A day in the life

Day 3 was Zoo Day.

I feel like the Bronx Zoo is supposed to be one of those must see places, but I actually wasn't that impressed. Then again, I'm not a huge fan of zoos. That, and we didn't actually look at that many of the animals. We were mostly herding our own animals.

Anyway, it was a good time since we were there with the fam, which was the whole point.

As you can see from the pictures, our animals had a different idea of what going to the zoo was about. Namely, climbing ~~shit, I mean~~, things like rocks, you're probably not supposed to climb on.

Day 4 was the American Museum of Natural History. This museum is definitely hyped as the museum that kids love, but Samuel and Shira didn't. This created a little tension amongst the cousins, as some wanted to stay, while as far as I was concerned, we needed to high tail it out of there as quickly as we could before my ears started bleeding from the whining. Actually, the kids didn't hate it that much, but they were clearly slogging through, and not really enjoying themselves.

On the way to the AMNH, we walked through Central Park, and Samuel and Shira were thrilled with that, so the entire time we were in the museum, these rocks were what they were thinking about.

We hadn't actually planned to spend that much time in the park, but it was a gorgeous Spring day, and Samuel and Shira really enjoyed the bouldering, and exploring the park

So we end left the museum to have lunch in the park.

We really have to thank the Kafka-McGuires for being flexible and putting up with our lack of patience for the museum, because they definitely would have stayed if it weren't for us. Grandmapa, on the other hand, were all for enjoying the beautiful day outside.

There was a lot of peanut butter on rice cakes on this trip. Since it was Passover, and we weren't at home, we were kind of limited in the things I could conjure up to pack with us.

Samuel kind of became our trip photographer after this point, so there are actually a lot more pictures of Steve and I than usual.

And a lot fewer of Samuel. Stay tuned for the next post for the rest of the trip, photographed by Samuel.

At the end of March we flew across the country to celebrate Minnesota Grandma's 70th birthday with the Brooklyn Kafka-McGuire-Lobel clan. It was a pretty fantastic trip. There was a lot of cousin and sibling bonding, the plane rides were smooth and uneventful, we stayed in a great apartment on the LES near the Williamsburg Bridge, and everyone had a good time.

We flew into NYC on a Wednesday night. The S-R family that was so generous to loan us their apartment for the week had fedexed us their house keys. We made it to their street a little after midnight.

A kind soul held the door open for us so we didn't need to use the keys to get in the building, and we went up to the fourth floor. We were surprised to see a HUGE mezuzah on the door as well as Hebrew lettering. I was pretty sure the S-R family was at least part Jewish, but I didn't think they were mezuzah the size of my head, Jewish.

After about 10 minutes of standing in the hallway, desperately trying to figure out how to unlock the door, Steve started asking if we had the right place. We double checked, it was the right floor, and the right apartment number. We asked an older woman who was standing in the hallway, waiting for her teenage grandson to haul his luggage into her apartment, if she could help us. She was hesitant. We asked her if she knew if the S-R family lived in that apartment. She didn't know. We tried the keys again. It was nearing 1am. You can imagine the anxiety we were feeling, standing in the hallway of an unknown apartment building in the middle of the night, in Manhattan, beginning to wonder what we would do next if we truly couldn't get into the apartment.

To make an excruciatingly embarrassing story short, turns out, this was the right address, but the wrong building. A young, sleepily disheveled, woman came to the door and we apologized profusely. She said she was the one who was sorry because she was about to call 911 on us. We hauled our exhausted children and luggage back down the elevator and down the block to building "G" (who knew the letter at the end of the address mattered?) Back up to the fourth floor. And magically the keys worked! You know, since we had the right apartment this time. (We found out we were not the only people to make this mistake, since later that week UPS left a huge box at the apt door of the place we were staying that was meant for the people whose apartment we tried to break into in the middle of the night. It made me wonder if it was kismet and we needed to hand deliver the box to them because we were meant to meet. I didn't bring it over. I still wonder...)

The next day, we met Grandma, Grandpa, and cousins Talia and Daniel at the MOMA. Samuel recognized the painting "Starry Night" right away on Talia's and Daniel's membership cards. Which was pretty cool to see that his art education is coming right along. We did some fun kid activities and then headed to see some Van Gogh. Next time I think we'll skip the kid area and head straight to the art. We ran out of steam but the kids clearly were enjoying the art.

The next day we headed to a carousel in Brooklyn on the East River. We got to chill with the sibs, grandparents and cousins, play in the boulders, and not take a ferry. Still have the tickets though.

Samuel and Shira climb on the rocks.

As most 5 and 5/6ths year olds are wont to do, Samuel enjoyed trying to throw ever larger rocks into the river.

Samuel is the "bad" older cousin who shows his younger ones about flouting the rules and throwing rocks.

Looks like Daniel is about to throw something at Samuel here, hmmm....

Ben and Samuel with the Brooklyn (or is it the Manhattan?) Bridge in the background. Hanging at a playground in between the bridges on a gorgeous sunny day with all the Kafka-McGuire-Lobel relatives can't get much better.

Picnicking

We tried to take a ferry ride, but managed to miss it, although we were standing in line. A story not worth elaborating on. So we proceeded to the next playground over, which was overrun with an enormous contingent of Hassids. It was Passover, and I'm sure all of these families had time off from school and work, but it was totally bizarre that they were all hanging out at the Brooklyn seaport.

I was fascinated by all of the matching outfits. These were families that had 5 or 6 or 7 or more kids, and all of the girls were in matching outfits and all of the boys were in matching outfits. I imagine it must make it easier to locate your brood, but man, it has to cost a bunch of money - you can't do hand me downs if everyone has to be matching. Lucky for me, they were all in very dark clothing, so Shira's bright pink jacket could be seen anywhere.

Judy and Kelly hosted a wonderful Shabbat dinner for the whole family at their house that night. Before dinner, we headed to meet up with Peter at their apartment. Ben and Samuel ran ahead with Ben pointing out all of his favorite spots on his way home - the ice cream store, the pet store, the wine store... And Samuel and Ben bonded over Star Wars. Samuel knew he had a kindred spirit when he saw Ben's light up Luke Skywalker shoes.

The ever photogenic sibs, before Shabbat dinner.

Smile Steve, smile. And does Peter look angry, or thoughtful?

Yay, everyone is smiling!

The Cousins

Yum dinner.

And great company.

And super silly kids

And Auntie Judy's Passover Frog Cupcakes. There were pronounced Delicious!

We got to ride the same subway as the Kafka boys on the way home.

From Shira's countenance you might guess that it was way past bedtime. And you would be right. Although, it kind of depends what time zone you were thinking of. We were kind of hoping to stay on California time, just to give us a later bedtime, but we weren't very successful.