Zoo Trip II (well, Zoo Trip I for the Two Oldest)

I took the kids to the zoo for the first time this season. The weather was perfect, so I had no excuse not to go. I do apologize in advance for my appearance in the photos; we went to the zoo straight from yoga.

We started with a train ride around the outside of the zoo.





The butterfly Pavilion was open and active:







We got to finally see and identify Soren the penguin. He's the one with the orange band around his wing.



They had a blast climbing like the squirrel monkeys.







When we got to the reptile egg replicas Soren got all Tyra Banks on me. She said, "Take a picture of my poses, Mama." So I did.





The other kids got photos , as well, just not Top Model ones.





Although Brody did (in typical boy fashion) figure out a way to squeeze in a gun battle.

Garden Update III and New Deck Thingy

Yes, I said deck thingy. It isn't a pergola. It isn't a canopy or a shade. It's a thingy. Deal with it.

Moving on, the garden is doing so well. We've already harvested tons of radishes, spinach, and some kohlrabi (my fave), and we even had a few peas already. The tomatoes and peppers are doing well after a tough battle against the rabbits. The squash and cucumbers are climbing. The gnomes are disappearing behind wildflowers. I can't wait for tomatoes.





Hey, Sassafras Mama, check out our clematis. It could kick your clematis' ass Jersey style (whatever that is, possibly involves kicking ass while wearing leopard print leggings). Colby is training it up to the kids' fort.




Colby, his dad and Dade worked hard building the deck thingy. So far it's serving its purpose of keeping much of the hot afternoon sun from cooking us while we try to enjoy the deck.

Sprayground

The girls were invited to a birthday party at the Trago Park Sprayground. Yes, sprayground. We'd never been to the sprayground before, but it was pretty awesome. It's a park with picnic tables and climbing equipment plus a little water park with no deep water and thus no chance of drowning. Genius.




Here's Soren with the birthday girl.



Soren and her friend.



The girls had so much fun before we had to leave to head to t-ball.

If You Give A Mouse a Cookie, He Might Meet You at Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble, though not my favorite bookstore at which to shop, has really great special guests at their story hour. June's guest was the Cookie Mouse.

Any parent reading this with a kid under age 13 has probably read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie or If You Take a Mouse to School and so on. I once took the kids to story time where author Laura Numeroff read her then brand new book If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. All my kids have loved and still love her stories.

Soren was excited to go see Cookie Mouse, but of course she wouldn't hug him or give him a high five. She was content to sit on the bench and admire him from afar. You can see her with the short blond hair and black shirt with colorful stripes. Cutest kid there, hands down.




Evie, on the other hand, was more than happy to give him a hug.

Fishing at Bowling Lake

Nebraska is at present being blessed with the most beautiful summer weather. I know it won't last, so we loaded up and headed over to Bowling Lake, a little lake very near our house. Dade loves to fish, and he's also really good at helping the girls fish.







I thought it would be a great idea to wear my bikini top to try to rid my back of the tan lines from my tank tops. Well, needless to say I'm feeling the pain of sunburn today.



While Dade fished, the young ones played on the rocks and under the bridge and even let me take a few photos.

New Jersey - day 5

The time has come for us to go. After 5 days of living it up at casa Sassafras we are set to make the trip back to reality. We were certainly ready to see the kids, but leaving NJ would be bittersweet.

We made some final stops at a few historical sites, standing in the very places George Washington and his troops stood while waging a fierce war against the British. You can stand there and imagine thousands of men in a blizzard with no shoes, no fires burning, cold water all around them, wondering what the hell they were doing here. Washington spent many anxious days and nights in NJ, but it was his innate ability to be cool under pressure that made him so powerful.









Here's me with our lovely hostess SM:


Here we are with the boy in the garden near GW's camp:




We walked across the bridge from Lambertville, NJ to New Hope, PA (I'm a little cloudy on the town names, but I think that's right). I know it was definitely Lambert-something because I kept thinking of singer Adam Lambert when we were walking through the town. Oddly enough, on our flight from Newark to Chicago I sat beside a guy from New Hope, PA. Small world. The view from the bridge was beautiful:






We stepped into PA just far enough to take some photos.




Goodbye, New Jersey. We'll be back soon. Save those underpants.

New Jersey - day 4 a/k/a Return to the City

Well, to make a long story short we didn't get to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We saw them from the shore and enjoyed a hot dog within eye shot, but the line was already way too long to wait to actually take a boat out to the islands. Oh well. We got to spend much of the day riding the subway which was pretty cool.

We did get to enjoy breakfast while waiting in Dunellen for our train.





Our first stop off the train was Ground Zero. Amazing, though I've used it about a hundred times to describe our trip thus far, just isn't the right word for Ground Zero. It's a heavy place to visit is what I would say. There is a huge hole still visible. The building replacing the Twin Towers is about half way to its full height. I could feel the weight, the emotion, the sadness, still at the site. Though New Yorkers are trying to rebuild and though vendors are peddling their goods right nearby, Ground Zero was still a place of great melancholy compared to the rest of the city.

This the the building being constructed at the site of the old Twin Towers. The sign said it is about half the height now that it will be when it's finished.


You can see that there is still a huge hole in the ground where the towers once stood. There is a lot of work to be done.







We walked to Wall Street where Colby posed with the bull, and we sneaked into a little church alcove to steal a kiss.





One of my favorite stops of our entire trip was the Top of the Rock - you might recognize the building from the Today Show or the show 30 Rock (one of our faves). The view from 30 Rock was, here it comes.....AMAZING! It was better than the view from the Empire State Building because from 30 Rock you could see everything, including the Empire State Building. Fucking awesome.


That's the view of Central Park:

Anyone who watches the Today Show will probably recognize these photos:




We also stopped at the Museum of Natural History. Dinosaur bones, taxidermy, a planetarium - the kids would've loved it.






This is the planetarium. It actually looks like a planet from the outside.



I found this sign very amusing.



We had lunch in the museum. Can you guess who ate the pretzels and beer and who ate the sandwich with pesto, tomato and fresh mozzarella with a carton of skim milk? We shared the candy bar.

Colby made some new friends at Toys R Us:




We packed a lot into two days in the city. Next time we'll plan to spend three or four days in NYC so we can do more shopping and take more time in the museums.