New York Day 8

This morning we went to one of my favorite places in the whole wide world- Central Park! Ryan LOVED it! He was so giddy being able to run around so freely! Rich and I couldn't stop marveling over something that we'd read about years ago in The Nanny Diaries- that nearly every other woman we saw was a Maclaren or Bug-a-boo stroller pushing (foreign) nanny and her young charge(s)!

We hit up both the Tisch Children's (petting) zoo and the Central Park Zoo in the morning. Here's Ryan staring at all the ducks. I would like to say that he loved looking at the snakes, the monkeys, the leopards, etc...but that would be a lie. Because what Ryan REALLY loved doing was running in and out of the bird sanctuary, since it had these long, clear, plastic strips (the kind you sometimes see in refrigerated sections of the grocery store)hanging in the doorway to keep the birds from flying out.

Not sure what's funnier to me...that an animal is called an 'alpaca,' or how goofy looking an alpaca is. In any case, Ryan did eventually worke up the courage to feed one of them!

Our little turtle growing into his shell...

I've always wished I had the body of a (Playboy) bunny...and now I do!

This polar bear was hysterical! He was TOTALLY people-watching!

After walking around the zoo for a few hours we picked up some lamb gyros for Rich and a Philly cheesesteak for me and then ate lunch in Central Park while Ryan grooved to a saxophonist the whole time.

I had been wanting to go Dylan's Candy Bar for awhile and had no idea it was just one train stop away from our hotel!

Ryan had his first ever piece of candy at Dylan's! They were handing out tiny samples of Twizzlers and somehow he *just knew* they were something delicious and reached out and grabbed one! And of course, he loved it!

Ryan loved the candy stairs at Dylan's Candy Bar! I bought him his own little Ryan-sized candy jar that says "Ryan's Candy" on it with his treat money from Great Grandma!

If this tub were filled with Skittles instead of gumballs I probably would have stripped down and thrown myself into it!

Ryan and I with two of New York City's finest...(they begged for a photo...we couldn't say no). ;-)

Our family cruising up and down Times Square soaking up the energy...one last time!

While daddy went shopping, my parents and I couldn't resist taking Ryan back to Toys R Us for a repeat ride on the ferris wheel, only this time with Grandma! He immediately recognized the ride as soon as we walked into the store and was thrilled to go back on! We scored a much better car this time- a school bus!

Guess who we saw on Broadway?! ELMO!!! And in case you didn't know this- Elmo speaks only Spanish. Though he did learn how to tell me, "Tip one dollar, please!" And so we did! Little did we know that when Ryan leaned in to give Elmo a goodbye hug that Elmo would reach over and grab him! I'm not sure who was more surprised, me or Ryan!!!

We learned pretty quickly that we had to stop for every single street musician...Ryan loves music!!!

My mom really wanted to go to Crumbs, so we forced ourselves to return and got two more cupcakes (raspberry swirl and peanut butter chocolate chip)!

Look how happy cupcakes make me, mama! I want more! More!

While we were waiting for the train (for our final ride back to the hotel), we showed Ryan where all the Crumbs cupcakes went...he thought it was hysterical!

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The weather over the past few days has been perfect...we were able to do EVERYTHING we wanted to do and more. No complaints here! It's funny, the first and second time we came here we stayed only 3-4 days each trip, and there were so many 'big' things we had to do in such a short amount of time- the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Plaza, etc. So I always left feeling like I hadn't gotten to do everything I'd wanted to. But after this trip, I feel totally satiated. I mean, if I could stay a few more days or come back every year, I'd still LOVE to, I just mean that I feel totally content right now. :-) We're off to CA tomorrow, wish me luck! I'm armed with motion sickness drugs this time and am flying United all the way (NYC to Denver, then Denver to Orange County)!

