Greener Pastures: New York 2011

It all began with Christmas morning. Here's Mike perusing his stocking while Vardemis watches intently. Samantha was at work in Asheville on Christmas morning and Chelsea was at home. We waited for Sam and Chelsea before opening gifts.

The first gift I opened was from Teecie. LOVE IT! Thanks, Teecie. It's perfect....

Sam's showing off her new bling. Nice necklace!

You may think socks and underwear is a lame gift, but Mike counts on it!

Chelsea also got some bling. Here she is showing it off.

Bill envied the knife we got Sarah, so I snuck back and got him one just like it. He was pleased and surprised.

I've wanted one of these for a long time! When you've got, say, raw chicken all over your hands, you don't want to go around touching things. Not even a soap dispenser. Thank you, Kathryn!!

Bill looked fabulous in his new red sweater.

Sam loves her new gold bag...

Good book! As it turned out, it takes about as long to read this book as it does to drive to New York (daylight/reading hours).

Sam got Mike a sweater vest. Mike got Sam a onesie, which as you can see, she has already put on. He also got her a snuggie since she's always so cold. She should keep warm now!

Mike says "Oh, cool hat!"

Even cooler - it has built in speakers and an ipod hookup!! He's amazed and happy about this.

The kids all received cold weather wear. Furry things. Here they are modelling them.

ALL CLAD!!! Hey, thanks Bill!!!

And a Viking stand mixer!!! I wanna bake something now!

Chelsea's phone has been broken-but-still-usable for a long time. So here's a new one.

Sam and Mike amidst the debris.

Flash forward to the next day. We leave around 5 am and drive to New York. Here's our first view of the city.

After a bit of rest and visiting with Bill's sister and her boyfriend and his kids, the next day was about shopping and cooking. Bill rented a lovely house on Long Island near his mom's place.

Michael with Bill's sister, Mary, and her son Evan. This dog came with the boyfriend.....

This is Bill's sister, Dorrie, with her extremely nice boyfriend, Neil. It was great to see them.

I was busy cooking on this day and Sam was photographer. I like this picture of Neil and Dorrie very much. Good job, Sam!

Next day, we headed into the city. This train was EXTREMELY packed. The conductor never even came by to check tickets.

Here we are, coming up out of Penn Station.

Samantha's about to see New York City for the first time.

We emerge onto Fifth Avenue.

And goodness! It is crowded!!!

We wander for a bit. It's freezing cold and it's windy. We seek shelter here - in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

It's a little crowded, but it's warm and it's beautiful.

Sam and Mike take a pew, while Bill and Chelsea wait patiently....

Sam and Mike checking out the ceiling of the cathedral.

Bill and Chelsea take a load off and pose for a group picture. I will say, it took about 5 takes to get this picture, as one person or another was either not ready or making a face... Ah, good times...

Each of the kids got to choose one New York thing they wanted to do. Samantha chose ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza. This was not to be. Here we are just above the rink, which was closed for the Zamboni and also ridiculously crowded. And cold and windy. Did I mention that???

We all agreed that the tree was sort of lame this year. We expected something larger. Grander.

Samantha saw Puss In Boots and had to get a picture with him.

OK, a picture or two.... :)

Sam gets a NY hot dog from the street vendor!

Chelsea, Bill, and I also got hot dogs. Mike got a great big pretzel!

At the risk of sounding like a whiner, I will say it was COLD COLD COLD and WINDY WINDY WINDY in Times Square. It was practically unrecognizable, also, since they had set up the grand stands and all the other crap in preparation for the dropping of the ball on New Year's Eve.

We sought warmth at the Museum of Natural History, which was Mike's Number One Thing to Do in New York City. Here he is perusing an exhibit.

The rock wall in the previous picture? I was pretty impressed by it till I saw it from the side. Huh. Fiberglass or something.... That's disappointing...

Here's Chelsea and Samantha posing up in front of the Wooly Mammoth exhibit. Elephants, see??

And here they are with a giant tusk. Can you just imagine the size of the animal that grew this tusk?

Bill in front of the gorilla exhibit. These exhibit photos all look like paintings or something in the pictures, but in real life they are 3-D exhibits behind glass. Weird effect, at any rate. (Nice red sweater Bill!)

Michael was way into the weapons displays.

Samantha and Michael are looking at a very, very old copy of the Koran. Mike's amazed and awed. Sam's a little confused....

More weapons!

Masks of past dynasties had Michael intrigued.

This guy was among the displays of Islamic women's clothing.

