New York, New York

After delivering kids to Melrose and leaving the Middendorfs with a screaming Wyatt – I tried to get him to sleep for the, but failed. I returned to Chaska to pack for the trip. I should have probably started earlier and had a better plan. I would learn later (during the trip) that packing only “cute” shoes, no long sleeve shirts and no gloves were not good ideas.

Fred and I were escorted to the airport by Adrea early Thursday morning. We landed at La Guardia airport about 1:30PM. We thought the shuttle from the airport to Grand Central Terminal (correct lingo, not “station” like non-New Yorkers might think) sounded like a good idea, but we had to make a bus change before we got off airport property due to suspension issues. Then when we got to Grand Central we wanted to check out the Terminal while we were there before hopping on a shuttle to our hotel. The workers said that was fine and so we bopped inside and took some pictures. When we returned they said “oh, the vans just left, they’ll be back in about 20 minutes”. An hour later we were still standing there waiting and we got an update that the shuttle would be there in about 25 minutes. Arg! I had not realized it had been so long – I can tell you that watching people on a NYC street is highly entertaining.  So Fred and I went off to try to grab a cab, but were challenged by that as well since apparently by then it was shift change time for most cabbies. We practically high jacked a cab back at the shuttle line and make it to our hotel 3.5 hours after we landed in NYC. It should have taken a 30 minute cab ride, so we lost 3 hours there and were quite worried about our ability to navigate around NYC and stick to our spreadsheet of a schedule.

Grand Central Terminal

Luckily, we only had shopping and snacking on the schedule during our delay. We had gotten a pathetic hot dog while waiting for the shuttle and we still had time to browse at Bergdorf Goodman (Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vitton, etc.) and down 5^th Avenue before heading to Time’s Square to check on our way to our dinner reservations at ‘Becco’. We had a fun dinner of all you can eat pasta (my fave, the gorgonzola gnocchi) and sat next to a newly engaged couple. The restaurant was tightly packed, as in they had to move the table to get me back to my seat and the tables were very close, so it was like we were dining WITH the newly engaged couple.  We walked back to Times Square after supper and made our first venture on the Metro (subway) to get make our way to the World Trade Center site. We thought it would be cool to see it at night, thinking of the 2 beacons beaming into the sky, but the area is under construction and the memorial is all fenced in at this point, so we couldn’t see a thing. We headed back to our hotel, found Fluffy’s bakery where we enjoyed a piece of cheesecake before retiring for the night.



Ready for our first night out. Headed to Becco.

Times Square

Self-photo in Times Square

Fred with the Ordinary Man statue by the World Trade Center Site.

This statue survived the 9/11 attacks, but carries some scars.

On Friday we slept in a bit and then headed to Central Park, just a couple blocks from our hotel. We didn’t find anywhere we wanted to have breakfast, so we hiked through the park for a while as we got hungrier and hungrier. Apparently the people living to the west and east of Central Park, don’t eat much as there are no restaurants to be found. We finally happened upon a food cart where we got croissants with eggs and cheese and coffees for a total of $9. What a deal and it was so yummy! I don’t know if it was because we were so hungry, or if the deal had us swayed, or if it was just that good. Anyway, we found a sunny bench back in Central Park next to a man napping shirtless (in 50 degrees) and another man picking who knows what out of his beard, to enjoy our breakfast. We were impressed by Central Park, we were both thinking we’d see a big expanse of flat grassy area in the “park”, but it’s a rolling area with a lot of big rocks jutting out here and there. Apparently it’s the ‘bedrock’ that Manhattan is built on, that allows the island to hold up all its skyscrapers. There is also quite a few buildings in the park along with the zoo, various play areas for kids, baseball fields, statues, small bodies of water, skating rink, carousel, Tavern on the Green and the Boathouse (the restaurant from ‘Mr. Poppper’s Penguins’). We wanted to know more about the park and wanted the iconic experience of a horse drawn carriage ride through Central Park, so we hopped on-board one in the line of many and took a ride along basically the same trail we’d already hiked. Our driver gave us very little info on the park, the most interesting tid-bit may have been him pointing out the ‘Ghostbusters’ towers (or the San Remo apartments) and the Dakota apartments where John Lennon lived. After our disappointing “tour”, we continued back into the park to find the Carousel, Boathouse, Strawberry Fields (in front of the Dakota) that features an “Imagine” mosaic in honor of John Lennon, the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis reservoir, and the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim.

