Election Day

How we spent our Election Day: Alexis had the day off from school, and (since my mother can't drive due to a broken ankle) since we had access to a car, I took the girls out to Prospect Park in Brooklyn. We first stopped at the Prospect Park Zoo for some good animal observing. The trees seem to be peaking in their color changing and it was a gorgeous day to be outside.


Right next to the zoo sits an old Dutch house, Lefferts Historic House. We've never been there before so we were excited to see what it had to offer.

Since it was Election Day, they were holding a special election for kids. First they had to register, so this woman explained the procedure: write down your name, the street you live on, and your age.

Lexi filled out her voter registration all by herself:

Then she was given a ballot and went behind a curtain/partition where there was a little podium she could use to make her selection for President:

She made her selection without any outside influences:

The final step was placing it in the ballot box :

She also participated in a craft- making election signs! Can you tell that her sign says "Vote for Mommy"? Too bad I really don't want to be president of the U.S. of A.

Even on a typical day, the Lefferts house is a great place to visit. It's basically a historical house museum for kids. They have lots of period toys and activities like pumping water from a barrel (with a real pump that you have to prime), walking on stilts, running with hoops, potato sack races and the like. Here Ella is testing out a bed with a straw mattress. By this point she was so tired I think she would have slept there if I had let her.

The Plank Road was one of the girls' favorite exhibits at the house. It was built here to recall a wooden plank road built in 1855 on the Flatbush-Fulton Road (now part of Flatbush Ave). John Lefferts (whose home is now the museum) was one of the investors in the company that built the plank road and charged tolls to use it. This was one of the many plank roads built throughout the nation around that time offering farmers in villages like Flatbush a faster, mud- and rut-free way to take produce to market.

This is what the tolls along the plank road looked like.

Later in the evening, Matt and I voted at a local elementary school and then headed over to Ben and Jerry's for their free scoop of ice cream promotion. It was a long line, out the door around the corner and down almost half a long-block, but we only ended up waiting for 6 minutes.

I ended the day visiting my friend Mackenzie who gave birth to baby Sam on Election Day morning- a momentous day to be born! Congratulations, Doug & Mackenzie!

Halloween

Have you ever seen this bit by Jerry Seinfeld? It's his rant about candy and how when you're a kid all you want to do is get candy and then you find out about Halloween and you're amazed that people will just give you candy... for FREE.
Here's a clip....It starts about 25 seconds into the video:

When the routine gets to about 1:10, Seinfeld describes exactly the reaction Alexis had to Halloween this year. It was like she didn't remember doing this the past couple of years. Here in the city, we trick-or-treat in businesses. She was really hesitant to go into any stores, even with me and a whole throng of kids entering and exiting with her. Finally I said, "Okay, maybe Ella wants to do it." And then I took Ella into a store where she picked up the routine right away. Walk in store. Choose candy from candy bowl nice person is holding. Put candy in bag. Walk out. Go into next store. By about the third store Alexis decided that she couldn't be outdone by her little sister, so she went in with Ella. As soon as she walked out of the store she yelled, "Daddy! It's FREE! The candy is FREE!" with all the gusto she could manage. We laughed and said, "Yes! That's what we've been trying to tell you!"

This year we went to the Upper West Side to trick-or-treat. First, we had dinner at the new Shake Shack (just as delicious and indoors). Then we headed to the huge block party on West 69th Street. On our way we hit up the stores for candy (and they gave me coupons & free samples!) By the time we got to W 69th, the place was packed. The police had blocked off the street and it was just one huge party. Many of the houses were festively decorated and almost all of them were giving out candy. We saw Batman and Spiderman climbing down the front of one of the Brownstones. We met Dora the Explorer and Diego. Ella danced to Thriller & Beat It (by Micheal Jackson). And we got candy got candy got candy! So much that Ella's bag was too heavy for her and she ended up dragging it along the street.

