The Blacks take NYC

I have wanted to go to NYC city since we moved here but it's never been the right time. The stars finally aligned to make it possible for it to happen: 1) John-David didn't have to work. I was not going to make this trip without him. 2) It was a holiday so there was no traffic. The amount of people in and out of the city on a daily basis is enough to deter us. 3) The weather was perfect. It was about 70 degrees and partially sunny. A perfect day to go to the city.
After a little research with people in my ward who had gone before, we decided to take the Staten Island ferry across the harbor to the Southern tip of Manhattan. The ferry is free, parking costs $5.50 and it takes you right by the Statue of Liberty. We thought that was a pretty good route. I guess Jackson didn't get the memo that the uni-bomber look was a little much for this excursion. This wasn't really the place to look suspicious. Kelsey was excited for the boat ride. I had a book in the car of the Statue of Liberty that I was showing the kids so they would know what we were seeing. Kelsey keep insisting it was Jesus. I thought for sure that she was going to yell that when we really did see it but she held back. Maybe the resemblance wasn't as striking as she thought before.
Typical Jocey - I am so excited I can't give a normal smile face. They really were really enthused for our trek.
I don't know if dad was as enthused:)
This was a boat that was like the one we took. It was about a 25 minute ride across the bay. It was perfect.
The boat we took in the morning had windows at the level of the kids. They stared out them the entire time. Kelsey danced around most of the time doing her typical Kelsey moves.
Jackson was so excited to see the Statue of Liberty. It was his favorite part of the trip.
When we first took off from St. George's port, the city that was in view, I assumed was NYC. I wasn't really thinking that NJ is right across the bay and we would pass by that first. When I looked at the skyline I thought to myself, "This is not nearly as impressive as I remember." Then I figured out I was taking pictures of Jersey City and beyond that was the Big Apple. Novices, what do you expect?
This is right before we docked. The buildings are so huge. After we got off the ferry, we headed to the subway. Luckily, my good friend Marianne had given me a pocket size subway map that we used like a good bible in our travels. I conferred with the subway man about my plan of action when he suggested that we walk to the 911 memorial. He said, "You have young legs(didn't he notice how many pairs of young legs we had?). You should walk so you can see the buall." The What? After a few times and still not understanding we just decided to walk.
Along the way we ran into this little Dutch festival. We tried some dutch cheese and listened to a dutch women tell the history of the Dutch in New York. A side note: We ran into my friends I met on the ferry. Her graying coif in the lower left-hand corner of the photo. She thought we were a family from Scandinavia. Not quite sure why but after some talking it came out that we were Mormons. We had a lovely conversation about how we aren't polygamists and how she is going to find an article about that and print it off to give to all her friends. I am glad she is spreading the good word for us.
As we continued on our way up Broadway, we ran into the "buall" the man at the subway was talking about. It was quite a popular place for a photo opt, especially it's backside for some reason.The site was so busy that we settled for a photo with a random women in it to say that we saw the Merrill Lynch bull. I wouldn't add it to the top 100 things to see in New York but we saw it.
We made it to the 911 site for the memorial. I have to say I was quite disappointed. I thought that there would be more to see at this point but for now it's a large construction zone. I can only imagine what this place was like on 9/11/01. It looked chaotic as a work site it must have been plain crazy that day.
We finally made it to the subway. The kids were enthralled. Jackson loved to get our hearts beating by getting too close to the edge of the platform looking onward for the oncoming train. Jocelyn loved being the enforcer she is and was trying to pull him to safety. I thought this was really going to cause him to propel himself to the tracks below when she let go but we were lucky to have a day free of subway mishaps...actually that is not totally true. I will share a story about this later. It was one of the highlights of our trip for me.
We got off at Time Square which was very busy with people. We went to the Toys-R-Us store which is not like any Toys-R-Us I have ever been to. As you walk into the three story structure, you are greeted by a large Ferris wheel. Unfortunately it wasn't running that day. The kids were so disappointed. They had to settle for just wandering through the store instead.
The doll section was pretty extensive. I think it gave Jocey all sorts of ideas of what to ask for for her birthday. As we were walking to the doll section, an employee was operating a mechanical tarantula. Just as Jocelyn was walking by, she made it start walking. Jocelyn could get a job as a screamer in horror films with that shriek. I was laughing so hard and so was everyone around us.
Lo and behold we lucked out and we ran into Spider man. I didn't hear that you couldn't take pictures with your own camera until after the fact so here is my illegal photo. Something tells me that this photo isn't going to me sold for money. I think they are safe.
John-David was our photographer on Time Square. He took some lovely shots, however when viewing them after we down loaded them, we noticed some advertisements in the background that weren't exactly kosher. To save the good name of the family we give you this photo of the three amigos with Times Square in the background.
Once again we got back on the subway and headed to Lexington and 59Th street to Dylan's Candy bar. Again, I have to say I was disappointed. Dylan's Candy Bar is suppose to be this big candy store with over 5,000 types of candy. I was expecting candy from all over and it to be in a pretty big store. It wasn't a big store and the candy variety wasn't that impressive. The fact that candy was $10.99 a lb was downright ridiculous. Try telling that to our children that we just traipsed across NYC with. We handed them each a bag and they got their little scoop full of candy. We could have gotten way more candy for the price I paid if we had gone to the store around the corner but they were happy so we were happy, right?
Down the stairs again back on the the subway. Another side note: There are very few elevators down to the subways. The subways have multiple flights of stairs. I was worn out more from going up and down the stairs with the stroller than anything. One of the times we were down in the subway, one of them had an escalator. A heaven sent after lifting the stroller up and down 20 flights previously. We all got on the escalator when I looked back and notice Jackson was still at the bottom. This kid loves the escalator and I assumed he was playing on it. I told him to get a move on but notice his feet kept going up but the rest of his body remained stationary on the side. I began walking down the steps and still he remained at the bottom with his feet on the escalator. As I got the bottom I hear "I'm stuck." He has wedged his elbow somehow on the other side of the railing. I really can't describe this to give it justice but it was hilarious. He didn't not get hurt so I am not laughing at the poor misfortune of my child but it still gives me the giggles to even think about it now. It was probably the highlight of the trip or close to and we saw a lot of fun things.

