"Crazy, hot fun" the trip report About This Page:

[Colexis Mom]

Great pics of the statue!

[mfirst]

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Great pics of the statue!

Thank you!

[OhToodles!]

So sorry to hear about your friend's son.
That paint sounds awesome! Glad the room is coming together.
Glad you checked Nolan's wish off the list!

[mfirst]

Originally Posted by OhToodles!

So sorry to hear about your friend's son.
That paint sounds awesome! Glad the room is coming together.
Glad you checked Nolan's wish off the list!

Thanks If you do any repainting projects, I highly recommend the paint. We painted with our little helpers home and well....I can't count how many times Cullen or Patrick's hands landed on the walls but the paint dries so quickly that the walls weren't effected - other than the time the wall was touched right after the roller moved from the spot.

[mfirst]

Our last day of summer is officially here I know many parents are excited about school starting up, but I really enjoyed my time this summer with the kids. We got Cullen daytime potty trained, we were able to enjoy many, many family adventures...I'm just sad to know that their school year adventures will be such that I only get to be a spectator in their fun. And having boys? I rarely get much of anything about their day from them.

Okay - enough of the pitty party! We're heading out to pick up new shoes for the boys, and I'm actually going to take them for haircuts rather than buzz their hair at home. We're going to go out to lunch at Olive Garden (plain pasta and grilled chicken for the younger two) to use the gift card they got me for Mother's Day, and then we'll spend the afternoon at the park of Nolan's choosing because it's going to be too cold to swim today. We were looking at the calendar and realized the boys have only swam 2 times this month because it's been so cold. Usually we can't keep them out of the pool.

Patrick had his Kindergarten Orientation on Wednesday - he got to meet his teacher (his words? She's Tall, doesn't have a "poufy" tummy and writes left handed like me) and got to take a ride on a school bus His Dad got to go along as a school employee. I got to listen to the parent expectations. He's going to have weekly homework assignments, a reading log (monthly) and a reading journal (monthly) to complete along with special projects each month That's a ton more work than Nolan had a few short years ago. Plus, the kindergartners are now going to be given actual grades (this ties in with the new Ohio Teacher Evaluation System which requires teachers to show a full year of growth for each student or they get "downgraded" on their evaluation). I didn't recognize any of the last names in his class, so this will be an adventure (after three years of knowing EVERYONE in Nolan's grade). Right now, the kindergarten is the smallest grade level in the building, with a total of 53 students. By comparison, Nolan's 3rd grade has 85 students and the fourth grade has 87.

The 1-6 Open House was last night and Nolan was really, really excited to find out he got Mrs. P because "her room is at the top of the school". Guess it's a good thing the weather has been so cool, because her room gets very hot, despite all the fans! His buddy Brandon is in his class again this year. Brandon's mom told me he was relieved to be in Nolan's class because Nolan makes a point of talking to him every day and understands when it takes him a bit to respond (Brandon has speech apraxia). Nolan has several other buddies in his class too. His teacher let Coach know that Nolan has been placed in the gifted class for Reading/Language Arts so he'll be spending his afternoons with a different teacher. After Open House, Nolan told us that "while summer was fun, he's really excited to return to school" Cullen, of course, was upset because he doesn't understand why Patrick is going to "Nolan's" school. I think next week is going to be a little rough on him (he doesn't start preschool until the 26th).

In the meantime, I've been offered another teaching position - this time as an adjunct with Wright State. This is a great opportunity, but after talking with the Daycare, and factoring in a commute (1 hour and 10 minutes, each way), it's going to cost me more to take this position than I would make. I have to make the call this morning to decline the position, but I am going to request to be considered for next semester. If they can give me two classes on the same day, it would make more financial sense.