I wanted to be ‘cute’ and not look too much like a tourist(I think the camera strapped across my chest negated this attempt), so I was wearing ballet flats to do all this walking (which we figure was about 12-18 miles) and by this time, my feet were dying, but we found a subway station and headed to Chinatown. I hoped to find cheap flip-flops, but no dice. We are not good hagglers and didn’t do well in terms of shopping. We did find Shanghai Joe’s and had their signature soup dumplings. My chopstick skills created challenges for me while grabbing the dumpling, trying to bite a hole in it to let out the steam, suck out the soup and then eat the dumpling. But they were delicious as was the Kung Pao we shared too. Our legs/feet were done for and we headed back to the hotel to rest and get ready for dinner.

Me by a tree in Central Park - this tree made me think of Jacob and how he'd love to climb it.

On our brief carriage ride.

The "Ghostbuster" buildings. Otherwise known as the San Remo, once home to John Lennon (I think I have those facts right).

View across a pond in Central Park of the NYC skyline, through a railing.

Us under a bridge in Central Park.

Streets of Chinatown.

Our dinner reservations were at Mesa Grill, which is one of Bobby Flay’s restaurants. I ordered the pork with sweet potato tamale and Fred had a steak with a double baked potato. I thoroughly enjoyed my meal and Fred’s was “fine". We got seated in the back of the second floor seating area, which didn’t add anything to our dining experience. We opted not to order dessert and head out to try to find the subway station to get back to our hotel. We found a DSW shoe store on our way to the subway, so we popped in there to find me some decent walking shoes. This was our actual anniversary, and so for my present I got new Easy Spirit sneakers. Heavenly. We subwayed it back to Times Square We headed back to Times Square and did some shopping at Duane Reade drugstore – since I had forgotten a comb/brush/pick. We wandered over to 30 Rock to try to find a cupcake place we’d heard about, but struck out on that effort.

Ready for our anniversary dinner.

In the cab on the way to Mesa Grill.

In the subway after dinner.

Rockerfeller Center Ice Rink.

30 Rock

On Saturday morning we had our cruise to Liberty and Ellis Islands booked at 11 AM. We found ‘Izzy and Nat’s’ for breakfast before boarding Miss New York to head out to the Statue of Liberty. You cannot go into the statue as she is under renovation, but the audio tour was very informational. To hear what the Statue of Liberty has meant to immigrants coming to America was very moving. She didn’t look so impressive to me from across the harbor, but being right there at her feet was another thing and Fred was even a little choked up over the encounter.

Our next stop was Ellis Island. We were told this would be the emotional portion of the tour, but it wasn’t as much so as Liberty Island.  Except the part of the audio tour about the sick child who was only allowed to be seen by his parents for 5 minutes a week and then ended up dying, that I shed a tear or a few over. It was still a great place to see, such a grand facility to screen the third class travelers coming to America. We had time to search for relatives on the manifests they have in the computer database now and found the names of Fred’s dad’s grandparents, but their manifest’s image wasn’t available. After I went to the café to get something to snack on, because I was starving, and missing the next boat back to Manhattan, we were running way late for our 6PM dinner reservations. Luckily I was able to postpone them until 6:30, which gave us enough time to still get to our 8PM show (or so we thought).

Statue of Liberty from the boat.

Listening to our audio tour.

Me with Lady Liberty.

Listening to our audio tour at Ellis Island.

Ellis Island's main hall.

We got back to the hotel and dressed for dinner and a show. We taxied to 21 for our “pre-fixe” meal. We started with the cheapest bottle of wine on the menu, after passing the $200 on up bottles on the first few pages of the menu. The sommelier came to our table and screwed open the bottle – yes, our $36 bottle of wine was a screw-top. I bet the sommelier was so excited to test that wine for us, but poor it into his little cup he had chained around his neck and taste it he did. I’m sure he was thinking “screw-off top, what do you think it’s going to taste like?”, but he deemed it acceptable and we enjoyed it. I had the steak with asparagus and Fred had chicken. The best part of our meal was dessert, mine was crème brulee and Fred’s was key lime tart.

