NYC

Several months ago, Austin started talking about a friend of his.  He called his friend "Miller."
I thought,  "What an interesting first name to give a child."  It took a while, but it came out that Miller's first name is Jacob.  Apparently, Jacob was a common name the year that he was born, so friends at school have taken to calling the Jacobs by their last name.

Several months ago, I got a call from  Jacob Miller's mother.  She was thinking ahead to his birthday in April.  She wanted to take him to NYC and wondered if Austin and I would like to join them.  We thought that sounded like a lot of fun.  Plus, they were wanting to do some things that we did not get to do when we were there last July.

Yesterday, was the day that we had been planning for.  We got on the bus at 4:45am.  Luckily, we were able to sleep a little on the way.  We got dropped of in NYC around 11am.  We thought we would go and do some of the things that were a little farther away from our bus stop first.  We got taxi and went to battery park. (At this point the weather was a bit drizzly, but our cab driver assured us that by 2 it would be clear and a lovely day.  Looking back he was exactly right!  At 2 it had quit raining, and was a really nice day weather wise.)  We wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, but really did not want to spend so many hours on the tour, plus that would have been another ticket to buy.  We went to battery park and we got a decent view of the Statue.  It would have been better if the weather had been more clear, but Austin and I had the Statue of Liberty experience in July, so we were fine with this choice.

After the Statue, we wanted to go see the Freedom tower.  It was a reasonable walk from one area to another, so off we went.

Jacob's mother, Bobby Jo, and I thought we should have at least one picture of the boys together.  They were not excited about that, but humored us.

There is the Freedom Tower.  I think it is such a beautiful building.

Near the Freedom Tower, there is a wall memorial about 9/11.  It has different scenes from the horrific terror attack that NYC had experienced 14 years ago. There was a really interesting man that was cleaning the memorial.  He would answer questions, and tell facts that few people knew about.

This was not the boys first choice of a place to visit, because it is "depressing," but we thought that this is a part of the boys life history, one day they may appreciate that they had been taken here.

Then we went to site where the twin towers had stood.  They have a really nice memorial there.  They have names of those who lost their lives along the edge,

a double waterfall fountain is in the center.

When we were at the fountain, we were able to get a really great view of the Freedom Tower.  It is just amazing.

We were fairly close to the Brooklyn Bridge.  So, we headed over there to see that.  Since we are not there day in and day out, we decided to take a short stroll of on the bridge.  The boys got bored with that, so we had to cut it short, but at least we got a good look at the first pillar.  (It was a bit unnerving to walk on this path and have traffic flying on both sides of the dividers.  I guess New Yorkers gets used to it!)

Several years prior to ever going to New York, someone told me that we should visit Little China, and Little Italy.  We had wanted to eat in Little Italy, but in order to get there we had to walk through Little China.  It truly was like tiny replication of what I imagine those countries to be like. 

After lunch, Jacob and Austin wanted so true Italian Gelato.  I thought, "Well, we might as well make the most of this experience."

After lunch, we headed to Central Park.  We weren't sure what we should see (Central Park is a very big area).  This guy started talking to us about bike tours.  It was a tour guide that has a 2 seat carriage on the back.  The tour guide tells you things about the park, that would not know otherwise.  Plus, we got to see a lot of more the park this way.

Jacob and Austin got a carriage, and Bobby Jo and I got another.  The tour guides stayed together so that we would be able to experience this with our boys. 

One of the first thing they pointed out was the building with 2 towers in the background.  That building is the building they used in the movie Ghostbusters.

The bridge in the background here is the bridge they used in the spider-man movie.

Then we went by the fountain that was used in the beginning of the show Friends.

Then we were taken to another area in the park, where there is a memorial for John Lennon from the Beattles.  It is just a short distance from the apartment building where he had lived.

Had to get a picture of Trump tower in case he would be our next president.

There is a Christmas movie called Elf.  In that movie there is a snowball fight scene.  This bridge is where the snowball fight took place.

One of the things the boys really wanted to do was to go to the top of the Empire State Building.  We bought tickets prior to our trip that allowed us to go to the 86nd floor and the 102nd floor and not have to wait in lines.  The only condition was that the boys wanted to see the city at night.  So, this was the last thing we did.

This is the view of the 86th floor.

And the 102nd.

Shortly after we did this we headed back to our bus to come home.  

It was a busy day.  But it was filled with experiences that I hope Austin will remember to many years to come.

Blessed

We went to Pennsylvania this past weekend and celebrated Easter with Mike's parents.  As I was thinking about this post with some of the pictures that I had, one word kept coming to mind...Blessed.

 

~We are so Blessed that our boys are able to participate in a 4 generation picture.  They have their Great Grandfather (Pop-pop, Henry, which is where we got Adam's middle name), Grandma Sandy, Mike and our boys.  Not many kids anymore can say they have a 94 year old Great Grandfather. We were able to go  to Easter service with Pop-pop at the home where he has an apartment.  Then we went back to his apartment and got this picture.

~We are Blessed that both sets of Grandparents live in a reasonable distance.  My parents live in town and we see them quite often.  Mike's parents are several hours north of us, but we can still get there easily without a plane ticket.

