Pictures

A couple tid-bits...

Did I mention that in a city of 7 million people there's no demand for a country radio station? Not a single one!

Did you know anytime you enter the city (either on a bridge or through a tunnel) you have to pay a $6 toll? There's no charge to leave - just a charge to get back in.

Evidentally, if you live in NYC, you either vacation in the Hamptons or in Florida. Since we don't have a trust fund - we'll be vacationing in Florida this summer.

Griffin had his first "Greek School" play on Friday. He dressed in traditional Greek cosume and sang a song in Greek. It was in celebration of Greek Independence Day.

Macy is getting so big and is into everything! She is so different than Griffin was at this age! She is a total drama queen (shocker) and loves her baby dolls and playing "dress up".

Gettin' out of town

Saturday we got a wild hair. We decided to rent a car and head to the mountains! Bear Mountain, that is. Home of the best outlet mall I've ever been to (and I've been to a few). Our friends the Gullette's came too (in their own car - they're a family of five). We caravaned up to Woodbury Commons on the winding (and a little bit scary) streets. We arrived to find the most exquisite shops on cobblestoned streets with a beautiful mountain backdrop. What a day we had! We let the kids run like wild beasts - and we shopped till we dropped (actually until they kicked us out at 6:00). The stores were not your typical "outlet" stores. Some of my favorites were - Oilily, Theory, Juicy, and Kate Spade. We didn't have time to see it all... but we were very impressed with what we did see (and buy).
After leaving the outlets we headed to the neighborhood Chili's! Isn't it crazy that after being in NY with all these great restaurants, I was actually thrilled about the prospect of eating at Chili's! A big part of the appeal is the free refills and great kids menu!
We had to wait a while for a table for 9, but the kids were great. We spent 2 hours at Chili's and decided to wrap up the trip with a visit to Target (afterall - we had rented the car for 24 hours - why not make the most of it). We closed down Target at 10:00 and headed back to The City.
We've found that sometimes we have to "get away" and breathe the fresh air so the hustle & bustle doesn't get to us!

St. Patty's in NY

We weren't able to make it to the parade on 5th Ave., so we decided we'd get a babysitter and enjoy an "adult" celebration of St. Patrick's Day. Who knew we lived on the hottest street in town?? 2nd Ave. is known for it's Irish Pubs and HUGE St. Patrick's Day crowds. We teamed up wtih Kelly & Mark (7A) and started with dinner at Doc Watson's - just two blocks from our house. It was extremely crowded - but we knew that was going to be the norm, so we decided to stay. We pushed our way past the drunken fools and finally reached the restaurant portion of the bar. I was feeling somewhat anxious at this point. Just a hunch - but I was thinking "This place was way over capacity and what would we do if there was a fire". Boy am I old!
We sat down - ate and drank some Irish Beer (actually I had Miller Light, I'm not that adventurous) and decided to move to our next stop. Our goal was to see some Live Irish Music - but at this point it wasn't looking too promising. We hopped around to 3 or 4 more Irish Pubs in the area that were absolutely packed to the gills and finally resolved that the "live music" thing wasn't going to happen. At about 11:00pm we decided to eat again! So we went to yet another pub for some more greasy fried food and beer. I however, was finished with beer. I'm not a huge beer person anyway, but was trying to hang in there for a while. Three Miller Lights was as far as I got.
At this point I was hoping our friends might be as tired as I was... but no such luck - we were off to another pub. I can literally count on one hand the times I've been "bar hopping" and even less than that - the times I actually enjoyed bar hopping. I would have been great with a plate of Italian Food and glass of red wine... but in the spirit of the holiday - I was a good sport!
We finished up the night in apt. 7-A making chocolate chip cookies at 1:30am.
Overall - it was a fun night and I know Chris enjoyed the tasty Irish Beers on tap.
The next morning came way too early with Griffin pulling our covers off and literally opening our eyelids and saying "get up mommy" "get up daddy"!

Four Months - Can you believe it?

Sorry it's taken me so long to post a new entry. I'm admitting now to all, I'm totally over-committed (but enjoying every minute of it).

I thought the transition from suburbia to big city was going to be harder than it actually has been. Thus - from the moment we moved in - I've made a major effort to reach out to people and get "involved". No... this wasn't a stretch for me... I love to be "social". But I did anticipate it taking us longer than this to acclimate to a totally new life.

Since moving here four months ago - our lives have been filled with many blessings. We found (and joined) an amazing church... Manhattan Christian Church (www.nychristian.com). Through this church, we (all four of us) are developing wonderful friendships and deepening our Christian faith. Our church does so many amazing things for our community - we knew from the beginning we wanted to be a part of it.

I've also made great friends in our building and Chris has re-connected with friends from his batchelor days. All of the sudden, before we knew it, we had this very full social life. Chris has friends to play basketball with.... the kids have playdates coming out the wahzoo... and I'm in two supper clubs, one book club and a church community group. Not to mention we're nearing Guinness Book Record stats for seeing the most Broadway shows in one year.

Okay - so don't get the wrong idea. No matter how great this sounds - NYC will never compare to our life at home, in Dallas. I don't want this email to make you sad (talking to you here, mom). I really just thought I owed many of you an explanation as to why I've been such a bad correspondant since moving here. There's so much to see and do and before I know it the days get away from me. This is such a fast-paced life and as I've menitoned before - we are very rarely at home in our apartment. So please please forgive me if I'm not so good at returning emails and/or phonecalls. Always know that no matter what - nothing or no one could ever take the place of our family and precious friends.