Lazy Friday

Dave's been super busy lately and has a lot of evening classes this semester, so we haven't had much couple OR family time.  But he ended up with some free time this weekend and we made the most of it.

We went on a date Friday night, which consisted of sneaking pizza into the AMC at Lincoln Square, and then dessert at Magnolia's Bakery afterward--yum!!  Somewhere between the movie and Magnolia's, we realized that aside from the title of the harmless fantasy adventure flick we saw (Percy Jackson and the Olympians), and less dropping of the f-bomb on our way to the theater, we'd pretty much reenacted Lazy Sunday.  Nice.

Saturday, we took Rhys to Union Square to have lunch and get an umbrella stroller (Um, hello Mr. Stroller.  Where have you been all my life?).  As we were leaving the subway on 14th street, I realized that Richard Kind was holding the door open for David.  If you're like the 3 people we immediately texted about this and you just said, "Uh, who is that?" then,
A) That is why you will never beat us at Scene It, and B) He's this guy:

 Except he was with his 3 little girls and looked more like this:

Now, you may be thinking "What's the big deal?"  But we've lived in NYC for almost 2 years and the only celeb sighting we've had until now was when I got fooled by the wax figure of Morgan Freeman in front of Madame Tussauds.  Yes, if you must know, I gasped and got my camera ready and everything before I realized.

Anyhoo...after that, we saw a city bus pulling away from the curb, with it's LED display (usually where it's route/destination is posted)  flashing "EMERGENCY - CALL POLICE."  So, I did.  I'm guessing I either helped thwart a hijacking, or I got some poor bus driver fired for unwittingly flipping the switch.  I'm going to go with the former explanation so I can feel like an extra in Speed.

At this point, we realized it was WAY past Rhys's nap time (getting anything done in NYC usually takes about 5 times longer than you anticipate) so we decided to just let him skip it (yes, you heard me right- I can relax and be flexible, occasionally) and headed to Times Square to ride the Toys'R'Us ferris wheel.  The line ended up being really long, so we saved it for another day but still had a blast exploring the store.  Rhys enjoyed the magic demonstrations, visited Lightning McQueen heaven, had his face stroked by Geoffrey the Giraffe (yah...we thought it was a little weird too), had a roaring contest with the T-Rex from Jurrassic Park,

 The T-Rex, and our friend...um...Bill.  That's right, Bill.

*have you figured out yet that I forgot to bring our camera along on this trip?

and met your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. He was in absolute awe of Spidey.  It was so cute, and the guy was really good at getting down on his level and talking to him.  It was all Rhys could talk about for the rest of the day.  He kept pointing to this picture we got, shouting "Man! Man!"

 All he wanted to do was look at Spider-Man and talk to him; hence the "Why won't everyone stop asking me to look at the camera and just give us a minute?" expression on his face here...

After all that excitement, Rhys conked out in his new stroller on the way home.  This kid hasn't fallen asleep in anything but his own bed since he was about 6 months old. 

*This was also the moment I realized I had a cell phone camera.  C'est la vie.

Day at the Museum

Last Saturday, we decided to blow off chores and do something New York-ish. Since it was rainy and blustery we decided on the American Museum of Natural History (you might recognize it from such films as Night at the Museum). Another couple from our ward went with us, which ended up being a really good thing since they knew what they were doing. The place is enormous! And such a weirdly laid out maze that if they hadn't been with us, I think we might still be trying to find our way out of the Hall of North American Sea Birds!

Our favorite exhibit was the dinosaurs. They were displayed in gigantic halls with stark white walls and floors, pristine glass, and shiny metal accents. The juxtaposition between ancient and modern was really striking.



Another thing that stuck out to us was how different they made the place look for the movie. They cut together different parts of the museum to create a whole new interior. For example, the lobby in the movie is a combination of the 1st floor lobby, with the ceiling from the rotunda on the floor above it, and the desk from the subway entrance lobby in the basement. The Easter Island head is in a completely different, incredibly hard to get to spot, and of course the T-Rex is actually in the exhibit I just described above. So even though you still see a lot of the things they used in the movie, you don't really feel like you're in the same place which I think would have been a bummer if we hadn't already been told that in advance.


Rhys loved everything (as usual) except for when I took him to see a T-Rex jaw bone up close. When I leaned forward to let him touch the teeth, he acted terrified for the first time in his life. He wimpered and clung to me really tight. I gave him a second, showed him how fun it was for me to touch them, and then tried again. This time he burst into tears and started shaking and heaving and twisted around to bury his face in my shoulder! I was so surprised I didn't know how to react. This kid has never shown fear about ANY new experience. I took him away and got him calmed down, then David took him back again and he seemed ok and eventually reached out and touched it. We're still not sure what caused it. It wasn't bigger than him, and it wasn't even attached to a head or body. It was only the lower right half of the jaw mounted on a wall, so there wasn't even any context he could have picked up on (even if he was usually afraid of big things, or animals, or whatever-which he isn't). The only thing I can think of is that he's starting to get a little clingy with me lately, and it was really crowded in there, so maybe he felt like I was going to pass him off to a stranger or something? Anyway, he got over it, and so did I and everything else went really smoothly.

We only saw about 1/10 of the exhibits, but we hit all the main ones. Since we went near the end of the day with little kids, we were pretty glad we knew the New York insider tip about the "suggested donation" fee. Most of the museums here are completely funded by the state. However, they still ask for an exorbitant suggested donation, which they pass off to unwitting tourists as an admission fee. So if you don't know any better, they'll just ring you up at the ticket counter for $15-20 bucks/person. In actuality, you can pay whatever you want and most New Yorkers go with $1/person. We had to laugh when we looked at our receipt which actually showed a $30 charge minus a $28 discount.

Anyway, it was really fun and we're glad we postponed those piles of laundry and dishes!