First Day / Last Day 2016- 2017

First up: Yoda at the start of 1st grade...

 

 And Yoda at the end of 1st grade....

Mimi at the beginning of 5th grade...

 

 Mimi at the end of 5th grade, with her reading teacher.  Mimi has trouble focusing her eyes on the page and Ms Short has helped her over this year so much! 

Parker at the beginning of 8th grade...

And Parker on the last day of 8th grade. He didn't want to get up :)

Last (but not least) Spring Break Post

After we left NYC we drove for a few hours to a town just outside of Gettysburg, PA.  We hit the pool and passed out in the hotel room.

The next morning we drove the 45 minutes to Gettysburg.  I had no idea what to expect.  I had done most of the planning for NJ and NYC, but left this portion for Greg.  We met up with Greg's brother and his family.  More cousins! 

I snagged this pic from their blog!

 Those are some Gibby's way up on top! 

We just wandered around, read stuff and enjoyed each other's company.  Another beautiful day.  We enjoyed this day so much we want to do it again! 

There's Parker on top of another monument.  This place is fascinating. 

That's it for Spring Break.  Now on to summer! 

Spring Break Friday

Sonya made us yummy french toast and we were off for our next bunch of adventures!

First stop Harlem and Hamilton's home.  Amazing.  Who knew there was so much preserved history in NYC?  Not me!

Then we hopped on the bus and headed to Grant's tomb.  So much bigger then I expected!  Here are some cherry trees from Japan. 

 Reading about Grant's Tomb. 

 A funny book that Parker found at the visitor's center. 

 Checking out the tomb. 

 There was a family here that we had seen at Roosevelt's house the day before! 

 For perspective, see how large it is compared to how small those people are who are on the steps? 

Later on the Subway, Yoda was wearing his Spider-man hat (which he got a lot of comments about, NYC people love Spider-man) and we ran into Captain America.  They were hilarious! 

Under Columbus Circle there is a mall full of food-yummy-ness.  We had the grilled cheese-suprise! 

 Sonya bought us some yummy goodies from a fancy Bakery. I had macaroons. 

We hung out in Columbus Circle and watched some skateboarders before heading back to the car and heading out of the city. Hopefully we'll be back in NJ &and NY soon!

One last Spring Break post coming up!

A break from spring break posts

Before we left for our adventure to the East, Greg's mom took us on an adventure here in Ohio!

She won a raffle trip to tour the OSU football stadium.  We had a private tour guide and plenty of time to walk around and play. 

 I borrowed an OSU sweatshirt from my neighbor. 

 We learned about the history of the band and sat in the band room underneath the stands. 

We marched down to the field.  (The red dots are how the band members keep in time.) 

During the tour they don't allow footballs, so Greg and Yoda played a little sweatshirt-ball and ran drills.  

Video of Yoda running a drill. 

Behind the scenes, here's where the press sits. From here you can see the lines painted for Lacrosse. 

Longest escalator in Ohio

here we are leaving the super-expensive box seats and laughing at how rich people choose to spend their money.  (for a 3 year contract it cost something like 150,000 for that box)

 

 Fun day! 

Spring Break Thursday

Sonya and Greg and one of Sonya's friends headed to get Cronuts!  Totally worth the hype.  If you are in NYC make sure to make this a priority. 

The flavor was leveled and thoughtful.  Without being prompted, Yoda showed us how much he liked the Cronut.

Sonya went on to work, and we hit one of the nerdiest spots we could find.  The Museum of Math.  There were tears of joy.  So much math in such a small place.  We could have stayed all day.  We loved it. 

All week Parker was asking about all the falafel trucks.  Today was our day.  We had street food and ate at Madison Square Park, close to the Flat Iron building and 5th Avenue.  Such a beautiful day. 

Just a few blocks away was our next stop, Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace.  Beautiful, small and informative.

Our next stop was supposed to be Battery Park, and Castle Clinton.  But we couldn't resist a few minutes in the Lego store in a historic old Manhattan building. 

We met up with Sonya and explored Battery Park.  I'd never spent time down here, but this is close to where my dad worked in NYC for years and years.  The Freedom tower is just behind Yoda and Parker and this statue. 

We didn't make it in time to visit Castle Clinton, oops. 

Here we are with our tears, just like when we missed Abraham Lincoln's birthplace by minutes.

So we got snow cones and checked out some art and did some people-watching--it was spring break for tons of people as well as the week of Passover.  So many people at Battery Park! 

 One more visit to a diner before heading back to Sonya's for the night.