~Lastly, I am Blessed that I got chosen to be the mother of these two lovely boys!  I love this picture because both of my boys look so genuinely happy.  (An added bonus is that you can see Sandy taking the picture if  you look in the window :)

This Easter Season, I know that I am very Blessed!

Old Tree

We have an old crab apple tree in our yard.  For some time now, the tree has been looking less and less healthy.  

About a year or so ago, I was going to take a picture of Austin.  He wanted to climb in this tree to have his picture taken.  He stepped on a branch and it broke.  

Here we are a few years later, and the tree is still in our yard.  Mike and I were discussing this the other day after school.  Mike was saying that this tree is a real pain to mow around.  I said, it is nothing but truly ugly.  Adam heard all this and asked if he could chop it down.  

We agreed that he could do that.  He got his eye protection and his little ax and went to work on the tree.

I'm sure the tree will not come down quickly at the rate that Adam is going, but it is nice for him to have a project to work on.

Fire Pit

This year is a leap year.  On Leap day we had very mild weather.  The boys really wanted to do a fire in a fire pit.  

Mike helped the boys build a pit in my garden space.  He ran to the store and got marshmallows, and Adam invited a few friends over.  Once it started to get dark, the boys got the fire going. 

The boys had a great time.  I'm so glad they could do something fun on a mild day at the end of February.

Art

About this time every year, our local library displays art made by the students of  area schools.

One day, a few weeks ago, I got an email from our art teacher asking if I could help her.  I didn't really understand what she needed help with but I agreed.  As it turned out she needed help get the art mounted so that the pieces could be on display at the library.  

I was working and getting a good bit done.  Then, she gave me some "stuffed animals" to mount from a sewing unit they did.  I looked at this one that was to be mounted and knew right away that it was Austin's.  

 

The project was to have 3 parts of your childhood and put them into one stuffed creature.  Austin's creature is a small dog, whose body is a video game controller.  On the ear of the dog it has a blue canary (from a song he likes).

I thought it would be great to get a picture of  him with his creation at the library, but he didn't agree.  I think he did a great job!

12th tooth

The evening of December 25, I was working on dinner.  They boys were relaxing in the living room.  I glanced up and Adam was gone.  Okay, I'm sure he is fine.  I continued to work on dinner.  I heard Mike talking to Adam, but I didn't really hear what he said.  After awhile I looked up again, Adam was on the couch with a bunch of something...(toilet paper, maybe?) in his mouth.  I said, "Oh my, what happened?"  As it turned out, he pulled a loose tooth.  Did I know he had a loose tooth?  Probably not. 

I made sure I had a dollar in my wallet.  The boys have known for a long time that the tooth fairy is not real.  They know that I am the tooth fairy.  However, it is something fun we do.  I asked where he put his tooth (because the tooth fairy does not like to go into a dark bedroom and not know where the tooth is-we don't put it under the pillow.  I always have feared that I would wake the boys reaching under their pillows.)  He told me he put it on his desk.  We went on with our evening.

I ended up going to bed before Adam that night, that happens sometimes on Christmas break (the boys enjoy the flexibility of staying up later and not having to get up early for school.  I enjoy the time I get for extra sleep.)  Honestly, I forgot about the tooth.  I woke up for some reason around 3am.  I laid in bed and thought, "I was making sure I had a dollar earlier this evening....why was that?"  I laid there and thought about it until I remembered the tooth.  I got up grabbed the dollar and went into Adam's room to do my tooth fairy duties.

Adam never mentions anything one way or another about the dollar, but I feel sure that if I had forgotten he would have been disappointed.   Losing a tooth is a great milestone for a child.  I'm glad I woke up and realized what I had forgotten earlier that evening.

Adam

I have had a list of things I wanted to post about for a few weeks, but haven't gotten to it.  So, I decided to throw them all together and make a post.

The 6th graders at the boys school were fortunate to go to a wonderful hand bells Christmas concert, shortly before Christmas break.  They told the kids to wear something nice, they didn't have to wear a suit, but something nice. I helped lay out some clothes the night before.  I nice button down shirt and a pair of jeans.  He decided that he needed to hear his dress shoes, and a tie!  Not a clip on like in his closet, but one of Mike's ties.  Luckily, Mike had one that matched and he was home to tie it for Adam.  I had to take a picture.  It's not often that my boy goes to school looking so dressed up.

One of the advantages of working at my boys school is that I get to hear little tidbits about their day that I might not otherwise hear.

One day I was eating lunch, one of Adam's teachers happened to come into the room I was eating in.  She said, "I have to tell you about your son."  I could tell from her face that it was a good story.  Apparently, she had a activity for the kids to do where they were to follow a template.  If they followed it correctly they should have ended up with a snowflake.  She had the templates on the board, but not an example of the snowflake.  Adam took it upon himself to do a sample of each snowflake and put it on the board with the template.  His teacher laughed and said, "He keeps me straight."  That does sound just like something Adam would do.

The first evening we were on Christmas break, I was able to get out a puzzle.  Adam helped me with that.  It was the first time he really showed interest in puzzles.  It was something fun for us to do together.  He took the perfect picture of the puzzle to show what it looked like.  Those are his sweet toes in the picture.  I have since started another puzzle, maybe he will help me with that one too.