Happy Birthday Ethan

Yesterday Ethan turned 2 years old. To celebrate he had a special breakfast (magic strawberry pancake basket or German pancakes with strawberries and cream topping), did some of his favorite outings (went to the park and library), got to go out to lunch with dad (McDonald's), had a special dinner (everyone made their own mini pizzas), ate cupcakes, opened presents, talked to grandparents on the phone, and watched a movie of his picking (Thomas the Train). It seemed like he had a great time and smiled almost the entire day. He really does seem like a big boy now, especially since Christian has come along. We really are lucky to have him as part of our family. Happy Birthday Ethan!!!

Ethan's pizzas were all cheese and pineapples. Look how happy he is!

Rebecca had made an apron for Julia on her birthday and Ethan had been wanting one too. We thought the fabric was perfect for him. And instead of a pocket, Rebecca made it tool belt style so he could slide the utensils right through the loops in the middle.

Some of his other new presents.

Surprisingly the cupcakes weren't that soggy after all of that slobbery "blowing".

Trip to the Big Apple

Since we are living in New York, we thought it would be a sin not to make a trip down to the city before we leave to Alaska. So we carved out some time this last weekend for a short visit. We decided to take the bus down, so we wouldn't have to worry about our car once we got there. I think it might be our last bus trip though, if fellow passengers have anything to say about it. We took a 1:15am bus Friday morning and arrived in NYC at about 6:15, and then came home on an 8:45pm bus Saturday evening, arriving early this morning, around 2:00am. The kids did great, considering that they had to try to sleep in unfamiliar, cramped quarters and were moved to and fro multiple times in the middle of the night. We did not get much sleep, but really with Christian so young, it wasn't so much different than a regular night at home. To keep the kids in tow, we equipped ourselves with a double jogging stroller for Ethan and Julia, and a baby backpack for Christian.

Joshua and Christian at the sight of the rebuilding of the World Trade Center/Twin Towers area.

New York Stock Exchange--finally saw it after talking about it all the time in Business school!

Joshua told me he actually did buy my ring from here, although you would never guess.

Julia in Battery Park, which is the landing for the ferries that go to the Statue of Liberty.

Miss New Jersey took us to the Statue of Liberty and then Ellis Island, the historical site for immigrants passing into the United States.

On the ferry. The weather was great--70s and 80s! Joshua, Christian, and I got a little sunburned, but nothing serious.

On Liberty Island

Manhattan in the background

The Alice in Wonderland statue in Central Park

Skyline from Central Park

The Belvedere Castle in Central Park

St. John's Divine Church and grounds, supposedly the largest Gothic style cathedral in the world.

Time Square

I beat Joshua in bumping in to the most people with the stroller. It was hard not to!

However, we were so glad to have the kids strapped in the stroller where we could keep track of them among all the thousands of people.

Julia at the M&M store

The Rockefeller Center

I recognized this Atlas statue from the cover of a book I read recently--Atlas Shrugged.

Chinatown, one of our favorite spots--Joshua introduced us to the Bubble Drinks, which he used to have a lot on his mission to Taiwan.

It was a fun but exhausting trip! The kids were real troopers, and put up with being buckled in the stroller almost two full days long with surprising grace. Throughout the trip, a bunch of Asian tourists kept coming up to us and asking to take pictures of our kids. One even wanted to be holding Ethan in her picture, and we caught others just taking pictures of them on the sly. Many said they thought they were twins. I guess lots of kids in NYC is quite a spectacle, because we did get a lot of stares all around.