Back to the trip report:
After we took our pictures of The Statue of Liberty for Nolan, and Matt picked up his cat liter, we drove toward the Brooklyn Bridge. I again apologize because I didn't write down any street names Sorry!
Driving along the river front toward the Brooklyn Bridge, I snapped a few pictures:




The Brooklyn Bridge:





It was 10:45, and Dad was getting grumpy (hungry) and Matt declared we needed to stop for a slice of NY heaven, Grimaldi's Pizza in the Dumbo section of Brooklyn. We parked and walked over. Grimaldi's opened at 11:00, so we joined the line:


We ended up ordering a small pizza and my Dad told a really funny story. When my brother first moved to NY, he lived across from Central Park. My dad asked Matt's roomate where he could find a good slice of pizza (he meant Ray's pizza) and the roommate directed him to Grimaldi's in Dumbo, under the bridge. So, my Dad walked, and walked, and walked...finally found signs for the Brooklyn Bridge, and because it was now a "quest" a la Clark W. Griswold, continued to walk until he reached Grimaldis. Only then did he phone my brother to come and meet him so he could be driven back to the apartment after telling that story, my Dad's initial comment of "tastes even better when you're not hungry enough to eat shoe leather" made a bit more sense

We were stuffed, but not quite done with touring. We headed over to Prospect Park (near Flatbush Avenue) to walk off some of the calories we'd just ingested. Unfortunately, my camera battery died (I'd forgotten the charger at my parents' house and AA batteries only gave me roughly 5 pictures before needing to be replaced) and my cell phone battery was dead. We did walk through the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens though and it was really beautiful.

After our walk, Jill called and asked us to meet here at a cafe for a late lunch. I was surprised to see it was already 2:00. Dad said he wasn't hungry, but thirsty so we headed back to the car.

As we drove to the meeting place, we saw a ton of these new citi bikes...you rent them to ride from place to place and they have a time limit. You swipe your credit card and get an hour to get from A to B.


I wish I'd written the name of our meeting place . It was near the Washington Irving Memorial Library and Myrtle Avenue by their previous brownstone. Anyway, the place was originally a soda fountain and the new owners kept the original pressed tin ceiling They "updated" the decor and had a large butcher block topped table with high stools in the middle of the room where "wi-fi" could be used for free. The outer rim of the room had smaller cafe tables (also butcher block topped) with old large sewing spindles (though my Dad told me they were for cable for phone/electric, etc) as seats. Everything was fresh daily and it was "home" specials. Today's menu? Gran's buttermilk fried chicken (you would get half a fried chicken) with choice of two sides, grilled eggplant parmesan sandwich, or a meatball sandwich. The sides? Fried polenta, southern greens with bacon, smashed sour potatoes (made with sour cream instead of heavy cream). Dad and Mom ordered the meatball sandwich to split, I took a side order of the fried polenta and Matt and Jill each had an egglpant sandwich. We also picked up a bag of carmel popcorn for later. I adored the fact that they had pop in glass bottles. The tastes of bottled pop reminds me of visits to my Grandma's house

If you're able to keep track - so far we've had 3 meals (with two more to come this day) The weather? HOT! It was alternately very sunny and very cloudy with the temps approaching 90 and high humidity.

Up next: You want me to eat what? And finding out what the boys had been up to that day...

[lauriep]

A nice continuation of your touring day. That lunch sounds absolutely delicious! I love places like that-- informal, but with great attention to creativity and freshness of the food. YUM! Sounds like a busy school year ahead. That sounds like a lot of homework for kindergarten!

[Colexis Mom]

Great day and great pictures!

Good luck with all the back to school stuff!

[Cam22]

Grimaldi's sounds yummy, and I love the story your Dad told. :rolf: NYC must work up an appetite for you all to have 5 meals.

[chezp]

I love the story your dad told too! Wow, five meals in one day?

Hope everything goes well with the back to school stuff.

[mfirst]

Originally Posted by lauriep

A nice continuation of your touring day. That lunch sounds absolutely delicious! I love places like that-- informal, but with great attention to creativity and freshness of the food. YUM! Sounds like a busy school year ahead. That sounds like a lot of homework for kindergarten!

Matt & Jill have a knack for finding really great, out-of-the-way local eateries. On a visit to Cleveland, they discovered a restaurant in Ohio City (Cleveland's West Side) where the owner grew her own produce at the restaurant (backyard, roof, etc) and uses fresh, local meat. About six months later, the place was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives

I think it's a lot of homework, but he loves school work so it shouldn't be too taxing to get him to get it all done. The district doesn't have space to add full day kindergarten, so the alternative (it seems) is to give them extension assignments so they get a full days worth of lessons.

Originally Posted by Colexis Mom

Great day and great pictures!

Good luck with all the back to school stuff!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by Cam22

Grimaldi's sounds yummy, and I love the story your Dad told. :rolf: NYC must work up an appetite for you all to have 5 meals.