Coming home to check out the loot:

Interestingly enough, Alexis is not a big candy consumer. She's hesitant to try anything new and really only likes M&Ms and Hershey's chocolate stuff. She got an AirHead from somewhere and was almost scared of it, it seemed. When I told her that they were good and that I used to love them when I was a kid she asked me if I wanted it. I told her I'd eat it later and for the rest of the night she'd hold onto it and ask me over and over if I wanted it yet. I think more than anything her curiosity was overwhelming her- what does this AirHead thing look like?! Mom used to love them?! Why won't she eat it already?! I finally indulged her and forced myself to eat it just so she would stop asking me. She watched me very intently as I ate and that was the end of that. Anyway, I only got pictures of Ella sorting her loot because Alexis wasn't really interested in checking out her spoils at all. She just put her bag on a hook by the door and went off to do her own thing. Ella, on the other hand, sat down on the couch and promptly pulled each piece out of her bag, examined it, and tried to open a few.

Change

In the first floor window of our building....

Lucky #8

Lots & Lots of updating to do.... stay tuned! And, of course the posts will be backdated.... But first, a game of tag .... I was tagged by Jenni and Rebecca so here is a little more info about me in the form of 8s...

8 tv shows I love to watch…

Friday Night Lights
Survivor
LOST
(we don't have a TV, so that's the extent of my TV shows)


8 favorite restaurants…
Shake Shack (they have a new UWS location!)
Lupa
Sosa Borella
In-N-Out
Bombay House
Grimaldi's
Dinosaur BBQ
La Tolteca (Azusa, CA)


8 things that happened yesterday
Went to Lunch Bunch at the church
Talked to the guys at the garage about parking my mother's car there for the next month
Took care of my mother & her broken ankle
Boiled 5 pots of water so I could wash all the dishes and grumbled the whole time about the lack of heat & hot water in our building
Washed my hair in ice cold water (bent over the side of the tub)
Ordered Dinosaur BBQ take out for dinner (so I didn't have more dishes to do)
Took my mother to Costco
Went to bed at 9:30 PM


8 things I love about this fall
Running in Central Park
Cooler weather
Matt's teaching schedule starting a little later- so he can take Lexi to school in the morning
Lexi learning Spanish (at school)
Free events
The colors in the trees
Season 3 of Friday Night Lights (although I can't watch it until Feb)
Spending time with family & friends

Things on my wish list…
For my children to make good choices
A house!
To be debt free
A trip to Spain
To know who to vote for on Tuesday
A little more weight loss
Money to fly to Utah to see all my hermanitas
A new (awesome) vacuum- a Dyson, perhaps?

8 Things I am looking forward to…
Thanksgiving in Elmira
The *special* Stake Conference with Elder Holland
Running in Central Park
A long, hot shower
My mother's ankle healing
Eating at the Shake Shack followed by the Halloween party on 69th street
Owning a home
Our next tax refund


8 people I tag…Matt, Sheridan, Jessica, (Irish) Karen, Lisa, Melanie, Andrea, Erin

Pumpkin Sail

Over the weekend we were lucky to have Nanny and Pop-pop visit us! They drove down hauling a couch for my mother (who just moved into a new apartment) and then stayed to see Lexi is the Primary program at church and do some Halloween activities with us. Pop-pop has a small pumpkin garden that he tends during the spring & summer so that he can share the pumpkins with friends during the fall. He brought down 4 pumpkins for us and helped Alexis to carve one.

Here Alexis is planning her pumpkin carving (by drawing it out on the paper):

Then Pop-pop cuts out the top:

And removes all the seeds (which we were sure to toast up & snack on later):

Then Dad & Pop-pop follow Alexis' design to bring her pumpkin to life:

On Sunday, we went down to the Harlem Meer to participate in the great Pumpkin Sail. Here are the girls with their pumpkins prior to sending them out on the water:

This was the collection table for pumpkins. Anyone who wanted could bring an already carved pumpkin and set it on the table. From here, volunteers would attach the pumpkins to previously assembled barges and send them in a golf cart to the other side of the Meer (which is basically just a really large pond). When we set down Ella's pumpkin, several people ooh-ed and ahh-ed over it and it got picked right up and set on a barge and loaded into the golf cart before I could even snap a picture! We were glad to know it would get sent out on the water, though. There were so many pumpkins that not all of them made it out.

