Best Friends and Great Food in NYC

While there isn't a blow out international trip this summer, we did manage an excursion to NYC.  Luis and Jack dropped Maya and I off at the Amtrak station in Philly.  They spent the afternoon in Philly eating cheese steak and visiting museums before going to Monmouth, NJ to participate in a reenactment..

 They hauled a cannon over the hills and through the woods....

 Jack is now considered a musician in the North Carolina 6th, thanks to excellent training by his middle school band teacher!

 Luis is the company commander and this is his rag tag crew, fighting the British.

So while they slept under a tarp and ate corn cakes off of a shovel, Maya and I spent a fabulous weekend in NYC visiting a very dear friend of mine that I have known since high school.  Anytime I can ride a train or a subway I feel happy.

 First night's dinner was at Momofuku where the specialty is a bun.  Like a Japanese taco I suppose.

 First thing in the morning we got on the F train to take in the view from the top of 30 Rockefeller Center   was amazing and so worth the money!  The subway has a stop right under the building so its very easy to find.  Its better than the Empire State Building because you can SEE the Empire State Building.  There it is in the background.

 

 Since the Lego store is right there we couldn't resist going in.

 Prince Street Pizza was recommended by my friend, and it was indeed the best square we ever had. 

 Walking around Chinatown looked and smelled like I was walking in any country in Asia. 

We ate Vietnamese pho soup, which was super good.

We played in Union Square Park, which,  like everywhere we went in the city, was absolutely packed with people. 

 We took a little quiet reading break in the bookstore.

 The Chelsea Market  was all hip and trendy like a magazine.  It did look like a nice gourmet and pricy place to get your picnic snacks for a walk on the Highline.

We spent a lovely afternoon walking on The Highline  with our friends.  An old elevated train track converted into a beautiful public space.

Because she loves to read, we took a reading break.

Dinner at  The Park was just perfect, with this artisan cheese board as an appetizer.

 Another ambitious walk, this time over the Brooklyn Bridge to the DUMBO  area. 

 A ride on Jane's Carousel was just $2.  That's pretty incredible for New York.

Dinner at Tacombi was quite good.  There's an old VW bus taco truck in the middle of the dining room that whips up the tacos.

 A highlight was a trip to the Big Gay Ice Creap Shop where the best thing on the menu is called a salty pimp.  Its fun to order a dessert called a salty pimp.  There's a unicorn mural painted on the wall that has been bedazzled with rhinestones.



It was so yummy we went there twice!

So when the boys arrived we stayed another day and brought them to 30 Rockefeller Center and Prince Street Pizza.

Really the best part was catching up with my old friend and getting to know his wife and son better.  They were generous to put us up for the weekend and show us around to all these cool places.  We are hoping to show them some southern hospitality in the near future!

Building a Fort

Every kids needs a fort.  From blankets to branches to whatever, a little place to build and set it up into your own space seems like a normal kid thing to do.  My brother recently visited us and spent several days in the woods working on a fort masterpiece.

Mixing the mud mortar of pine straw, forest debris, dirt, and water.

 An opportunity to get along and work together, even if it only lasted a few minutes.

 Starting to come together.

 A place for their collection of found objects in the forest. A turtle shell, broken glass, plant fiber twine, and some nails.

 Getting muddy in the pit.

Tending a small fire.

Building a fort is summer.

Question Answered

And the winner is.....a fabulous and exotic adventure to the orthodontist for my 8th grader!  The itinerary includes monthly visits to get hardware tightened followed by soft foods and complaining!  Can't wait!

All sarcasm aside, we decided to take a summer off from a big trip.  I am a little sad by it but on the bright side we can relax for weeks and weeks and rejuvenate ourselves for the school year to come.  I am looping back to sixth grade after spending 3 years with the same students helping (?!?!) them to navigate (survive) middle school.  I start the 2013 school year with a new group of kiddos, all fresh faced and scared, right out of elementary school.  I like sixth graders, they still have some little kid left if them, but not too much.  They are still excited about life and want to be around adults.  However, they are like baby sharks.  Cute and adorable, until you stick your hand in the tank to pet them, then they will not hesitate to chomp it off.  This is my veteran middle school teacher husband's analogy.  

A summer at home has many silver linings. For one, I will finally be around to tend the garden.  By the time we return from abroad each summer the thing looks like a jungle.

 The raised boxes have a few varieties of eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes.  Growing up the string trellis are pole beans.  There is also lots and lots of basil which I will make into a year's worth of pesto.

