New York-Part 1

I am overwhelmed with all the pictures I took and organizing, deleting the bad ones and editing some or making collages has been a chore that I've put off long enough.
So I will just jump in and start and even though I don't know how many parts I'll make this post so please hang in there with me. I want to cover my whole trip and since it was a long one it may take me a few days to share it all.
I could just post some pics and say how lovely it all was but that wouldn't be justice to all the many things we did and the fun we had. (of course you may do just that and look at the pics and skip my blabbering :)
First and most of all we want to send our hugs and love to our good friends Gogu and Gina for indeed being the perfect hosts, for how much they spoiled us and for all the yummy food and making their house a nice place for us to stay. They waited for us at the airport and drove us home to an excellent breakfast. Also thank you to my dear, dear parents who are just the most wonderful people on earth. I cannot even begin to say how much they've really done for us always. Thank you for taking care of our kiddies. They had a blast with you.

 We flew at night and only got about 3 hours of sleep on our first flight which was 4.5 hours anyway. The second flight was just too short so with not much sleep we were pretty tired on Thursday.  But I chose a night flight so I don't waste a day on the plane and I didn't want to waste a day sleeping. Our first stop was Saint John The Divine Church in Harlem (N. Manhattan). Being our first place I took way too many pictures and stayed here way too long. But I loved it. I was trying hard to get a good picture of the majestic stained glass window and my friends found me on the floor trying to steady my camera since it was too dark to take a  good shot by hand. Then Gogu lent me his mini tripod and that helped a lot and also that I have one of those remotes wasn't too bad either.

I am pleased with the picture. I am always in awe with the craftsmanship of all these old churches, the work that went into them, the details. Just amazing.

On our way out we heard the ugliest sounds. Turns out peacocks are not lovely singers. 

This is what was in the church's garden. How amazing and pretty is that? This totally topped the cake. :)
Next we headed to Columbia University, Grant's Mausoleum and then Riverside Church.

Hamilton's statue on the Columbia University campus. 

Grant's Mausoleum

 Riverside Church

 View of Riverside from Grant's Mausoleum. We went all the way up in that tower.

Detail from outside of Riverside. The inside pics didn't turn out so well. 

 Of course we couldn't end the day but with thinking of food. We stopped by the coolest store, Zabar's. Lovely stuff. They had so so many kinds of foods and those guys were just sweet to want to get their picture taken.

We also got famous bagels and on the way home our friends took us right through Times Square and on to Queens we went.
Well, see you in part 2. This was Day 1 for us. We did so much every day, walking up to 13 hours at a time. It's fun to write about it and just relive it all.

Excited

I can't stand the wait until we leave for NY. My parents were so sweet and nice to watch our kids for us and will stay at our house while we are gone. We have a few more days until we go to one of my favorite cities. I can't wait to see our good friends and also just being there walking around in this huge city, seeing lots and lots of people on foot. Coming from a pretty big city myself (Bucharest-the capital of Romania) I was used to living in a small apartment, we never owned a car, we walked two miles to the market to get our fresh fruit and veggies and lots and lots of people were on foot since most people in Romania lived in the same boat as we did.
So even though I live in a big city now Seattle is so very different from NYC. Sure if we lived in downtown Seattle we would get the feel of  NYC but you get outside of Seattle a bit and it all changes. (I do like where we live and actually I wouldn't want to live downtown but I do wish that we had better transportation here.) If buses would come every 10 min or so and if they would take you where you want to go before you exchange another 4 buses then I wouldn't even need a car.
Anyway, I have already begun daydreaming of what I would do when I get there, all the fun shops, seeing all the different people, and all the yummy bakeries and meat shops. So many of them that it's overwhelming.
You see big apple is the first place I set my foot down when I came to the US. I was just fresh out of high school and on my way to school in UT I stopped in NY for 10 days to see our good family friends who moved to NY years earlier. They were so sweet and were the perfect hosts and guides to their new beautiful city.
Well, this will be my third time in NY and Shane's first. I have wanted to go back for a long time now and of course I can't wait to show Shane all the fun places. And best of all will be that we are going without the kids. Wait! Did I just admit to that? Actually it took me about a month to stop feeling guilty about this one but we've never left them alone before and I know they are in good hands. Also I know that if they came they wouldn't remember the trip and well we just couldn't do as much running around. Lavi would need her naps, they would get cold, hungry, and whiny. Eventually I hope that we do get to go back here once the kids are older.  And so I am just left with excitement for now and I pray that we have safe travels and lots of fun and that we return to our preciouses who would have had lots of fun with grandma and grandpa.
Also I can't wait to take lots of pictures. And I know this is not the best time to visit NY and probably it will be cold but I am excited to get away with hubby and cold or not it's a beautiful city and I am sure we'll both have lots of fun. Ta ta for now. :)

Go, Dog. Go!

Yesterday night I took Dacian to this play. It was so fun to go with him. Since Dacian can read that book cover to cover and since he really loves it I couldn't wait to take him to a professional theater that was playing this story. His first play was a school play that was cute but being in the school gym and him being a kid he couldn't see much or hear all that well since the seating was all on one level and even in my lap he couldn't see because of the person in front of us.
This was my first time of course at Seattle's Children's Theater and I was impressed that the seating was so close to the stage. Of course the set was great, costumes and good actors made for a great play. They even had a live accordion player. He was a hoot! The play stayed really close to the book which of course is smart with a preschool audience.
Now I caught the bug, I want to go see Cinderella at the ballet and Barber of Seville at the Opera. Too bad they are all so expensive. Even this one was pricey except I had a coupon for buy one get one off and being on a Thursday the show was even cheaper so it wasn't too bad. (No fiasco trip this time. Yay, us)
 I carpooled with a friend and her cute son who is also D's age. They had a lot of fun running around and getting dinner before the show.
I loved seeing Dacian's face and his eyes as big as saucers when the play started. I pretty much think his mouth was open too but I think that has more to do with the fact he probably has another sinus infection and can't breathe real well. He was cute!
 The actors were so funny and they were interacting with the kids throughout the show. At one point while the dogs were playing baseball the big beach baseball came all over in the audience and the kids got to touch the ball and throw it back to the actors.

Otherwise not much is new with us. The weather is sucky of course, rainy but thankfully not too cold. Work has been pretty hectic lately and I come home so tired I don't have much energy for anything so not much is new on my blog. Oh, I did do something fun though. I went to King's speech with mom and I just loved that movie. I want to see it again.

TGIF! I think I'm gonna hit the sack even though it's not even 9:30pm.