Lined up awaiting transport to the far side of the lake:

This woman plays the musical saw. A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical saw. The sound created is an ethereal tone, very similar to a woman's clear voice. It was sort of eerie and appropriate for a Halloween celebration. This particular performer's site is here.

Grandma Susan broke her ankle (in a fluke accident while at the gym) only 3 days before this. We convinced her to join us on our adventure and she was a trooper hobbling through Central Park on her crutches!

Grandma, Nanny & Pop-pop

When they finally launched the pumpkins, we were disappointed to discover that without some sort of breeze/wind, there was no way they would float in our direction. For the most part, they just sort of floated where they were placed in the water and formed a big cluster of pumpkins. All the photos I took were really dark, so I'll just include one I found on the web so you get the idea. It was really quite delightful, and so fun to see our *holey* pumpkin out there on the water with light shining. Alexis' didn't make it out on the water, but she spotted it sitting on the grass close by (on a barge, even!). Before we left home she was hesitant to set her pumpkin out to sail. She said several times how she didn't really want to put it on the water. "I want to keep it!" She even wrote her name on it with permanent marker (which made identifying it later that evening a piece of cake). When she saw it on the grass she said, "Look! They didn't put my pumpkin in the water. Maybe they saw my name and knew I didn't want it to go out!"

In The Heights

There is a show on Broadway right now called In The Heights. I've wanted to see this show since it was just a baby production off-Broadway. It's set in my 'hood, you see. Washington Heights. It was nominated for 13 Tony Awards in 2008 and actually won 4 awards: Best Musical, Best Choreography, Best Original Score, and Best Orchestrations. Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the show & also stars in it. He was born and raised in the Heights (technically Inwood, but whatever). It is a wonderful story about a block of neighbors during one summer weekend and explores life in the Dominican-American neighborhood- their hopes and dreams and trials and joys and sorrows. I enjoyed seeing and feeling the things most of my neighbors must see and feel as they live their entire lives here in this corner of Manhattan and make sacrifices for their children to have a better life. The score features hip-hop, salsa, merengue and soul music and the singing and dancing were incredible. There are lots of little Spanish sentences thrown into the dialogue, too, which I loved!

And my friend Morgan was able to get us affordable tickets, so she and I had a girls night at the theatre.

Here's a photo of the set- that's the beloved George Washington Bridge in the background- and the obligatory Heights' businesses: on the left, a car service, and on the right a bodega & a hair salon. And if you look closely in the lower right corner you'll even see the entrance for the A train at 181st Street. (this photo from the show's website)

A Day with Friends

Stefanie and I were roommates at BYU during our freshman year. And, we couldn't quite remember, but we think it's been about 8 or 9 years since we last saw each other. She came to visit her sister (who recently relocated to CT), and they decided to take a trip into the city for a day. Ella & I were able to meet up with them and spend several hours catching up. It was grand!

We started out at the Central Park Zoo. Here are the kids climbing on an eagle:

And being a little baby in a shell:

Then we headed over to the carousel:

Elle & Ella on the carousel (Alexis was at school):

Then we took a walk down Broadway into Times Square where we had to part ways. It was so great to see you again, Stef!

I saw Mayor Bloomberg at a press conference at the new TKTS booth.

And I also got a glimpse of the Naked Cowboy (that's the first time I've ever seen him in person). He's an Ameican Busker and prominent fixture of Times Square. His routine consists of playing guitar wearing only cowboy boots, a hat, and underwear briefs, with the guitar strategically placed to give the illusion of nudity.

Truth be told, I don't got to Times Square very often. It's cool if you've never seen it before, but there are too many people and it's hard to navigate the sidewalks when you're just walking, nevermind if you have a stroller in tow as I usually do.