New York Day 7

We started off the morning with a scheduled tour I'd requested months ago at the Federal Reserve Bank. LOVED IT. I learned that the bank stores gold for over 36 other foreign countries in a vault/bunker that is more than 80 feet below ground level, or 50 feet below sea level. The gold is worth more than $194 billion dollars, and is the largest accumulation of gold in the world, even more than Fort Knox. As a result, the security is top notch (there has never been an attempt to break in/steal from the facility)...we had to strip off excess clothing, store all belongings and go through security. However, once we descended into the vault, we got to see the gold bricks stacked up high in unmarked (on purpose, even the countries who store gold there are never identified) cages! So it surprised me that we could stick our little pinky through one of the cages and touch the gold bricks!

Our next stop was the WTC site (since the last time my parents were in NYC, they were able to ride the elevator all the way up to the top of the building), and a Memorial shop selling souvenirs/showing a preview of what the site will look like one day (the pools of water will stand where the buildings once did).

We returned to Chinatown for lunch, since I'd never had dim sum before! It was neat to see the little carts rolling back and forth and trying all the food! We had the most amazing warm, cream-filled pineapple buns for dessert! I would say 11 out of 10 people there spoke Mandarin to my parents and I (though strangely enough...not to Ryan...who is fact, part-Chinese)! ;-)

Ryan loved his shrimp fried rice, took two bites of a vegetable spring roll (before saying "All done" and handing it off to grandma) and one bite of his pineapple bun. But most of the time he played happily with his brand new police car (it had lights and a siren)...because yes, we've fallen victim to the "Give the kid a new toy so you can eat your dinner quietly" trick!

Dinner was with a dear old friend...my former roommate and teammate from college, Kari Lee! Kari is the men's and women's golf coach at Columbia (the teams are doing great)! She and her lovely lady Ana are both getting their Masters at Columbia while they're there. I asked to eat Ethiopean food, so they took us to their favorite place in Harlem called Zoma, a place with DELICIOUS vegetarian food. Loved hanging out with them!

New York Day 6

Last night we celebrated Joey's last night in the big city by letting him pick where to eat. He Googled away on his iphone until he found a Top Ten restaurant in the West Village that I swear, took longer to get to than friggen' New Jersey! After enjoying a delicious dinner together we all walked around the area for awhile before Joey and Rich set off on their own for Boys Night Out. Little did I know (or Rich for that matter...though we should have suspected!) that their night would end up with with them spending nearly 3 hours drinking at Japonais (one of two places I've always wanted to eat in NYC! The other being Nobu)! Extremely jealous!

Since we've all already been to the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island before (Ryan hasn't, but we figured we'd take him when he's a little older), we decided to go on the Staten Island Ferry for a panoramic view of Manhattan and Lady Liberty instead. Bot between the choppy water and my recent bout of motion sickness, I opted to skip it and hang out in the terminal sucking down a can of Monster instead. Though I've never watched Jersey Shore, I'm pretty sure the Brooklyn family sitting next to me made the Jersey Shore cast look like a deeply religious Partridge family! I was never more entertained in my entire life! I didn't want to leave!

Ryan on the Staten Island ferry with Grandpa...apparently he wasn't a huge fan of the strong winds and opted to sit inside instead.

After riding out to Staten Island, we all walked to Battery Park, and then to the Smithsonian's Native American Museum. Ryan loved the musical instruments in there! I'll try to remember to post a video of him playing with some of them later.

The Museum was right next to the Bankruptcy Court, where I told Joey he would end up soon if he didn't take drastic measures to start curbing his extravagant lifestyle. This isn't exactly what I had in mind, but I guess it's a start... :-)

Joey suggested we take a picture of Ryan using a pay phone since they'll probably be obsolete someday soon and Ryan won't believe he ever saw/used one before!

We're bummed Uncle Joey had fly back out this evening, but we're excited to see him again in a week! Off to bed!

New York Day 5

What does a 1-year old do when the subway gets a little too noisy, crowded and overwhelming? Why he breaks out into tree pose and gets centered of course! ;-) (He's learning yoga in school...gotta love it!)

