2014: The Summer of Wide Open Spaces

This has been the summer of wide open spaces. Every week I drag the kids out to the widest spaces NY offers. So far my favorites have been the Great Lawn, Governor's Island, and Nickerson Beach Park. Sing it with me!
The song is too good to be called a guilty pleasure. It's an actual pleasure. It resonates with me today as much as it did in 2000. Probably even more now. Give me some wide open spaces and room to make some big mistakes. Starting with using Dixie Chicks songs to add deep meaning to my life. What ever happened to them? They wrote some powerful stuff. I relate to the chubby sister with all the talent. ha

I was playing frisbee (aka AEROBIE) with Oscar and tossed it around some dudes neck. Even if I tried for a million years I wouldn't have been able to do that on purpose. The guy was not amused. Which made it even more hilarious. 

I would live on Governor's Island if I could. It's the car-free island of my dreams.

I made them do this. 

And finally, Nickerson Beach Park. It was worth the $30 entrance fee. Great beach, playground, and skate park. There was even beach cabanas and camping spaces for rent. I enjoyed it's sweet small town vibe. The perfect place for 10-13 year old kids to spent their summer roaming around and causing trouble. I would love to look into it in the future.

 In case you need supplies for next year's Gay Pride Parade, they sell these towels at Big Lots.  

Art Everywhere: Rainbow Beehive in Central Park

 We bought this box of extra bright chalk from Target for $3.99 and headed to Central Park to create something beautiful. We stopped on the sidewalk that surrounds the Great Lawn. It was Ella's spontaneous/brilliant idea to start coloring in all the hexagons on the sidewalk. If anyone wants to color the entire sidewalk surrounding The Great Lawn, count us in. One rule: Ella gets the credit, unless it's somehow against the law or already been done before.

See the rain drops? It started raining soon after we started, so Ella quickly turned our creation into a rainbow volcano spewing rainbow lava (of course.)

Spring Break: Day One

I can't think of a better thing to do on the first day of spring break than fly a kite. Looking at the kids faces, I don't think they could either. Here's everyone on the Great Lawn in Central Park. Where's Owen? Asleep on a picnic blanket with a fever. What to do when you have two perfectly heathly kids and one sick kid? Everyone stay home? Bring pillows and Tylenol (or whatever fever reducing medicine is acceptable these days) for the sicky? I chose to go out. He slept in the stroller or the ground the whole time. He was a trooper.  A day later, he woke up hungry and in perfect health.  Still torn on my decision though. What would you have done?

about forgiveness

When I saw all the cherry blossoms around the Great Lawn, I started to forgive NYC for that horrible horrible winter. As we were walking around, I asked the boys what colors they saw in the trees. Owen was the first to answer. He confidently said, "Brown!". I was hoping for a response of pink or white, but I wasn't surprised that he focused on the dark brown branches. That's Owen. We had a picnic lunch, bought some warm roasted cashews from a street vendor, and walked over to the Shakespeare Garden. After the boys ran through the garden, I had completely forgiven the city for winter. Here's to hoping spring is as wonderful as everyone told me it would be. And less brown! Even if that's the color Owen's going to focus on anyway.