NYC: the food

We tried to take photos of all the food we ate, just so I could do a blog post about it. Honestly - eating in NY was one of the best parts about it.

Street meat. Our friend has been telling us about THE BEST gyro cart. When we called him to find out where it was - it was only a few blocks away from us. It was delicious - and messy.

This little treat was staring at us from a window. We stared at it through the window for quite some time before we decided to take him home with us. We also bought an almond thing like this, but ate it before we could get a picture.

At a Cuban restaurant. I'm the one who requested Cuban, but after we ate all this food I remembered that what I had wanted to try was a Cuban pressed sandwich.  Here we had roasted chicken - SO GOOD, shrimp creole, avocado salad, fried plantains, and creamy chicken pasta. 

a little ice cream cone from someone with a cooler on a cart.

italian ice - yummo.

Seriously good salad! Which I almost forgot to take a photo of. I want to recreate this at home.

This root beer was all fancy and natural. But it didn't actually taste very good. 

NY slice

First thing I got - a pretzel. It actually wasn't that good. It was pretty dry and they all looked like that. The mustard did make it a bit better. And we still ate it, of course.

macarons! I'd never tasted these before and I thought they couldn't be that great because they're all shades of pastel.  But I was wrong. They are SO good. I've even tried making my own since being back.

flavors: almond, orange blossom, coconut, lavender & honey, lemon, chocolate ginger, creme brulee, and pistachio

cute little bottle - and the drink was good too.

samosas - my fave. but the mint chutney was not as good  as I'm used to.

can't go wrong with chicken tikka masala

a little chocolate gelato...

...which we bought from this adorable place. Everything inside looked SO good! I got mango gelato.

And there you have it. We enjoyed (pretty much) every last crumb of it.

NYC

Last month we went to visit my sister Emily in NYC. She lives in Manhattan with her husband. But they are leaving soon, and we decided we needed to visit them before they leave.

My mom and dad came to stay with the kids - which was very nice of them. Thanks Mom and Dad.

It was a great trip - we did lots of things we'd never done before. I'd only been to NY once before and only for an afternoon. Dan goes all the time for business, but he's usually in a different part of the city. Here are some of the pics I took.

My dad and Henry

Twinners - my mom and me.

no burgers and shakes allowed!

We loved that there were so many details in the old buildings. This was in the lobby of Emily's apartment building.

We passed this Ray's Pizza - but I don't think it was the REAL Ray's.

The signs at the Lego Store at 30 Rockefeller Plaza ...

... were all made of mini figures.

detail of a doorway

Empire State Building

from the top of the Empire state building

inside the New York Public Library - it was SO cool!

The New York Public Library

We were too late to make it into the Guggenheim. Next time.

City of New York Central Substation

Times Square. I hated it there - it was stimulation overload. We didn't even walk through.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Don't go all kung fu on the train - or do. It's hard to tell.

Sorry for the lighting - Cy and Emily

sisters

I love me a Japanese garden - in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden

nine

bluebells - Brooklyn Botanic Garden 

cherry blossoms - Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Brooklyn Bridge - we walked across from the Brooklyn side.

Purl Soho - had to stop in.

tile detail on a subway stair

We figured we walked about 20 miles the whole weekend, but if we weren't walking - we were taking the subway.

hex windows at the Cloisters

doorway at the Cloisters

courtyard at the Cloisters

heading home

To sum up: We had a great trip. We slept in every day, did whatever we wanted to, got to see a lot of cool stuff. I'm glad I don't live in NY - there are way too many people. This trip also helped me remember that I'm grateful to be a mom and get to stay home with my kids. 

Phoenix: Part 2

One of my best friends lives in Phoenix and she invited our family to stay at her house. It was so much fun. The kids played together and swam as much as possible. They're already asking when we can go back. Sara and I played the piano duets we used to play together and played Rock Band with the husbands and talked and had a great time. We'll have to go visit again some day. Thanks for letting us come Sara and Aaron!

Sara's oldest is just a few days older than Jack. They had a great time together.


All the kids together. They all got along really well.


I just thought this was a cute picture of Henry.



I used to live in Phoenix when I was in high school. I thought it would be fun to go see the old house and neighborhood so we went. In that neighborhood, right around the corner from my old house are 2 Frank Lloyd Wright houses. This first one was completely leveled and they are rebuilding it. I guess it will look like this.



The next house had a construction gate around it. I'm not sure if they're leveling it, or if it's just part of the same property as the other one. I have always thought this house was awesome. I don't think I could ever see either of them very well when I lived there. It seems like they used to be covered up with a lot of plants. Maybe so people like me weren't driving around trying to look at them.

Still on a Frank Lloyd Wright kick we decided to check out Taliesen West. There are quite a few tours available and I would love to do any of them, but we had all the kids and it was about 115, so we just walked around where we could (which was just the parking lot).

I love these little square details on the roof.

This design is all over (at least where we could see).

Here's the super cool gold sign Luke's standing next to. Can you see TALIESIN WEST in gold lettering?