Skipping Town

The buyers' inspection was today, so in the morning we all loaded ourselves into the car and headed into the city for one last visit. It was our first time there since February (me and the girls) and March (Andrew), and we were glad to see so much normalcy--lots of traffic on the streets, people walking, sidewalk seating outside restaurants, shops open. We'd assumed parking would be easy; we were wrong. But we found a spot on Columbus and ate bagels on a bench outside the Natural History Museum. Then Andrew took Farrah into the park and the girls and I went into Flying Tiger for some notebooks and other things. Then we drove to the Muji near Bryant Park and bought, in all, 22 notebooks. (The Muji five-packs are my favorite, and we stocked up.)  We thought about having lunch in Bryant Park, but we couldn't find a place to park, so we just headed home. We drove past shuttered theaters. We talked about what we'd see when Broadway reopens. We decided, when we visit, we'...

Rounding out our adventure week with Lucia's day in the city! Another great day. We all went into the city on the train this morning. Greta and Andrew went to his office, and Lucia and I headed up to Times Square. It was raining a little, but we found a Starbucks and had a little breakfast while we waited until our ticket time at Gulliver's Gate. Then it was time for our Gulliver's Gate exploration. It was so much fun. Gulliver's Gate describes itself as "the largest interactive miniature world on earth," and it's exactly that--a miniature world. Or parts of the world, to be more specific: tiny-scale replicas of cities in Latin America, Asia, Europe, and the U.S. We each were given a key that, when inserted into glowing keyholes throughout the exhibit, set parts of the dioramas in motion. It was really fun. Lots of little details to discover. We'd been expecting only a miniature New York City, and were surprised to find all the international dioramas...

Greta's city day! Months ago, the girls and I decided we'd plan two city days this summer--one with just Greta and me, and one with just Lucia and me. The end of summer crept up on us so fast, but we made it happen. The girls decided Greta would go first. This morning, all four of us rode in on the train together. Lucia had a backpack full of activities (books, coloring, yarn for finger knitting) so she could spend the day in Andrew's office while he worked. At Penn Station, we split up--Andrew and Lucia onto the subway to get to Google, Greta and I out of the station to walk a few blocks to the F train. Our first destination was the Lower East Side, where we had a pastry at the Clinton St. Baking Co. and then went to Greta's choice of activity: Koneko, a Japanese cat cafe. This was an awesome cat cafe. There were two floors of cat areas, and an outdoor "catio" where most of the cats congregated. The price of admission bought us an hour of petting and play...

We really went all out on the birthdays this year, and the celebration continued over the weekend. Saturday morning, Andrew, Lucia, Greta, Mom, Dad, and I all drove into the city to continue celebrating the girls' birthdays. Saturday was one of those perfect New York days when all the stars are aligned and everything just goes beautifully. Perfect weather, everyone had fun, the things we did were super fun. All a big success. First stop on Saturday: the Lego store, of course, where Lucia and Greta both selected new Friends sets. Next we went to lunch at Wagamama, where we all had ramen--we all loved the restaurant and our food. The girls ran around across the street at the playground at Madison Square Park for a while after that, with their lambs and bunnies. Then we strolled down to Union Square, making a couple of stops on the way at Dylan's Candy Store, and an AMAZING store called Flying Tiger, where we were all overwhelmed with cute Danish bargains. L&G ate some cand...