We were trying to get a picture of Ryan dancing on the pole in the train car but missed our shot...this is a still pretty good shot of him sashaying and laughing at himself though!

This is the official Ryan saying "Cheeeese!" smile! He smiles so big that he crinkles his eyes shut!

What's the only thing better than going to Crumb's Bake Shop in Manhattan yesterday?! Going to Carlo's Bake Shop in Hoboken, NJ today!!! We hopped the PATH train from Manhattan and made the pilgrimmage over to Carlo's, the bakery (featured on TLC's Cake Boss) that got me interested in cake decorating!

I had my heart set on eating two desserts from Carlo's- their legendary crumb cake (which I am pointing to...fans of the show might recognize Joey, Buddy's brother-in-law in the background doing a cake consultation) and their cannolis! And I gotta say- while their crumb cake was every bit as delicious as I'd imagined (their crumbs are more like boulders!), it was their sweet, cream-filled cannolis made me want to weep for joy. If I may make a suggestion- take a cream-filled cannoli, top it with crumb cake crumbs and call it the "Jolene"...then my life will have had meaning!

My mom is eating a cannoli, I'm eating crumb cake, & Ryan and my dad are sharing a piece of coconut custard pie. My brother Joey was taking the picture, but he was busy stuffing two different kinds of chocolate pastries in his face! I must add that these were just a few of the goodies we bought during our first stop at the bakery...we bought even more on our second stop (my dad accidentally bought a small sheet of crumb cake instead of a piece)! Terrible mistake.

My nearly-out-of-breath, groupie mother (also a huge fan of the show) nearly died and went to heaven when she spotted the matriarch of the Valastro clan (Buddy's mother, Grace)! She was kind enough to chat with us for a few minutes and proudly showed us picture of her son and husband on the wall. When she heard we had come all the way from Hawaii to see the shop she made a loud announcement to the rest of the staff!

We got to see most of the Valastro clan that day- in addition to Joey and Mama Valastro, we also got to see cousin Anthony (this is the back of the restaurant, we peeked in and saw him working, but he happily came outside to pose for a pic with us even though his hands were covered in dough!), three of Buddy's four sisters (Grace, Madeline & Mary), Buddy's wife Lisa, Danny, and some of the camera crew for TLC (they were filming that day). It REALLY is a tight knit family business- they were all there working hard! The only people we seem to have missed that day were Mauro, Buddy (filming upstairs with his daughter's class on a field trip) & Buddy's fourth sister Lisa (with good reason though...she had just given birth a little earlier! We know this only because while we were there, Buddy's wife Lisa made the announcement and everyone started squealing with delight). Can't wait to see that episode and know that we were downstairs while it all happened (it would also mark the day they created the "Jolene")!

After stalking Carlo's for awhile, we walked around Hoboken's beautiful grassy waterfront park fronting Manhattan and gawked at it's beauty. Ryan ran free for the first time since we left Kona 4-5 days ago! After leaving Hoboken, we hit up one of my regular stops in Manhattan- FAO Schwarz!

Ryan showing Elmo some love!

Ryan running across the giant piano with daddy (since he was too tiny to get the piano to work using his own little, light-weight footsteps)!

Who says I'm too old be Cinderella next Halloween?! This dress was made for me! I would love to also post the picture I took of Joey with Batman, but I think my mortified parents would disown me, and I would be kicked off Blogger for posting questionable content.

Ryan...our little damsel (or I suppose, dame) in distress! He pointed at the hat and said "I like this!" so we let him wear it for a minute! ;-)

Not sure what else we're going to do today (we're back in the room right now so Ryan can take his cutomary midday nap). Since it's Uncle Joey's last night, I think we'll let him pick what he wants to do (which means we'll probably end up walking around SoHo, wearing berets, touring art galleries, eating seven bites of dinner for $56 per person, and smoking cigars at a tequila bar... Better get Ryan's smoking jacket pressed!