 Flowers in the sunniest spot of the yard attract bees and butterflies.  We grow parsley and fennel for the swallowtails which support 3-4 generations of butterflies each summer.

The pineapple guava tree bloomed recently.  If we are lucky we will have fruits!

Sky blue hydrangeas fill the yard.  Love.

We will also be around to observe the barred owls that live in the woods behind our house.

You can just see the owl at the top of the picture below.

And we will have more time to climb trees.

The kids can practice getting along with one of the only activities they enjoy doing together, playing minecraft.

I'm sure we'll go to the beach a lot and have friends over for dinner.  It's going to be a very relaxing summer!

The Question on Everyone's Mind

After the New Year, every acquaintance, friend, and coworker I run into wants to know where we are planning to go this summer. Its a right of passage for this family to go to some far flung place for weeks and live out of a backpack in a foreign land on a crazy cheap budget. We have been living a dream that was a decade in the making. Our family travel resume includes Costa Rica 2009, Peru 2010, Dominican Republic 2011, and Colombia 2012.
Right around this time of year, for the past four years, I usually begin to dream and plan where we will escape to for three weeks this summer. I start looking at costs, trolling travel blogs, studying flight price patterns and investigating the logistics of visas and vaccinations. I often have a list of places we are considering and a mixture of angst and excitement about each one. When people ask me about where we are going in the summer I really love telling them. I have really liked being this family that stretches itself into experiencing other cultures and countries, that takes 15 hour bus rides, eats street food for dinner, and sleeps in dumpy hotels to be able to afford the whole thing.
This year's answer is different and not exciting at all. When I say it it comes out as a long story and people really don't want to hear it. Our choices this year don't reflect our family dream but instead indicate that detours and circumstances get in the way of dreams and plans. People don't really care to hear about it, it's boring.
But since you are here you must want to know. There are a few answers to the excitement saturated query of "So, where are you guys going this year?"
Answer 1: We are going to the orthodontist! Our middle schooler needs braces this summer and the cost just about equals the cost of an international trip (around 6k).
Answer 2: If Luis gets accepted into the principal fellows program we are not going anywhere because the opportunity comes with a 10k pay cut. Not only will we stay home this summer, but also the next and likely the following summer as well. A 10k pay cut is pretty significant. It curtails our ability to save for an international trip and retirement for that matter. We are looking at two very lean years ahead if he gets this fellowship. Jet setting to South America will not be in the cards. Although, we still will be eating a lot of rice and beans. Very few applicants receive this fellowship so my doom and gloom prediction is likely unwarranted. We won't know anything until April or May.
Answer 3: We are talking about taking a driving trip out west to visit national parks. A few ideas are being thrown around....northern California and the redwood forest, or deserts of the southwest like grand canyon, slot canyon, four corners etc, or Yellowstone National Park. To keep the cost under 3k we would have to camp every night. Luis has been wanting an American trip for quite a while. I have been fighting it tooth and nail. It's expensive! And it's the opposite of adventurous. It's touristy. It's too damn easy. It's boring and predictable. Luis is about ready to say its an American national park trip or nothing. I can feel it. He wants to issue an ultimatum. Maybe if I just give in this once I won't have to do it again. Just get it over with. I feel like such a bitch.
Answer 4: Two weeks in Las Galeras, Dominican Republic staying in that off the beaten path dirt cheap bungalow hiking to deserted beaches and reading a stack of novels in a hammock. This trip we could do for 3k including airfare. I dream about going back to the DR. I was so happy and relaxed there that I even forgot what I do for a living, and thats really saying something. Going to the dominican republic feels indulgent when I consider the need for braces, the possibility of a substantial paycut, and the fact that I need to throw in the towel and let my husband choose where we go for once.
Answer 5: We are skipping a year because we are saving to go to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup. This is my soccer obsessed son's dream. From what I know about the costs of traveling to Brazil and the likely price inflations of the world cup I can't imagine how we would afford this trip even without any of the previous answers! It would take three years of saving and not traveling in the summer. It will be impossible if Luis gets that fellowship.
So you can see that I don't have an exotic answer this year. I don't usually go into detail for most people, I usually just joke around and say we are going to the orthodontist. It gets a good laugh and takes the pressure off, plus it is true. Nothing can be considered until we find out about the fellowship program in the spring.
The fact that these are champagne problems is not lost on me. Despite my rant I don't see the glass as half empty or half full, But I am grateful to have a glass.