This sign was on a strangely placed door. It was right in the middle of a stairwell. It strikes me as funny, although no one else thought it was funny. (And yes, for God's sake, I do know that herpetology has nothing to do with herpes.... Sheesh...)

Viciousness!

Look at this giant prehistoric relative of the moose! See the little guy down there? Somehow, I thought the skeleton was scaled down and the little guy represented how big a moose is today, with the skeleton representing - proportionally - how big the prehistoric one was. "Wonder how big those things were!" Duh...

Look at those teeth!

A bunny crossed with a deer???

Sam and Mike do vicious...

Mike with some armadillo type creature. And Chelsea photo-bombing in the back :)

Mike's hand on a 70 million year old fossil!

Samantha kisses one guy while, unbeknownst to her, another little guy is kissing her.

Chelsea studies a dinosaur.

Duck lips in front of a platypus relative.

Michael. Disgusted by my stupidity about the size of the moose.

The ascent of man, in front of the primate exhibit...

Grand Central Station.

These fabulous donuts were in a bakery inside grand central.

Chelsea craved these the whole time we were up there! Tried to get back to eat one, but it just never worked out.

The Art of Shaving? A whole store to do with shaving accoutrements?

We ate dinner at a bbq place that advertised down home southern cooking. It was really good, too! This sign was inside.

Samantha and Chelsea are a store window display!

They looked so good, a woman on the street stopped while I was taking this picture to say she thought they were really realistic mannequins.

Next we headed out to the Empire State Building. Here we are approaching it.

Sam walking up to the Empire State Building...

OK, I may have taken too many pictures of Sam on top, but that's what she wanted - a picture of her up there with New York in the background. Bill and Chelsea were there, but waited patiently while we, the tourists in the bunch, took in the view.

Yeah, Mike wore the headphone hat out and about in the city :)

The lobby.

Next day we hit up Port Jefferson. It was a quaint, cute little town with much shopping. We had a great time there.

Wonderful cheese shop. Here I am perusing the cheeses...

An old fashioned phone booth proved an irresistable posing place.

This memorial looked pretty with the sunset reflecting off of it.

That night, Chelsea headed out to the mall and Mike built us a fire. Upon her return, we played Monopoly. Sam claimed the win, although we didn't finish the game. We planned to play again, but it was not to be. That's ok, though... Fun night. This was a really good day.

Here we are waiting for the train the next morning, to take us back into the city. See the sign? It shows the direction to NY, then the direction to everything else...

Ha ha.... Hitchhiking.

Poor Sam... Sleepy. Took a nap on the train.

Here we are in Chinatown. Hoping to get a deal on a few things.

This billboard was in Chinatown.

The crowd approaches.

Bill and Mike outside a shop, while Chelsea looks on.

On the subway....

Next we headed to Battery Park. Bill and Chelsea lead the way.

Bill and Mike. See the Statue of Liberty back there over Mike's shoulder?

Me and my kids and Lady Liberty.

This is a really cool memorial to service men and women that stands in the middle of Battery Park.

Next we headed to a pizza place to meet up with Bill's sisters and some other people. There was a 30 minute wait, so we took the opportunity to take some pictures out in the street.

Mmmmmm... New York pizza with sausage and peppers. Delicious!

Chelsea's ready to eat it!

The kid to the left is not too happy to be there, I don't think :)

Here we are on Wall St. The big bull was behind these fences due to vandalism by the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

It was pretty crowded out there!

Ha ha... Chelsea cradles the bulls balls....

Sam and the group are buying some gloves from this street vendor.

This is the oldest park in NY. Bowling Green. It was established in 1736!

Bill and Chelsea in Bowling Green.

Check out this crane way up in the air! Does NOT look safe at all.

Zucotti Park and the few Occupiers who stayed over the holidays. It, too, was cordoned off.

There were only a few protesters there.

Samantha wanted her picture with this bevy of cops.

Random mattress on the sidewalk....

Mike and Sam heading to Ground Zero.

Here they are in front of the 9-11 Memorial. The shiny buildings are the replacements for the twin towers. Some are complete, some are not.

Looks like a poster or something! Here they are, waiting for our time to go in. You get tickets to go in and they give you a time you can go in.

Amazing picture, right?

Awwww... A girl and her daddy...

The names were lasered into the marble. Incredible.

Here's me and Mike in front of one of the pools.

This is a picture of a pool. It cannot possibly show the eerie grandeur the pools have. The square in the middle is where the water is running down into. The walls are also covered with flowing water.