New York, New York

Last week Bry and I went to Manhattan, NY for 4 days. Bryan had a work conference and I just tagged along. Luckily Bry's company picked up the tab to our swanky hotel near Central Park. I slept it, wandered around the city, went shopping, waited in line for cheap tickets, and went running in Central Park whilst Bryan was in conference. On his lunch hour and at the end of the day, we had a lovely time walking to places, seeing shows, going to the temple, eating good and not so good food, and tandem biking around Central Park! I think the general theme for the trip was, "Oops, I forgot the camera again," therefor, we have very few pictures to show for our adventures.

In one of our "I forgot the camera" moments, we decided to rent a tandem bike and tour around the park. I pulled a random photo of a unsuspecting couple off the internet to illustrate the forthcoming story. We decided tandem biking was not for us. Why? Because we are both so bull-headed it was hard to enjoy ourselves and work together. We started out with me in the front, which totally didn't work because the heaviest person ends up steering with their weight. I would turn one way but if Bry wasn't leaning that way as well, we wouldn't turn. After becoming very frustrated and almost missing lots of pedestrians in the park, Bry took the front seat. This was also frustrating because I was at his mercy completely as far as steering, stopping and going. He took off without me once (I bailed when I realized I was about to fall). It ended up working better and we were able to make it all the way around the park.

We saw "Wicked," a show I have wanted to see for years. We got partial view seats, which means we were sitting on the very end of a row and our view of some of the scenes was obstructed, but they were almost 50% off, so it was worth it! Both Bry and I liked the show. I think I could say that I even loved the show. The other shows we were able to see were "The 39 Steps," and "Stomp." PS. Renting "Stomp" on Netflix was nearly as good as seeing it live, so you can save your money.

NY has a lot of architectural eye candy. I'm sure we totally looked like tourists as we stopped and pointed at just about everything as we walked around down town.

We tried a bunch of different eateries as it is our favorite thing to do when we travel. I think the most interesting one ended up being my least favorite place we ate. It was called, "Carnegie Deli," and I could have sworn we had been recommended that place by someone because the name sounded so familiar. The menu was full of delicious sounding sandwiches. Bry ordered their most famous deli sandwich that had corned beef and pastrami. When it arrived, all it was was a huge pile of meat in the middle of 2 wimpy pieces of plain bread. Literally, that's all it was. We saw the sandwiches our neighbors ordered and they were all just meat and plain bread or egg salad and plain bread also. They were the saddest looking sandwiches I have ever seen. To top it off, the restaurant only took cash payment. Don't ever, ever go there.

-Nat

Of biking and corn mazes

One day when Bry came home from work, he fell into a trap that Pearl had rigged using the pack and play to make sure that he would never leave her again.

We took Pearl to a corn maze yesterday. Luckily she survived the ordeal because we ended up taking a lot of the cheater trails the people had blazed through the corn to make it through faster. She was constantly amazed at the sounds the corn would make when the wind blew.

She found a covered wagon near the maze and insisted on going inside, calling it a "bus."

Pearl is also recently very fascinated with her bike and helmet. She won't use the peddles, but instead scoots along with her feet up and down the sidewalks. When she wants to ride, she points to the door that goes to the garage and says, "I widy a bike?" and "hemet?"

-Nat