As I mentioned yesterday, my dad and stepmom came into the city this past Saturday for a little early Father’s Day celebration. We had an epic day. We started at our favorite local Upper East Side brunch place, Uptown, then took them for a tour of pretty much all of Central Park. We started at Engineer’s Gate and hit up Delacorte Theater, Turtle Pond and the Belvedere Castle, as well as the Brambles, the Bethesda Fountain, the Boathouse, Conservation Waters, the Reservoir, the Great Lawn , Shakespeare Garden and the Alice In Wonderland statue.
Phew!
We topped off the tour with rooftop drinks at the Met, which has about the most amazing view of Manhattan I’ve seen yet. [Top of the Rock is pretty amazing as well … but this was a close second.]
^^ From the top of Belvedere Castle.
^^ A birds-eye view of the Great Lawn.
^^ That structure over to the right of this photo is Delacorte Theater,
where they put on Shakespeare in the Park productions.
^^ Tiny Judy, down in the bottom right of the photo. I love this one 😉
^^ Sweeping skyline views from the Met rooftop bar and cafe.
Hope everyone had a fabulous Memorial Day weekend! We spent it giving the apartment a seriously thorough cleaning (we’re talking moving the couch, picking up the living room carpet to vacuum under it cleaning …), visiting with Chris’s uncle who’s in from Australia, watching a Mets double-header with said uncle, our nephew (his first baseball game!), my sister and bro-in-law, and having a picnic/strolling around Central Park.
^^ When you bring a one-year-old to a baseball game, there’s not a lot of baseball watching happening.
There was a lot of crawling around on the floor and pushing toy trucks and trains around … and it was the best 😉
^^ Not going to be interested in baseball any time soon, I don’t think.
^^ Chris’s uncle is visiting from Australia — wahoo!
^^ My shoes are Mets colors — that’s how die-hard of a fan I am.
(Actually, it’s a coincidence, but a fun one nonetheless.)
^^ Happy Memorial Day! Love, The Turtles from Turtle Pond
^^ Obligatory selfie on the rocks near the lake.
Our crazy, busy summer hasn’t quite kicked in yet, and it was really nice to spend a couple days lazing around the city. She sure is a beaut.
Today we’re in Boulder. Tomorrow it’s on to Breckenridge for a night, then Denver for our last final few days. I can’t wait to blog all about it, but right now, though, I want to talk about something else. It’s a little something I like to call fate, my friends, and it involves a fateful walk through Central Park that I had last Friday.
If you’ve been following me, you’ll know that I love when unplanned strolls through NYC turn into something a little extraordinary. This past Friday, an attempt to meet a friend and her son at Turtle Pond in Central Park turned into just that. After having gotten off at the wrong subway stop, I ended up needing to backtrack through Central Park for about 15 blocks to get to them.
But the day was a glorious spring one [and though the clouds threatened rain, it never actually did rain. Fate ;)], and I ended up walking right through what I truly think is one of the most amazing parts of the park.
Here’s a little bit of what I saw …
^^ How beautiful is this area of the park, where the trees overlap to create a canopy? Gorgeous.
^^ How funky is this tree?!
^^ Loved these school kids, performing beautiful songs both out loud and in sign language.
^^And of course, there were the eggs! The Faberge eggs that were part of The Faberge Big Egg Hunt —
I finally found some!
^^ I adore this mouse one! So cute!
Not pictured: All the adorable little kids running around, the tons of canoe-goers near the Boathouse and the proposal that I saw near the Bethesda Fountain.
All in all, friends, I’d say fate brought me to the wrong subway station stop that Friday afternoon so I could take in the wonderfulness of the park that day.
Or else it was just my bad direction. Either way — it was fun all the same.
This weekend Chris and I had a baby in New York City.
Not our own baby, mind you, but my nephew, and even though his father was with us the entire time I have to say … the experience left us both exhausted!
We had so much fun toting Rory around on his trip into the Big Apple, but it definitely gave me a new-found respect for moms who do this with their own children every day … especially those who travel around with them on their own. We couldn’t take a cab with Rory anywhere, since we didn’t have a car seat, which meant subways all the way! The one thing I will say that surprised me was how sweet everyone was to us–even when we were at Penn State in the middle of about a hundred people all trying to push to get onto the train. People were very respectful and helpful … it kind of renewed my faith in the people of this city.
Anyway, here’s a bit of what we did and saw:
^^We started out with a picnic in Central Park, where we camped out behind a morning softball game, had tummy time and practiced our walking …^^Oh, and we got thrown in the air a lot, too. We kind of loved that.
After a brief meltdown, we headed over to Turtle Pond ….
^^We were none too impressed with the turtles. Guess we’ll have to try this again when I’m a bit older …
By the end of the picnic and the pond, the adults were ready for a brewsky, so we headed over to the Amsterdam Ale House. (As a side note, this is a great little bar with tons of tasty beer options, should you happen to be in the Upper West Side area …)
Rory and my brother-in-law were meant to leave after the Ale House, but we were having so much fun we decided to make one more stop and they would catch a later train. On our way to the second stop, Rory had Meltdown No. 2, though (someone was hunnnnggrrrryyyyy!!!), and it was raining, so we hopped into the closest restaurant, which happened to be Citrus. Of the many things I learned about having a baby in Manhattan this weekend, Number 1 was Baby always dictates where you will be going. Think you have plans? Think again, buddy! Anyway, the Cucumber Saketini drink at Citrus was delish, as was their shrimp quesadilla that we split, so it was all good:
Then it was time to head back to Penn Station, which meant one more subway ride ….
^^We mostly slept on the subway anyway …
And then we were back to Penn Station where the adventure all began:
And that was it, my friends! I think Rory had a fantastic maiden voyage into the city, if I do say so myself. I really can’t wait for him to get just a bit older so we can take him to the museums and to the playgrounds and to a play …
I may be getting just a bit ahead of myself, though!
I’m off next Wednesday to D.C. for a baby shower–hope your summer’s going well!
