These vagabond shoes....

Cabin fever never had it so good! We're back from our 3-day jaunt to New York City! We brought the girls and Julie, Hannah and Ben came with us. It was wonderful! The girls were so well behaved...we asked a lot of them with all that walking, but they were troopers and enjoyed themselves immensely, as did we! Below, Drew and Daddy at the start of our journey, on the train from Albany to NYC.



The train ride was 2.5 hours long and the girls played with each other and snacked. When we arrived, we dropped our luggage off at a storage facility and began walking uptown towards Times Square. On the agenda for the first day was a downtown bus tour. Below is a shot of the Empire State Building from just across the road.

There really is something for everyone in the city! Check out this interesting museum! We chose to pass on this one! Hee hee!

The famous Flatiron building seen in many movies.

Luci takes a snooze on the bus.

Flowers on the trees! I can't wait until we can see some of that here at home!

Some of the architecture on the buildings is so intricate and beautiful!

A stroll through Chinatown triggers de ja vu! These really are some of the things you'll see in China! Daddy and Drew pose in front of a store selling whole cooked ducks, heads and all!

Luci was brave enough to pose next to a live crab.

The sidewalk someplace downtown near City Hall.

We nixed actually going to the site of the World Trade Center disaster as we didn't think the girls would really be all that impressed with a big construction zone. They're also a bit young to really grasp the whole idea behind Ground Zero. When they're older, we'll check out the site, which will probably have a new building or two to replace the towers by then. Below, you can see a crane at the site.

The Peking, now a floating museum, docked at the South Street Seaport.

Funny some of the things you see in the city!

A Bhuddist temple in Chinatown.

Drew at the Rockefeller Center ice rink.

You didn't think we could go to NYC without hitting the American Girl Place, now did you???

Some dolls getting their hair done.

Hannah begs for a treat and promises to be good for the rest of her life!! Ha ha!

The wallet groaned a little, but the girls had a great time in this store! Four floors of nothing but American Girl stuff! They were in heaven!

These girls were dancing an Irish step dance on camera. The interviewer took one look at my hair and nabbed me for the next interview. Thankfully, it was only a morale boost film for CBS's sales marketing team, so it won't be aired!

We saw a few of these characters!

A few scenes from Times Square.

This was outside the Ripley's Believe it or Not musuem on 42nd Street.

At the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Outside our hotel.

There was an actual ferris wheel in the Toys R Us store!

The ball still marks 2009! They must leave it up all year??

The Ebony Hillbillies playing some music down in the subway. They were really good!

The girls danced to their music!

The girls' first ride on a subway! They really liked it!

Who goes to NY and doesn't get a hotdog from a street vendor???

We intended to take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty, climb up and look out....until we saw the lines! So instead, we took the Staten Island Ferry which drove by the statue. Here's Drew checking out the scene.

The statue. Kind of anticlimactic really...

And Luci on the boat.

Ben takes a snooze on the ferry.

And Luci and Dean napped, too!

The famous Nathan's Hotdog stand in Coney Island. We ate here and it was delicious!!

The girls get their very first glimpse of the ocean! The minute we stepped onto the beach, all I could smell was salty beach air...it was wonderful! Here's a long pier.

Surprisingly, the rides at Coney Island were running! I thought they didn't open until late April.

I actually got Luci to pose for this shot, she was obsessed with finding seashells, of which there were many.

At one of the entrances to Central Park, Artisan's Gate.

We chose to save the $34 it would have cost to take a horse drawn carriage ride through Central Park, but they posed with the horse anyway.

There was a husker in the park playing a bongo drum and other percussion instruments with a huge pile of hula hoops for anyone who wanted to hula. He was quite funny and the kids enjoyed themselves. Drew impressed all with her skills and the husker awarded her with a free hula hoop to take home! Drew shows Hannah how it's done.

Now she's just showing off! She had the biggest grin on her face because everyone was making such a fuss over her! She later claimed to be embarrassed, but we know better! She was loving every minute of it!

Luci gave it her best shot!

There were so many huge rocks in the park, the girls loved climbing on them!

The ice rink in the park...slowly melting.

Julie talked this guy down from $30 to $20 for this ride!

FAO Schwarz...we made it here at closing time, so we had to wait until the next day to go in!

Dean and the girls in front of the Trump Tower.

Ben with his big bad Shirley Temple at the Dallas BBQ which was awesome! Make sure you're hungry because the portions are humongous!

Hannah shows off her foot-long!

The next day, we went back to FAO Schwarz. Here the girls are mesmerized by the Barbie fashion show! The dolls were on a motorized track that brought them to the end of the catwalk and twirled them around like the models do in real life!

Dean snuggles three FAO Schwarz bears. One each for the girls and shhhhhh, one for Sara for her Easter basket tomorrow!

The girls pose with the soldier out front!

This fountain was in front of the store as well.

Below is a video taken of the girls playing on the floor piano in FAO Shcwarz, the same piano made famous in the movie, Big, with Tom Hanks!

