I have good excuses! Really!

One week in New York + one week with relatives in town + one NASTY computer virus that took me offline for two weeks = more than a month without a post.

But I'm back! Motherhood has not got the best of me, and I won't go this long without an update again! That said, I don't even know where to start. A lot of stories and photos accumulate in one month...let's start with New York and work our way forward....here's the post I started when my computer went down:

Just when I was starting to feel a little cooped up in the house, our family got thrown a bit of a curve ball, and I’m proud to say we hit this one out of the park. Ha, the Mets and Mariners could learn a lesson from us…but I digress.

Sadly, our adventure was precipitated by a death in the family, John’s grandmother. We had one day to put together a trip to New York for the funeral, and we made it there by the skin of our teeth just in time to change out of our traveling duds and make it to the funeral. It was a wonderful thing for John to be there with his family, and for Sofia to meet the other side of her family.

With the cousins:

And because flying to New York on standby with a five-week-old baby and one day notice wasn’t enough of a challenge for us, we decided to stay in Manhattan for a few days and see the sights. Thus the adventure continued!

We decided right away we loved New Yorkers upon meeting our cabbie who was taking us from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Within about five minutes, we had all established our racial and religious backgrounds, and what REALLY goes on in Greenwich Village:

Cabbie: There's Greenwich Village.

Us: Oh, we thought about checking that out.

Cabbie: That's for the people who, you know, like dah same sex.

Pause.

Cabbie: You know. Gay.

Ah, thanks! Needless to say, no one beats around the bush in NY. Anyway, in that fashion we arrived at our Manhattan hotel a little more educated, and crashed in exhaustion.

Our first day began with a walk in Central Park, which was just two blocks from our hotel. We ended up walking there every day. That park is definitely the reason so many people are able to continue to live in New York. Without it...I'm convinced they'd go insane.

The park is packed with free spirits. Drummers, hula hoopers, roller bladers, roller skaters...you name it, someone's doing it in Central Park. Hey, keep that mind out of the gutter!

This guy was one of my favorites:

Later that day we met John's mom, who was coming up from Brooklyn to hang out with us for a day. Just when she thought she was done with interminable cab rides, we turned right around and loaded back into a cab bound for the Staten Island ferry. We covered the one mile to the ferry in an impressive 40 minutes! Not that I'm saying traffic is bad in NY or anything.

So we loaded onto the ferry, which took us right past the Statue of Liberty. We discovered two factors that lead to bad pictures: 1) Backlighting. 2) Strangers who clearly have no idea how to frame a shot. See below...if you squint, you can see the statue in the background...

Here's one better-ish shot I did manage to get:

So, every time we travel, Johnny gets this inexplicable craving for Chinese food. When we got our feet back on solid ground, we had yet another cabbie drop us off in Chinatown. Now, my husband has a stomach that's apparently made of iron, but Mom and I aren't quite so lucky. We were just a BIT skeptical of all the mystery restaurants we found in Chinatown, so we hoofed over to Little Italy. There we found a joint with photos of Sinatra, various Yankees and an assortment of other Italians on the wall. We figured it must be good. In the end, the meal could've been better, but you couldn't beat the company!

Once we got Mom safely off to the airport on her way home to Vegas the next day, we continued seeing all the NY sights. Next up was the Museum of Natural History, which had a live snake and lizard exhibit. This, of course, made Johnny want to set up a terrarium for an iguana at home. Thankfully he hasn't found the time to do this yet! Sofia got to meet some dinos:

We also made a trip to the Museum of Modern Art, but I have no pictures of that. While there was some amazing work at the museum, I definitely had some moments when I felt like we were all the victims of some large-scale prank. I mean, here we were in this huge, famous museum packed with people, and we were standing around looking at...an Airstream trailer. And silverware. And toasters. And strange "art" made of twigs and Christmas lights. I guess I just don't "get" modern art...

Further wandering around Manhattan took us past tons of famous places:

Radio City Music Hall and Rockefeller Center:

Sex and the City movie premiere! Yeah! No, we didn't see any of the stars, but it was still soooo cool to be by the red carpet. And yes, Johnny thinks I'm a complete dork for being so excited about this.

Our last big NY adventure was taking the subway out to Queens for a Mets game at Shea Stadium. Mama was pretty nervous about this one and, frankly, spent more time stressing out about it than actually enjoying it. We watched the Mets lose until the 7th inning, then beat it out of there. Sofia was NOT a happy camper...she was crying just like her daddy does when the Mets lose. Which is often.

On the subway:

All in all, we had an amazing week. We wandered around Times Square, Sofia slept. We ate at the Stage Deli, where Johnny got his 5-inch-tall pastrami on rye, and I had some strange potato dish that I think my stomach is STILL digesting. Sofia slept through that, too. We got held up an extra day because we were flying standby...and, Sofia slept. We finally caught a flight home...Sofia slept. Are you catching the theme here? I'll leave you with these final NY pictures: