Olivia at the Pumpkin Patch

Olivia's Kindergarten class recently took a field trip to Poppell Farms (aka The Pumpkin Patch).  Brian was able to go with her, and they had a ball.  The kids got to pet several animals and participate in various activities- including riding the cow train, going on a hayride, and playing on the big bouncy thing.  There were a few things that Olivia wasn't able to do due to her cast, but the majority of the activities were cast-friendly.  Here are some pictures that Brian took during the day.  I especially like the one of the "bald" parking spot.  That's pretty funny.

Racing for Pinks

Last weekend Quincy, Maura, and I participated in the Racing for Pinks 5K.  This is always a well-attended local race as the proceeds go to help in the fight against cancer.  We all ran well, and Maura and I both placed in our age group.  My time of 24:55 was not too far off my PR, so I was happy. This race marks one year that Quincy and Maura have been running.  They have done so much in a year.  I have really enjoyed having them to run with.  It's nice to go to a race and know people.

Olivia Turns Six

Last weekend we celebrated Olivia's sixth birthday with a small party at our house.  Olivia wanted a Barbie themed cake, so that's what we had.  Speaking of the cake, isn't it soooo cute?  My sister, Hannah, made and decorated it.  She has been taking a cake decorating class and volunteered to do the cake for us.  It looked and tasted great!  After eating cake, it was time to open the gifts.  Olivia got so many nice things- including winter clothes which she needed desperately.  She also received Barbie stuff, dress up clothes, board games, and lots of other nice things.  One popular item was the Aerial wig.  Some of the adults decided to try the wig on.  We learned that Quincy can pull of the Aerial wig- Brian not so much.  It was lots of fun and Olivia was happy to celebrate her birthday with her family.

Bronx Zoo

The Bronx Zoo is enormous.  After visiting this zoo I read that (area wise) it is the largest zoo in the U.S.  It is so big that after we entered the gates we walked a good seven or eight minutes before we saw an exhibit.  I honestly thought that we were lost and walking down a service road.  We weren't- there's just a lot of space between exhibits.  This zoo didn't necessarily have more animals than others we have been to, but it did have different animals than we've seen at other zoos.  Of course all the "usual" animals were present, but there were also polar bears, hyenas, African wild dogs, and geladas.  We spent the majority of one day at the zoo.  Before leaving, we saw an area where they were doing camel rides.  I kids were begging to do this, and I have always wanted to do it- so we did.  And it was a lot of fun.


So, this is my last New York post (believe it or not).  We had a lot of fun.  Considering how close New York is to Brian's dad's house, I'm sure we'll be back.  There's something to look forward to.

Day at the Museum

Since the kids were such troopers during the art museum visits, we decided to visit a museum geared toward their interests- that being the American Museum of Natural History.  This is the museum featured in the movie "Night at the Museum".  Thankfully, none of the exhibits came to life while we were there.  This place was truly a kids paradise.  There were halls and halls filled with all types of stuffed animals.  In the ocean life room there was a huge model of a blue whale hanging from the ceiling.  That was really cool.  There were also interesting exhibits about gems and minerals (Olivia's favorite), Native Americans, and loads of dinosaur bones.  The kids were in no hurry to leave this museum.  Included with the admission were tickets to see the show at the planetarium that's attached to the building.  We have never taken the kids to see this type of thing before, so we weren't sure what to expect.  The show was educational and really well done.  It certainly caught Olivia's attention.  She leaned over toward the end of the show and said to me, "Mama, I'm not going to take a picture because I know we're not suppose to, but I really want to because this is cool".  Owen fell asleep during the show.  Bless his heart.

Brooklyn Bridge

We spent a portion of one afternoon walking across the Brooklyn Bridge.  We took the subway to Brooklyn and walked toward New York so that we could have a view of the skyline as we made our trek.  We were also treated to views of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.  Before beginning our journey, we stopped at a restaurant in Brooklyn to use the restroom (because Olivia just had to go).  We ended up getting drinks and cookies here as well which we ate while on the bridge.  Walking the bridge was a nice change of pace, and everyone really enjoyed it.

