The millers recently took both oak park babies to the big apple. We went to celebrate a special friend's 40th birthday but also to expose our kids to the city where greg attended college and where he and kara met.
leading up to our trip we enjoyed the New York ABC''s book. It was fun to read about the brooklyn bridge and the museums and to enjoy jude referencing the book for landmarks he saw during our trip.
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| our new york "guidebook" |
Jude knew ahead of time that 'I' is for intrepid and that is where they have a space shuttle. Kara took our space loving boy there first thing after our arrival.
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| I is for Intrepid sea air and space museum |
Turns out the intrepid museum has reciprocal admission with chicago's museum of science and industry. so our visit cost only a few dollars for several hours of sites.
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| space shuttle enterprise |
Kara didn't realize til they arrived that this shuttle was used for low atmosphere testing and training, so its not a space flown vehicle. but it was still amazing to see the size, especially compared to four year old jude.
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the shuttle on the intrepid.
much larger in person than expected |
we also spent an hour or so looking at the various planes, walking through the carrier and visiting a submarine.
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jude on the uss interpid museum flight deck.
he wanted a photo with the missiles |
the sub was particularly cool given mommy's new obsession with the abc show 'last resort'. this one is quite a bit older however.
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| jude in a cold war submarine, uss interpid museum |
we found a great deal on a two bedroom apartment on central park using airbnb.com. the booking process had a few hitches with a few potential scammers trying to get us to book. but in the end we found this great space. and the family has a little boy so it came with a crib, kids books and toys.
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| our NYC 2 bedroom |
we enjoyed the quiet and having a kitchen to make breakfasts, most lunches and even dinner.
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| improvised bath tub for harry |
One of the things we loved about living in NYC in our 20's was the surprising experiences you would just run into. I remember one time seeing snow on the sidewalk in the summer and then realized they were filming a movie. On this trip we came across the line up of amazing floats for an octoberfest parade.
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| amazing octoberfest floats |
we passed them on the way to meeting old friends at the central park zoo. we spent a bit of time with the animals before heading over the children's zoo.
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| central park zoo |
yes there is water around these 'lily' pads. and yes, jude got wet.
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| central park zoo children's zoo |
the highlight of the trip was the surprise reunion of our nyc small group to celebrate our friend dawn's 40th birthday. a small group is a group of several couples or families from a church who meet during the week to encourage each other and study a book of the bible or book on spiritual matters. we hadn't seen each other in years but quickly connected.
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| old friends greg craig and brian |
dawn's husband, the amazing cyrus, organized the entire surprise weekend.
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| the surprise worked |
when we had our small group only one family had a child. we've grown quite a bit in the ensuing years.
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| some of the kids |
we arranged to meet at an apartment and get the kids set with sitters.
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| group shot |
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| jude was excited to play |
the grown ups headed off to yummy dinner at the four seasons. what an amazing meal and amazing company.
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| dinner at the four seasons |
happy birthday dawn!
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| birthday cotton candy |
new york city was a treat for all of us.
