NJ/NY

Over the holidays we weren't able to go back West and see any of our family, so since Jake had a bit of time off before he had to go back to school, we decided to make the drive down to New Jersey to see his Aunt, Uncle and cousins. Our GPS said it would only take 4 or so hours, but it lied (man did it lie!). Our GPS kept going up in hours as we were driving. 3 hours into the drive our estimated time left was more than what it was when we had pulled out of our driveway (gotta love the East Coast). It ended up snowing pretty bad on our drive down there and then that coupled with the traffic of these "thickly settled" regions resulted in the drive being closer to 7 1/2 or 8 hours instead of the 4 we were anticipating. Fortunately the kids were all stars for the drive (I am pretty sure they handled it better than me). 

The Kellys were so great to us (when we got there we realized that the kids both had ear infections) so they were so nice to not only put up with us, but also our little sickies. Carder and Brenn just love the Kelly Clan and we were so glad to get to spend some time with them.

Their house is right outside of Princeton, so one evening Jake's cousin Kristin took us out on the town to give us a little tour of Princeton Campus (It is one of the most beautiful/quaint campuses I have ever seen) and took us out for some of the town's famous Ice Cream.

Left: This is a church on Campus where Martin Luther King Jr. had given a speech. The architecture all over the Princeton campus is breathtaking. Center: Carder loved using the lawn sculptures as his climbing tunnels. Right: Halo Pubs Ice Cream was a big hit with the kids (as well as their parentals)

 One day while we were there we took the train into the city (New York). I had never been before. Mark and Jill were kind enough to offer to keep Brenn who was sick. On the positive side, I guess that made her super docile just wanting to cuddle/lay on someone's chest all day, which is not so much the case when she is her normal climbing on everything/getting into everything self.

We went in with Jake's cousin Spencer and his wife Candice. We were all able to make the afternoon train, so since we were only going in for the afternoon/evening I thought it'd be the perfect time to take Carder along. He loved riding the train. He had been super into Night At the Museum at the time, so we decided we would take him to the Museum of Natural History. He LOVED it! In the movie the Museum looks a lot smaller and a lot easier to navigate than it actually is. There was SO much to see. It wasn't quite as hands on as I'd have hoped, (we've gotten spoiled with some of the museums in Boston), but it did include some of Carder's current obsessions: Aquatic Animals (sharks, fish, whales, alligators/crocodiles, etc.) and Dinosaurs, so that made up for it.

The first room we had to find was the Hall of Ocean Life. It took us a little while to master the labyrinth which is the Museum of Natural History, but we did it, and boy oh boy was our little guy excited to see all of his beloved aquatic animals. His favorite at the moment is the Hammerhead Shark.

We walked through a lot of the other areas to try and see some of his other favorite exhibits from the movie, but there was just SO much going on at that place after a while we decided we'd go do all the dinosaur exhibits and call it a day (We spent about 3 or 4? hours there). Carder was elated to see all the cool dinosaur skeletons. His favorite dinosaur is an Anklyosaurus and there was a great exhibit all about its club tail (that club tail is the reason its Carder's favorite). Another highlight of the museum was getting to see a Gahral snout. I had no idea an animal called a Gahral existed, but Carder's Grandma had given him some Zoobooks awhile back all about alligators and crocodiles and I guess the third species to complete that triad of creatures is a Gahral (it's like a crocodile/alligator with a really long skinny snout). This odd looking creature grabbed Carder's fancy and we have had to check out many library books to learn about them. They had a scull/snout on display there and he thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Carder was great for the whole time that we were at the Museum, but at the very end started getting a little moody (hence my pictures where he wouldn't look at me and then the one where I finally got him to look and he refused to smile). We figured it must have been because he was hungry or tired (we didn't bring a stroller and made him walk all day which is not a favorite past time of his, he'd much rather be wheeled around in a stroller with his sister).

Anyway, when we came out of the museum it had already gotten dark, which made it so we couldn't go check out Central Park like we were planning too (time just went too fast!) So we went and met up with Candice and Spencer who had been doing some sight seeing of their own (hot spots for people with a kid versus newlyweds were a little bit different). We found a place for Carder to eat and then out of nowhere he started crying and pulling on his ear. It was pretty cold outside and he was refusing to wear his beanie, so we thought they were just cold. We figured he was just being a grump, so we helped him dethaw his ear and got him all fed and hoped that was going to be the end of that one.

We had plans of making this whole day out of New York, (Museum of Natural History, Central Park, Dyalns Candy Shop, Serendipity, etc.) but the day went by too quickly. It was just about time to catch our train back home, so we decided to get one last thing in before we headed back. We went to Times Square and to Rockefeller Center and saw the Christmas tree. During our walk over there, Carder zonked out on Jake's shoulder. We were amazed how he was able to sleep through all the noise of the New York streets.

It was really neat to see all the neon broadway signs etc. around Times Square. It was a lot like London's Picidilly Square, just much bigger. It was also super cool to see the iconic Christmas Tree. I was really surprised how small it was, in comparison to how it looked on TV. I mean don't get me wrong it was still big, but I thought it'd be the biggest I'd ever seen and I'm not sure if it was even as big as the one here in Boston, or the one I grew up seeing every year at Disneyland.

After those pit stops we tried to soak in as much of the Big Apple as we could as we walked back to the train station. Carder woke up at that point (There was a freezing wind, which was literally bone chilling cold. My ears were stinging even with my beanie on). Anyway by the time we got to the station, the train was just about to pull out. Since we were a little late to board the train, there weren't any seats left. We walked all the way up to the front looking for some empty seats, and when we got there realized there really weren't any seats anywhere. So we stood in the back of that front car hoping at the next stop some would free up.

While we were standing there all the sudden you heard some people starting to yell at each other, saw some people standing up, heard some language etc. (I mean would it be a true New York experience with out some kind of subway/train drama?) Anyway at the next stop a bunch of people cleared out of that section of the train. We needed to sit down with Carder, (who was not doing good with the whole standing thing, so having him do it for another hour was out of the question), so we went and took the seats which had been abandoned. Well, we came to learn that we had found our seats on the "quiet car" where you aren't supposed to make any noise for courtesy of the commuters (great just our luck!) . Carder is still complaining about his ear hurting (which he has never done in his life) and he is crying off and on at this point telling us how his ear hurts so bad. I have to keep him quiet because I guess it was because someone was being loud that the whole fight we had experience earlier had happened. Poor baby, he was so brave and good and would calm down when I asked him too as he would be feeling some pain, but he just had tears rolling down his cheeks. That was the longest hour of my life! We finally arrived at our stop and  made a quick stop at a drugstore and got him some pain medicine before we went back to the Kellys. Thankfully he was able to sleep for the duration of the medicine working. The next morning we took him to an Urgent Care and sure enough he had horrible ear infections in both ears. It was so weird how that totally came out of nowhere. One second he was totally fine, the next he is screaming that his ear hurts. What the heck?!?

We hung out at the Kellys for a few days. Another pretty bad storm was on the horizon so we decided we'd leave before it hit so that we didn't have the same driving experience that we had on the way down. We watched the news all night and morning and decided if we left before lunch time we'd be able to get home before it struck. Well, again things didn't go to plan. Our drive home ended up taking around 9 hours this time and we were in probably the scariest weather I have ever driven in. (we were literally looking up a hotel to stay the night at, at one point, but they were all so far away it was basically just as close to drive to our house). Fortunately we were able to get home safe and sound. (Though I am pretty sure Jake has sworn off driving anywhere if there is any talk of a storm/blizzard in the future).