St. Patty's Day

I love holidays...all of them really. They best thing was Ken came to town! He flew in for the last week I was in Connecticut. It was so cute when Julius saw him. I don't think he believed his daddy was really there. He didn't know quite what to do and then he burst into tears. He really missed him.

But on St. Patrick's Day we drove to a little town in New York where there is a real working farm that you can go wander around...on the way there we drove through Sleepy Hollow, New York. How cool is that? The real Sleepy Hollow! It's a really cute town right on the water. Not much was going on but apparently in the fall there are all kinds of Sleepy Hollow Halloween festivities. I've heard it's pretty fun. We'll just have to make another trip to New York in October I guess!

Then we came home and had Irish stew and Irish soda bread...that Amanda made. Delicious.

Stone Barn Farms

Tarrytown, New York

The greenhouse

Our favorite were the sheep...and the sheep dog.

Julius and Daniel watching the pigs.

Julius and Dad

The real Sleepy Hollow

Cute town

I Wish I had Wellies

Museum of Natural History

One Saturday we noticed it was gonna be a little rainy so we thought we'd go into the city but go to the Museum of Natural History. I LOVE rainy days. We thought it would be fun to see New York in a little bit of rain but be indoors most of the time. It all sounded good at the time.

Shannon took Daniel on the train and Amanda and I took the babies in the car and we would meet at the museum. (We couldn't all fit in the car) So it's raining the whole way there and we park a few blocks from the museum, which in nice weather wouldn't be that big a deal. We get the strollers out, bundle the babies up, put the rain covers on the strollers and off we go.

After a few blocks we notice there is seriously hardly anyone else out on the streets...in NewYork! After about a block we were pretty wet, after a couple blocks we were soaked. It was like the craziest rain storm ever. About half way there we were like do we turn around, do we keep going, do we find the subway? At that point we just kept going but had to periodically stop because the wind was so strong we couldn't push the strollers. I'm not kidding.

We finally get to the museum and apparently everyone else in New York had the same idea because they were all there. Amanda and I were drenched and cold. Luckily the babies were completely dry and warm. Then we see Shannon and Daniel...not a drop of water on them. Apparently the only time they had been outside on their entire trip was when they walked 2 minutes from the house to the train station in Stamford. Then they were on the warm, dry train all the way to Grand Central where they caught the subway which dropped them off right below the museum. Boy did we feel dumb.

Oh but wait. We felt even more dumb when we got home later that day and the rain still hadn't stopped and I talked to my mom who lives in North Carolina who said "So I heard there were 60 mile an hour winds in New York City today." You don't say. How we missed that weather forecast...I don't know.

Oh and then when we got home the power went out and didn't come back on until the next night...24 hours later. Church was cancelled the next day, trees were down all over the place, schools were cancelled for days, a tree fell on the garage of one neighbor and the fence of the other neighbor blew over. I mean this was a really bad storm. And we were just walking around New York. {Feeling more dumb now.}

Like I said, I wish I had Wellies. They would have been cute and functional.

Museum of Natural History

Museum of Natural History

Museum of Natural History

Amanda and the kids

Me, soaked. Julius is asleep under all that.

The tree on the neighbors garage.

The other neighbors fence.

The kids entertaining themselves while the power was out.

Watching a movie on the laptop while the power was out.

While the power was out and we couldn't blow dry our hair...Amanda and I decided to experiment with sponge curlers. I'll spare you the pictures of the two of us...but Nora looked pretty cute.

The Kids

At the library in Stamford. I thought this was a cute pic.

Wagon ride with Uncle Shannon.

Making homemade play dough.

Julius, Nora and Daniel

Sir Julius

Julius thought this stuff was the coolest.

{So you're saying if I put on this hat and shield, then I can have a sword and hit Nora with it and no one will get mad at me??}

Cute

Nora is such a sweetie.

Julius and Nora sharing breakfast.

I'm a sucker for a good grocery store...

It's true. I love grocery shopping. I especially like really nice grocery stores and ones where you can find all kinds of exotic/international/high quality/hard to find ingredients. Really fun stores are great too...like Stew Leonard's in Connecticut. It made shopping with Julius so much easier because he was completely entertained the whole time and I admit I was too.

{They also have really great food!}

When you pull the cow bell...he moo's.

All of the characters on top of the shelves perform...like they sing and dance and play instruments...really cute songs.

Julius' favorites were these guys hanging from the ceiling. They do flips through the bars.

My personal favorite. She sang a really catchy chiquita banana song.

They make a lot of there own food here...this is where they carton up the milk.

Grandpa Time

Grandpa and Julius

Julius, Grandpa and Daniel

My favorite thing we did while Dad was in town was video him telling stories for hours! It was so great. Amanda and I have been talking family history recently and are trying to make some headway. On our list was...record dad telling stories. We didn't even come close to covering everything but we did get through a lot of his fun childhood stories. Eventually we will have to get to his world travels. But it's a start and I know we'll be glad we have it.

Me and Dad

Dad in the City

My Dad was in town on business so we got to hang out for a few days. Amanda and I met up with him in New York after the Rachael Ray stuff. We looked around lower Manhattan and went to dinner at a good Chinese place. Then we drove back to Amanda's to relieve Shannon from babysitting.

New York Stock Exchange

St. Paul's Chapel

{Right around the corner from Ground Zero}

Pretty amazing when you think about it.

South Street Seaport: Fulton Market

South Street Seaport

South Street Seaport with the Brooklyn Bridge

The Rachael Ray Show

So the first day we ventured into the city, Amanda and I went all alone! No children! Bless Shannon for staying home with all three little ones...all day. Amanda had gotten us tickets to a filming of the Rachael Ray Show. We spent most of the day there...it was like 4 hours long...and they filmed segments for 3 different episodes. Three different interviews and she cooked a couple of different things. It was actually so much fun. It was cool just to see how they do everything and they pump the audience up and give away free stuff in between filming. I got pulled up to play name that tune and won a book. During down time, Rachael chats with the audience. She talked to me for a second about Utah.

They're pretty good because you walk in kind of indifferent and walk out like the biggest fan ever.

Good job Rachael Ray.

Amanda & Me

So you don't know what they will be filming when you get tickets...it's all very hush hush. And lucky us...we didn't get stuck with some random weird segments. We were actually there for her interviews with three different celebrities. Pretty good ones, I'd say.

Catherine Zeta-Jones

She gave the audience free manicures from Elizabeth Arden.

Forest Whitaker

Bret Michaels

Ok. So I was genuinely excited about Bret Michaels...I mean...the lead singer of Poison! How could you not be? ( Of the three episodes they filmed we ended up on TV for this one)

He sang part of Every Rose has a Thorn (although he sounded like a chipmunk b/c his voice was disguised with the mic...still cool though) He talked about the Celebrity Apprentice and sang his new song.

Amanda just kept saying "He has really great hair". Haha. She has a really hard time getting her color done well in Connecticut...not enough blondes out east.