And here is a short video of Luci at the hula hoop stop in Central Park.


Drew hula hooping!

This trip was so great! I wish we could have stayed longer...there are just so many things to do there! But, now we have an excuse to go back! I loved the diversity! It is my sincerest wish that my girls leave this armpit of a little town and see better places than this when they're done with school! I will miss them, yes, but I want them to experience a little more life than I did. The furthest I've lived is Rochester, while bigger than home, is not exactly the fast life! I want them to see different races, little people, drag queens, homosexuals, huskers, homeless people, etc! I want them to see that there's more to life than this small impoverished community and farms. I hope they don't get married until their thirties at least! I want them to travel and see the world before they settle down. To have so many resources at your beck and call would be a dream come true! To have a multitude of choices to tackle boredom...it boggles the mind! I felt all of this for the brief time we were there! Anyway, we all really enjoyed our short trip and hope to go back again in the future. Ahhhhhhh!

The latest Tidbits!

At last, some pictures for all you patient readers out there! So sorry to keep you waiting! Let's start off with a really cute one! My dad, on days with decent weather, has taken a liking to walking our back field for some exercise. Usually, he can talk Luci into going with him. Here, the two stroll with their walking sticks! Luci had to have one just like Papa!



Ah, Spring! That time of year when little girls get to show the public what they've been working on all winter long! Our community holds a business exposition and every year the girls' dance studio performs. This year, Luci's group was chosen, but not Drew's ballet group. Before we left, the girls posed for me.

Luci must have been paying more attention this year than last as she wowed us with some cool moves! Here she leaps into the air with grace! Check out her toe extensions! On her right is her cousin, Sonja.

Ta da! Aren't we so cute?! Below this picture is the video of their dance.

Another thing about Spring is lots of rain which means the ground is soaked. Since we built the addition, the ground surrounding it is all dirt, no grass. So when it rains like this, that means lots of MUD! Once the rains quit, we'll get some grass growing, but for now it is a varitable wonderland for some dirty mudtime fun! Here the girls ventured into the muck and discovered they couldn't move their feet! Their boots sunk in and woulnd't budge an inch!

They were having a ball as they fell over and sat in it getting absolutely filthy! Just then, mean old mom opened a window and told them to get inside! Now that they had their directive, they realized it wouldn't be so easy to do! So they simply stepped out of their boots! Luci was barefoot and Drew had nice white socks on (the keyword here is HAD!) Mean old mom told them they weren't allowed to just leave their boots there and to dig them out with their hands! That's when the tears started because I had just gotten dressed and ready to go out the door to my Sweet Adeline's rehearsal and I had no intention of going out there to help them!

I think they learned a lesson!

Lately, the talk around this house revolves around someone named Eva. No, they don't have an imaginary friend...Drew has been promised an American Girl doll and she decided to name her Eva. This adventure started with me reluctantly agreeing, because anyone who knows anything about American Girl dolls knows that these dolls are expensive and all the accessories that go with them are even more expensive! But peer pressure is a pretty powerful thing and she wanted one very badly! I research everything, so this was no different! I checked out cheaper avenues for the accesories and found literally more than 20,000 American Girl items for sale at any given time on ebay! The good thing is, you can get quite a lot for much less than American Girl offers for similar items! My reluctance slowly disolved with each cute thing I encountered! We ordered her doll, a "Just Like You" doll, though it isn't Asian, but she didn't want the Asian one with bangs because Drew doesn't have bangs! Whatever! Anyway, my mom ordered a Brownie Girl Scout outfit for the doll and a bunk bed. My dad got her a tent and sleeping bag. Julie is getting her some ballet practise clothes and a pair of Heely's...yes, they make Heely's for American Girl dolls, can you believe it? I got her a few outfits, a rolling suticase to put all the stuff in and then went to the local craft store. With patterns and fabric in hand, I have made a few outfits, some jammies and a robe and bedding for her bunkbed. I was so impressed with the bed, I thought I'd post some pictures. Here's Eva next to her new bed in her new jammies.

Close-up detail of the pillows.

The robe.

The girls's school gave us 4 snow days back they we didn't use, so 3 of those days got tacked onto Spring Break. This makes their break nearly two weeks long! I decided we needed to do SOMETHING, even for only a few days. So I scoped out a mini-vacation to New York City! We leave Tuesday, take the train into the city and come home Friday! I'm so excited! Julie and Hannah have decided to come with us! The highlight of this trip with undoubtedly be a couple of hours in the American Girl store!! I plan on taking them up in the Statue of Liberty to look out the crown, a stroll through Chinatown, a quick stop by Ground Zero for some pictures, a subway ride to Coney Island to check out the beach and the ocean. Maybe a ride up to the top of the Empire State building. There are so many things we could do! I'm wondering if I'll be able to talk Dean into babysitting the three girls while Julie and I go check out Lucky Cheng's, a famous drag queen rest/bar! That sounds like such a blast!! I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and publish a fabulous post when we return!!