New York Day 4

Ryan 'babe watching' (check out that smile!) at Grand Central Station

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Found out this morning that the 'rents had never been to Grand Central Station on their first trip to NYC, so we just had to take them over there to check out the architecture!

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Look Ma! Ghetto gloves! (a spare pair of socks for Ryan in our diaper bag)

We also spent part our morning cruising around Little Italy & Chinatown. And because it was so cold outside (48-50 degrees and drizzling) and *no one* was selling toddler-sized gloves...we had to improvise!

...at least he seemed to think it was funny! He laughed when put them on...and he kept them on! He was in seventh heaven in Chinatown because many of the stores had goldfish in their windows (are they some kind of a good luck thing? I'm such a bad Chinese...) and he kept pointing and yelling, "Elmo Dorothy fish!" (Elmo has a goldfish named Dorothy) His mother was not so happy about seeing all the sad, scrawny, plucked, red ducks hanging in all the windows.

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Couldn't resist snapping this photo of a table at the MoCa (Museum of Chinese Americans) in Chinatown. Their recent $9 million renovation is pimpin.' Amazingly beautiful inside. The museum was a nice reminder that being part Chinese is so much more than being able to haggle down prices (it is?!) or having the right to sport a ricebowl haircut for 35 years running!


A funny thing happened today while we were separated from my parents, Uncle Joey & Ry Ry. Without communicating about it- they went to Magnolia's (premier NYC bakery) for treats at the same time we went to Crumb's (the other premier NYC bakery)!

This is my "I'm so excited...that I just can't hide it! I'm about to lose control...and I think I liiiike it!" face. Because hot diggety! I'm in Crumbs!!! Which cupcake-y to choose though?!

I went the most popular selection there- the giant red velvet cupcake! It was purty good! Not too sweet, not too pricey either ($4)!

From there we hit up the highlight of our trip so far- the Ed Sullivan Theatre to catch today's taping of the Late Night with David Letterman show! We had to get in line by 1pm to pick up our tickets, then return around 2:30 to be seated for the 3:30-4:30pm taping. Everything ran like clockwork!

Look at the funny doofus behind us who snuck into our shot! Hysterical!

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Rich has told me for years how badly he's wanted to see either Letterman or SNL show. Though this sounded as exciting to me as say...doing geometry for fun, about two months ago I requested Letterman tickets for him. I forgot all about it until 4-5 days ago when I got a call from a CBS staffer telling us we were in! I won't get into the logistics of trying to get tickets, but let's just say I got them by the hair of my chinny chin chin (oooh, not a pretty visual)! It was such an AWESOME experience...professional, peppy page staff, extremely well organized and timely (impressive considering they have to coordinate nearly 500 rowdy studio audience members), etc. There's nothing like walking onto the set of show you've watched for years and getting that initial "Oh. My. God. I can't believe I'm here!" feeling! We sat in the fourth row, closer to Paul Shaffer...beneath hanging mikes, bright lights and behind camera men and guys holding up cue cards for Dave. Dave is such a natural comedian, and he had a phenomenal interview and rapport with his main guest- Dr. Phil! I actually like Dr. Phil, so it was a bonus getting to see him too. The other guest was some former NFL Coach/ESPN commentator (Jon Gruden) and the most recent American Idol castoff (he sang a beautiful song). I highly recommend doing this someday if you can...we both LOVED it (just wish cameras were allowed)!

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It's good to know that no matter where we are, some things never change! This is Ryan once we got back to the hotel this evening...watching Seasame Street, holding his beloved blankie ("aka batee") and sucking his thumb! PS- This is the first time I've had a king sized bed since Ryan was born...and when I saw how easily it can accommodate our family of three? Well let's just say I'm SOLD. We're definitely getting a king-sized bed as soon as we can afford one!