Next we went to Central park to find Belevedre's castle. Central park is huge and finding was a task in itself. Jackson wanted to know if this was an evil castle. Kelsey had finally fell asleep by this time so her and I waited at the bottom while the other three went to check it out.
This is the view from the castle. The green muck in the bottom half of the photo is a pond. Anyone up for a swim? I have seen pictures of this pond before and I think they must have cleaned it for the photos because it didn't quite look like that. All those specks in the background were people. There were a lot of people enjoying the park for the Labor Day holiday.
This was a boat pond for mechanical sail boats. Jackson loved it. I thought people just brought their boats to sail but as we were leaving I discovered that you could rent them. Maybe next time. It did look fun.
Jackson has an obsession with rock climbing. He is always trying to scale any rock that is larger than him. As we wandered through the park we went down various trails, many of them which had large rocks. We discovered this rock wall which Jackson immediately began climbing. Aout 3/4's of the way up he got a little nervous and asked me to help him. I climbed up a little bit and coached him to the top. Many people walked by us and the looks on their faces were definately ones of confusions. In their heads I could tell they were thinking, "I didn't think there was rock climbing in Central Park". We didn't think there was any either but Jackson begged to differ. I had visions of me sliding down the rock wall and getting a trip to the hospital for a broken ankle so I declined Jackson's invitation to follow his lead up over the face of the rock. I was feel that adventerous.

