our NYC adventure -- day 1 & 2

Day 1 --Our first day of adventure was spent traveling out to NY. This was the Jared & Ryan's first time flying, so everything was extra exciting to them. We didn't have to wait in any lines at the airport, so we ended up with plenty of time waiting for departure. The flight was on time, but the ride was pretty choppy due to yucky weather. We changed planes at Dulles and got on a much smaller plane to take us to NY. JFK airport is so incredibly busy, that we had to wait on the tarmack at Dulles for half an hour while JFK found room for us to fly in. Since we had a small plane we got to exit the plane outside the airport, walk across the cement and into the airport to claim our luggage. Our bags made it and we headed out to get in the taxi line. Riding in a taxi is always an adventure -- no matter where you are! We had a pretty new jeep and the driver spoke broken English, but was clean cut and polite. He did his best to avoid rush hour traffic, if that's possible, and I think we drove all over the city before getting to Dave & Alicia's neighborhood -- good thing it was a flat fare. Mark got to sit in the front with the driver and experience the crazy driving first hand as we weaved in and out of traffic, squeezed through places not meant for vehicles, and cut a few drivers off. He drove with one foot on the gas, the other on the brake, and a hand on the horn -- occasionally. Whew -- we made it to Dave & Alicia's in one piece! We ate dinner at their apartment and spent the evening relaxing and talking.

Day 2 -- What a day! One of the things we saw today was the Manhattan Temple. It is really in one of the busy parts of the city and I like this picture because it shows a sampling of the traffic that is right outside. The temple has the Angel Moroni statue on top, but 1/2 of it got cut off in the picture. As we stared up at the temple, I kept thinking how wonderful it must feel to be inside and away from the world, especially in that temple because it is so busy and noisy on the outside. Definitely a bit of heaven on earth.

Today was our first NY subway experience. The kids loved it! This car was pretty empty, but other rides we took were standing room only.

A few thoughts about the subway -- it really takes awhile to figure out which train is going where and what direction you show be going. Alicia is a pro at this! Sometimes there were performers on the train -- one guy in particular was quite good, playing the saxophone. Sarah even got to put a dollar in his cup. Sometimes there are performers in the subway stations -- I have to say most of those that we saw, weren't very good. One group was mimicking Michael Jackson -- flashback from the 80's. We also saw a couple of homeless people wandering the subways begging or like one guy, crashed out on the bench. The subways always seemed dirty and smelly, but I never felt unsafe. We were always on the lookout for rats, but we never saw any -- some of us were disappointed, others of us were just glad!

Our first stop was the Museum of Natural History. You may recognize it from the movie "Night at the Museum". Wow -- this place was incredible. Dave & Alicia have a membership there and I can understand why -- the place is huge, and you could spend days exploring all the wonderful things they have there. We only spent a couple of hours. A particular favorite part was the dinosaurs.

Our next stop -- FAO Schwartz! The toy store! It was a huge store with lots of fun toys to look at. We headed for the legos of course. They had lots of Star Wars characters and Harry Potter characters built out of legos. This is Ryan standing by R2D2. The boys each got to choose a small lego set to buy and bring home.
FAO Schwartz is know for the big floor piano. You might remember it from the movie "Big". We got a chance to play it -- very fun! This is me & Ryan (in the brown & white striped shirt). They let about 4 to 5 people run around on it at a time.
Our next stop was the Museum of Modern Art. It has free Friday nights -- that's definitely a bargain!! We spent a couple hours here, and we could have spent another, but the boys were rioting, as you can imagine. This of course is an Andy Warhol -- which I really like, probably because it's so realistic and everydayish, although maybe not considered so "creative".
We also saw Picasso, Seurat, Jackson Pollack, Van Gogh, etc. etc. There are rooms devoted to each artistic style. The boys recognized some of the paintings from their Art Start classes at school. There is also a floor of the museum that does some different things with lighting -- you recognize this floor by the flood of yellow light, which makes everyone look like zombies. Then you can go to rooms where you experience spotlights, shadows, and colored lights. This was also a very fun museum to visit!

We were also introduced to Central Park today. It is huge. Hard to imagine such a beautiful green place in the middle of such a big city. There were a group of street performers doing break dancing near the entrance of the park today. They were really fun to watch. I bet they made a good chunk of change today!