It was really yummy and well worth the wait. We did so much walking that day that I told my Dad it felt like we were in Disney - minus the rides and the characters.

Originally Posted by chezp

I love the story your dad told too! Wow, five meals in one day?

Hope everything goes well with the back to school stuff.

I still can't believe we managed five meals in one day. It was our last day there, so we had a lot of fun to pack in

[mfirst]

Our post #2 lunch plans were to tackle the Brooklyn Museum in Prospect Heights. None of us had ever been, including Matt & Jill who had lived in Brooklyn for five years now. Gabe had other plans though. Jill hadn't replenished the diaper bag, and he'd gone through all her diapers and needed a fresh one NOW. So, we changed plans and headed back to Matt's place. While Jill and Matt cleaned up Gabe, and his car seat, I made a quick call to Coach to check in with them.

He answered and said, "Can't talk right now, I'm on a Camel" I'd forgotten that he and his mom were going to take the boys to the Chicken Festival. About twenty minutes later, he called back to explain that he hadn't been on the camel, PATRICK had. Patrick got on the phone to tell me that he'd had to climb 10 steps to get up onto the Camel's back. Coach didn't think to take any pictures with his cell phone Okay, to be fair? He doesn't know how to take pictures with his cell phone.

He was going to head with the boys to the petting zoo area, then take them on a few rides before heading back to Marty's to feed them dinner. He said that the younger two were upset because there wasn't any safe food for them to eat at the fair.

After we hung up, Matt and I decided to walk to the grocery store so I could get batteries for my camera. We took off walking and went into the first corner store, but they didn't have batteries. We walked a couple of blocks more to a Mercado and found a four pack for $10.00 I decided I would just charge my cell phone rather than spend that money for batteries that would be dead after 5 pictures. We arrived back at his place to find Jill a bit stressed because Gabriel was cranky, and didn't want to go down for a nap in his bed. I sat down to work a bit more on graduate papers, and to charge my cell phone. Dad took a food coma induced nap and Mom called my Grandma to check in.

After an hour, Matt brought Gabriel out from the bedroom stating that he was giving up trying to get the baby to nap - so we sat on the floor and played with him for about 45 minutes while Jill napped a bit.

Matt mentioned that a buddy from college's restaurant had opened, the GlassErie and Dad was excited because they had toured the place last month. They bought an old glass bulb factory and turned it into a restaurant. During the renovations, Nat and Sarah discovered several boxes of 1920's era glass bulbs and incorporated them into the design of the place. We decided to head there for appetizers because my parents wanted to see Nat & Sarah's finished product. Matt called and made a reservation for us for 6:30 which is way, way early for dinner in NY. He felt it would be easiest to go early with Gabe rather than trying to get him to behave in a crowded restaurant.

While we were getting ready to go, my cell phone rang. It was Patrick and he was really excited to tell me that he rode a roller coaster (a mini dragon type kid coaster) and went BUNGY jumping He was so excited to tell me about his adventures. Knowing how I'm not a fan of the aging carnival rides used at the Chicken Festival or of Bungee jumping, Coach probably made the wisest decision of having Patrick tell me about his adventures, rather than hearing of them from Coach...I would have probably given him an earful but I couldn't crush my little boy's enthusiasm, especially after he told me how he'd talked Nolan into riding the roller coaster. Coach was also quick to explain that the only way Cullen and Patrick could ride the roller coaster was if Nolan went with them. The bungee jumping was the kind where the kiddo is harnessed then jumps from a pillow of air (Coach's words)

Up Next: Fabulous Meal #4

[chezp]

No pictures of the camel? What a shame. That restaurant sounds fascinating - I hope you've got some photos in the next instalment.

[mfirst]

Originally Posted by chezp

No pictures of the camel? What a shame. That restaurant sounds fascinating - I hope you've got some photos in the next instalment.

I do have photos

[Cam22]

Sounds like everyone needed a bit of a break from sightseeing. Can't wait to hear about the restaurant as it sounds cool.

[dutchdisneyfamily]

I am a little behind here. I love all the pics of the city. The meals sound wonderful! Your husband sounds just like mine. He'll let the kids do things that I would cringe at, but they love it. Not every day you hear your kid gets to ride a camel. I remember riding one when I was a kid. I love all the festivals you all go to! Can't wait to hear about meal number four.