After our Central Park excursion, we headed down 5th Avenue to F.A.O. Schwarz. The was fun to see a lot of high end toys that you don't find in a regular toy store. Of course no visit to F.A.O. Schwarz is complete until you have danced on the large piano they danced on in the movie "Big". This is the entrance to the Apple store in the same plaza with F.A.O. Schwarz. John-David thought it was pretty cool.
We decided it was time to start heading back, so we took the subway to city hall and start meadering back to the ferry.
I expected city hall to be "super-sized" like everything else in New York City but it was pretty average. As we walked dow nto the ferry we decided to get a bite to eat. We found a place that had the most generic pizza and pasta sign outside but we checked it out anyways. After talking to the guy at the front counter, I knew we found a winner. If there is anything that I have learned from my father, I have learned this: When you are at a restaruant, if the cook speaks the same language of the type of food then it will be an authentic meal. Well I couldn't understand a word this Italian guy was saying and the meal was pretty good.
After dinner, we raced back to catch the ferry. Our kids were really sad to go. They had been such good little troopers and complained very little about all the walking that we did and there was a lot. Jocey said while looking out the window of the ferry, "Good bye New York city. I'll miss you". Jackson told me when we got to the car, "that was the funnest city I have never been to". Looks like NYC has some fans.

Rail Fest

This past weekend John-David didn't have to work at all. We wanted to take advantage of this so we tried to do some fun things. On Saturday we ventured to Scranton for Railfest. Scranton is about an hour away and is home to where the show "The Office" is suppose to be based out of. I found out while we were there that the Office has never even been filmed there other than the opening credits for the show. I was a little disappointed but aside from that we went to Steamtown National Historic site for there annual SteamFest.

The museum had a bunch of steam engines and for this special event they invited a bunch of other steam trains to be brought in. We took a picture with this one because it said Lehigh on and we live in the Lehigh Valley.
The museum was a round house just like you would she on Thomas the Train that turns to hook up different engines. You sort of can see what I am talking about in the picture below.
These were a few of the trains they brought in. We were able to walk through some of them. There were a lot of people there who were very passionate about trains. As we walked through some of them, the people would tell us the size of the engine and all it's stats. One train we even got a whole card about it.
We were able to go on a little 30 minute train ride. This was one of the train cars. We actually never left the yard on our ride, we just switched tracks a few times. It was interesting being in the train as it went through the process of switching tracks. A lot of moving back and forth.
Our self portrait on the train ride.
Jocelyn just relaxed on the bench. She felt right at home on the train.
Kelsey loved the trains. She recently has really been into playing with our trains at home. We heard "twains, twains, twains" the whole time. She pointed out every train.
Jackson's favorite thing at the fest was "everything" he said. He loved it all.
There was a large ramp that you walked up so that you would get a few of the entire railroad yard. It was amazing how big the yard was.

From the ramp we were able to get a view of these two steam trains in action. It was really interesting event and we learned a lot about trains.

Tow Path Ride

During the 1800's, canals were used back East as a main source of transporting goods. We are fortunate enough to live not far from the Delaware river and canal where you can take a ride on the once used canal. I love this sort of thing so this past Saturday tried it out.

Here is the boat that we made our voyage in. I believe it was called the Josiah White II but don't quote me on that. Jackson thought it was like Noah's Ark. Maybe but I think the windows on the lower deck would have let too much water in. The happy crew getting ready to push off. I think the kids were a little clueless as to what was happening or what we were doing.
I love Jackson's face in this picture. We just told him that the mule's were going to pull the boat. He was excited about it. John-David looks a little stunned.
Here are the mules that pulled us. They actually didn't have to do a ton of work because the momentum of the boat of the water is what really pushed them along. The mules just help get them started. We learned a lot of facts about mules, tow paths and life of the canal. I am really glad I was born when I was. I wouldn't have made a very good canal wife.
We didn't go very far on the canal but our ride was about 40 minutes long. That was due to the fact the maximum speed per hour is 4 miles. Back in the days of it's use, you would get a speeding ticket if you went to fast.
This is a lock house and the turn around point of our ride. This house was also the canal laundry mat. You could drop your clothes off heading down the river and pick them back up on your trip returning.
Kelsey is always entertaining us. She found playing peek-a-boo was much more entertaining than the boat ride.
Jocelyn and Jackson really liked the ride. Jackson was really excited when they said they had "canalagators" also known as snapping turtles on the river. He never did see one though.
This was the lower level of the boat where they have catered dinners for fall foliage rides. This is where the cargo would have gone like coal. It was fun to learn more about the history of the area. I hope to find more things like this.