Art, Art, and More Art

I love fine art.  I could spend hours in a museum.  Now, I'm not artistic at all.  I can barely draw a decent stick person, but I appreciate the work of those who are talented.  My favorite part of our New York trip was being able to visit not one but two top-tier art museums.  We spent one morning at The Metropolitan Museum of Art and another morning at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).  I was so excited to visit these world class facilities.  We started our day at the Met by checking out the medieval armor.  This was really cool.  We then proceeded to the Egyptian section.  It was at this point that Owen started saying that he was ready to go.  So, Brian took him outside of the museum, bought him a pretzel, and they spent the next hour and a half feeding the pigeons.  Olivia stayed with me and granny Mel as we checked out the paintings.  Olivia is going to be an art lover- I can tell.  We saw tons of paintings.  When we got to "Autumn Rhythm (No. 30)" by Jackson Pollack, Olivia recognized it as the painting that Olivia the Pig "just didn't get".  I couldn't believe that she recognized this work from her children's book and pointed it out.  She wanted her picture made with it, and I obliged.  Later on we saw the Degas painting that Olivia the Pig loved, and my Olivia wanted a picture of it as well.  This began the trend to taking our pictures beside our favorite paintings.  This was a fun thing to do, and it kept Olivia interested.

As excited as I was to visit the Met, I was even MORE excited to visit MOMA.  This museum was smaller, but still outstanding.   Inside of MOMA was Van Gogh's Starry Night, which is Olivia's number one absolute favorite painting.  Also in this museum was one of my favorite works, The Persistence of Memory (melting clocks) by Salvador Dalí.  I was surprised by how small this work was.  I always imagined it as being very large, but it's actually about the size of an 8x10.  Melanie loves Monet, and there was a huge work of his in the museum as well.  Owen had to stay with us the entire time here, and he got in on the "take a picture with your favorite painting" action.  I thoroughly enjoyed the visit to each museum and I would love to return to both one day sans kids so that I can spend more time in them.

Shop Til You Drop

There are certainly no shortage of shopping opportunities in NYC.  We spent more time shopping on this trip than we have on any trip we've ever taken.  We didn't end up buying much, but it was fun to look around.  Of course we saw stores like Tiffany's, Bergdorf Goodman, Prada, etc- but we didn't go inside any of those.  We did, however, thoroughly explore each and every "kid" store that we came across.  In Times Square we visited the M&Ms store and the Hershey's store.  We did buy something at both of these.  We just couldn't help it.  In the M&M store they pump in the smell of chocolate through the air vents.  How could we resist?  Lining the walls of this store were tubes and tubes of M&Ms.  Customers could fill a bag with their preferred candies and pay by the pound.  Owen and Olivia were in heaven.  Another stop in Times Square was the Disney Store.  Here we found a magic mirror.  Whenever Olivia waved a wand in front of the mirror, a princess would appear and a little clip about that princess would play in the mirror.  That was also pretty cool.  The last stop in Times Square was the flagship store for Toys R Us.  Otherwise known as Brian's mecca.  He has  talked about the TRU in Times Square for years, and the store definitely lived up to the hype.  Inside the store there was a full size ferris wheel, a two story Barbie dreamhouse, and an animatronic T-Rex.

 Later in the week we took a stroll down Fifth Avenue where we came across the American Girl Store and FAO Schwartz.  Owen, Olivia, and Bailey enjoyed playing on the "Big Piano" at FAO Schwartz.  Since Olivia's birthday occurred while we were in New York, we asked her to point out some things that she would like as a gift.  She asked for a toy dog from Toys R Us, which Granny Mel gave her.  She also wanted a matching dress for her and Addie (her bitty baby) from the American Girl Store.  This is what Brian and I got her for her birthday.  Seeing as how this is pretty much all we bought, I think we got off pretty cheap.