all 8 of us headed down to the Met for a tour of Cade and Gabby's art classes with a special focus on the Degas sculptures and paintings and also a tour of the ancient Roman and Greek statues and sculptures which Cade was oddly fascinated by. After the museum we headed up to Harlem for lunch at the soul food capital of the city - Amy Ruths. Nothing beats a good waffle and chicken.

After all of that we finished our packing and made it to the airport in plenty of time for the flight home so we were able to avoid the drama associated with our trip home. I should note that before leaving Marc and Sunny's place on Tuesday we managed to plug their toilet - necessitating a plunger purchase and broke their table so we'll have to send them some wood glue too so besides occupying all of their space and eating them out of house and home we had to go and break their stuff on our way out.

Pictures to follow soon . . .