The Big Apple

As part of her spring break, Eva and I went to New York City! Despite awful weather three of the four days, we had a ball on Eva's first trip to the Big Apple. The pictures pretty much speak for themselves.

Eva with my law school friend, Sloan's, girls Julia (left) and Elizabeth (center) on our first night in town. We very much enjoyed a delicious dinner at their apartment, not far from our hotel (www.lucernehotel.com) on the Upper West Side. The girls very generously gave Eva their American Girl dolls; needless to say, Eva was in seventh heaven. When I had told her before our trip that they wanted to give them to her, she said, "Mama, I'll have 3 American Girl Dolls; I will rock the whole world." Indeed she does.

Our hotel was conveniently located just a few blocks from the Museum of Natural History. We braved the monsoon/hurricane on Saturday with my dear friend, Karen who came up from D.C. to spend 4+ hours at the Museum. Eva was enthralled with all the dinosaur skeletons, animals in halls of American and African Mammals, the great blue wall hanging from the ceiling and playing in the discovery center.

Here Eva is trying out a native american whale head mask. She loved it!

This is Eva and Karen on Sunday morning before we went to worship at the church where Karen's daughter, Amanda, is a priest -- Church of the Incarnation. Eva happily left the service to go to children's Sunday School and had a delightful time. We were thrilled to receive communion from Amanda.

Sunday afternoon we saw a wonderful performance of the Lion King on Broadway. We had 2nd row aisle seats, and needless to say Eva LOVED it. Throughout the day on Monday and even again on Tuesday, she asked if the Lion King was still on and could we go again.

Eva in Times Square. The police vehicle was not there due to anything Eva or I had done! We were grateful for a break in the rain after the show, so we could enjoy seeing all the sites in Times Square. It was busy but nowhere near as busy as I have seen it in the past. I think the time of year, day of the week (Sunday) and weather all contributed to a bit saner Times Square experience for Eva!

We happened upon the M&M store, which of course Eva loved, too. She got a kick out this Lady Liberty M&M dispenser, although she ended up buying a necklace. Unfortunately (and not entirely surprising to me), the necklace broked shortly after we bought it. We returned it on Monday and she spent the money at the American Girl Store instead!

For those of you who heard about the souvenir challenges at Disney World, I want to assure you we had a much better experience in NYC. Before we left, I put a certain amount in envelopes for each day we were to be in NYC and told Eva how much she had for each day. If she didn't spend some or all of her money for a given day then it moved forward to the next day. She also had some allowance money she had earned. I was worried about this method at first, as she felt compelled to buy a stuffed animal in the Nashville airport on our way out of town. However, it ended up working very well -- far better than the more vague "system" I used at Disney. Ahhhh.

After having a fun shopping excursion at the American Girl Store, we took the (free) Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, a New York landmark with which Eva was quite familiar before we ever left Nashville and which she was quite interested to see. I won't go so far as to say it was anti-climactic, but it wasn't quite as exciting as I thought it might be for her. And it really wasn't exciting for her to have to get off the ferry in Staten Island, wait in the lobby for 1/2 hour and board a return ferry. Oh well, we have checked that off our list and can add new things to our NYC list for our next trip.

Having figured out there was a subway stop one block from our hotel and that it went just about everywhere we wanted to go on Monday, we rode it a time or two. It was cleaner and far less crowded than I remember it from a number of years ago. However, we were not on it at rush hour or during prime theater time either. Eva enjoyed it, but was much more enthralled with taxis throughout our stay. I think it was equal parts not having to sit in a booster seat and there being TV screens on the back of the front seat that she enjoyed watching.

Finally, on Tuesday, the sun was shining, there was no wind and the temperature was moderate. We spent 4+ hours in Central Park. Here, Eva found a mound of snow that somehow survived all the rain. I think it must have been where all the snow on Central Park roads was deposited and was undoubtedly a much bigger mound a few weeks ago. She loved being in her shirt sleeves and playing in the snow!

After two different playgrounds, much walking, cart-wheeling (Eva not me) and general exploring, we spent some time in the small, sweet Central Park Zoo, where we got to see sea lions being fed. We also got to see penguins, which Eva so enjoyed. Her class at school is called the penguins, so Eva knows a fair amount about penguins. She and the zookeeper who was in the penguin building had a nice conversation about the different types and their differences, etc. It was fun to see Eva being "an expert."

We made a brief stop at the Children's Zoo, which is really for younger children, but Eva had a chance to expend more of that pent up energy from all the rain-induced indoors time playing on this neat rope web. She was an amazing spider for some time.

The ONLY way I could get her away from that was the promise of seeing the statue of her beloved Balto. Some months ago, we read (several times) the story of Balto, a sled dog in Alaska who in 1925 helped deliver much needed medicine 600 miles during a blizzard to the town of Nome to prevent a diptheria epidemic. Just a couple of months ago, we were reading a Magic Treehouse Book in which the characters traveled to Central Park in 1938 during a blizzard, and they encountered a statue of a dog. Eva had flipped through the book looking at the pictures before we even began reading. When she got to a picture of a dog in a blizard, she said it looked like Balto. I "ya, ya, ya'd" her, and low and behold when we came to that page in our reading, it was a statue of Balto that the characters had found. That night, I Googled Balto and Central Park and found that there really is a statue of Balto in Central Park. Eva was thrilled to learn we could go see it (in fact she said, "Mom, that is a dream come true"), and that activity remained at the top of her must-see list as we planned our trip. I am so glad that the weather finally cooperated, and I could in fact make her dream come true.

Not surprisingly, we left New York with several more things we'd like to do and see, so this will not be our only trip there. It sure was a memorable first one!