Then we set off to see “The Book of Mormon”. As we handed our tickets to the ticket scanner, she handed them back and said “these are for tomorrow night”. All dressed up and nowhere to go. We laughed and were relieved that we had shown up a day ahead of time instead of a day late. Fred had put it on the spreadsheet (literally) for April 7^th at 8PM, but really the tickets were for April 8^th at 7PM. I had not even doubted Fred’s spreadsheet and hadn’t looked at the tickets. It was Saturday night and we had been told about some cupcake shop by 30 Rock (Rockefeller Plaza, NBC Studios), so we decided to try to find it. We were also curious about the action around the taping of “Saturday Night Live”. We found the line of stand-by ticket holders, but that was about it. It would have been so fun to see a taping, but the ticket requests were due in August and we only started planning in September. We headed back to our hotel to watch.

Ready for dinner and a show.

Fred posing in the subway.

On Easter Sunday we headed to St Patrick’s Cathedral for 8:45 service. We stopped in at BenAsh to grab pastries to enjoy on our walk over to the church. After church we hopped on the subway to the World Trade Center Memorial. Everything at the memorial is very symbolic and very moving. There are the two fountains in the center of what was the two towers and they drop down in the middle to where you can’t see – symbolizing the void left by all those that died. There are the names of those whose lost their lives engraved around the fountains and when I saw “…and her unborn child” the tears fell. The new skyscraper built to replace the two fallen ones is nearly complete and when standing at its base, you can’t help but imagine what it must have been like when those two crumbled down. After our quiet reflection at the memorial, we grabbed some pizza and hopped back on the subway to go to the Empire State Building. We checked out the view from both the 86^th and 102^nd floors.

At the 9/11 Memorial.

Reflecting Pool.

Atop the Empire State Building.

Chrystler Building from the Empire State Building.

We headed back to the hotel to nap and refresh. We had a giant sandwich (3 lbs of meat) at Carnegie Deli and then went to “The Book of Mormon”, where they finally let us in (and Allison Hannigan from “How I Met Your Mother” too). The show was very funny, but very inappropriate to see on Easter as it is very sacrilegious. After the show we headed back to the hotel to catch the premier of “The Client List” on Lifetime – it stars Jennifer Love Hewitt, Fred’s crush. While we watched that I used whatever tools I had to make a sign – paper, bandaids, lipgloss, and nail polish.

That's just half the sandwich we ordered!

On our way back to the hotel after the show.

For our final morning in New York we got up early and headed over to “The Today Show” with our hotel made sign in hand. We stood around watching the show going on inside for about an hour before they panned the outside audience and put us on TV! After our national TV debut, we went back to the hotel to pack. We grabbed breakfast at the Applejack Diner, finally found the David Letterman studio (which was about 2 blocks from our hotel) and then grabbed a cab to airport.



My handywork.

Ann Curry on the plaza.

Fred at David Letterman's Studio.

In the cab to the airport.

Wyatt at 18 Months

At 18 months Wyatt is a bit of a dare devil. I believe he's the youngest to climb to the top of the playset, though he does wait for a hand to help him down the slides. He'd swing all day if you let him. He's been jumping off both feet for a few months (a skill they test for at kindergarten screening) and his favorite place to jump is on the couch. Grandma Middendorf has referred to him as a feeder pig - he does like to eat and isn't too picky, but knows what he likes. He hasn't been saying too many words, mainly because his mode of communicating is so effective. Its amazing what he gets with just pointing and grunting. He does say mom, dad, puppy, up, out, honk, bye-bye, hello, and night-night. And he emphatically shakes his head no when he doesn't want something. He measured 26 pounds and 12.5 ounces (75-90%) and was 33" tall (75-90%).

Learning to read.

Demanding to go outside.

Enjoying a cookie, or at least the frosting.

Licking the bowl (of Grandma's jelly) clean.