Cousins and Blackberries

This week we were able to enjoy two of our favorite things:cousins and blackberries. We had John-David's brother Richard and his family, my cousin Marsh and his family and John-David's sister Alycia and her husband all over for Sunday dinner. Unfortunately I forgot to take more pictures but I did get this picture of Jackson and Marshall junior. Jackson had big plans of things what him and Marshall were going to do once he came. He wanted them to wear batman costumes, climb the tree in the backyard and to play with his evil castle(a cardboard box painted with toilet paper rolls glues to the side, it's very high tech). We took a picture to verify dreams were fulfilled. We had a really fun time with everyone. Maybe next time I'll remember to take pictures.
I never knew that I liked blackberries until I moved to Ohio. One day while wandering the countryside we discovered this lovely blackberry farm. The berries were relatively cheap, we could drive up to the bushes and the berries were good. And so my black berry jam obsession began. I was very sad to leave the blackberry bushes behind as I moved to Pennsylvania but I knew it wouldn't take me long to get the blackberry itch and discover a new blackberry patch. I found one about 10 miles from my house. Today, myself and my 3 side kicks ventured to this new patch.
My first worker wasn't too interested in working but thought that dumping the berries out was fun or carrying the full containers to me was really helpful. She got fired.

My second worker was good, for the time he worked. He doesn't like fruit so he wasn't a threat to decreasing the bounty we were collecting which was a bonus. He decided to try one which is a very bold move for him but I figured it was going to go south, which literally it did. He took one bite and spit it out. Obviously his spitting aim isn't great because the hem of his shirt caught the berry remnants. Well, there went that worker. He was done for the day because he had berries on his shirt which he was too mad to work. I think he was Union anyhow. Now my third worker was a real gem. She told me that she wasn't even going to eat one berry and that is saying a lot for my fruit bat. Aside from the fact her feet got wet which was too much for her to handle she really pulled through for the team. She stayed with me the whole twenty minutes it took to pick our berries. Although I think I must of worn her out because while she was helping me mash the berries when we got home she said, "Why don't we just buy jam?" Apparently she didn't think this labor intensive process of making jam was fun. Some people's kids!

Despite what all the nay sayers say, at least I will enjoy yet another year of blackberry jam.

Goldie Locks

I grew up having my mom put pink curlers in my hair on Saturday night so Sunday I could look like I stuck my finger in the electrical socket. I, of course wanted my daughter to have this same experience and decided to try it last night. I have been hesitant to try because Jocelyn cries to have her hair done but she was actually excited to have her hair put in pink curlers. I highly expected to be awaken in the night by a screaming child telling me that the curlers hurt her head but much to my surprise no.

Here is Jocelyn with all the curlers in the her hair. Jackson was a stronger supporter of the curling. I personally think he thought this was a form of torture for a girl and wanted to see what was going to happen. He kept saying, "I like it when we put stuff in Jocelyn's hair". I am curios as to what things he is planning to put in her hair in the future. Here is the lioness freshly decurlerized. It was just the finger in the socket look we were going for. She reminds me of my sister Melissa in this picture. Melissa loved the lioness look too:)Kelsey wanted her picture taken also. She had the wild mane look minus the curls. It's not that we neglect Kelsey's hair but she doesn't exactly like anything in it. Today was an all time record of keeping a bow in hair for the entire duration of church. I don't think that has ever happen. Jocey is all ready to go to church. I think we'll carry on the pink curler tradition for another generation.