More Easter Break

We arrived home from NYC at 4:30AM. We caught a few hours sleep. Then up again to drive to Baltimore, actually PA for the funeral of Carol's Grandmother. After the service on Friday we drove to Baltimore and spent a couple of days with Bobbie and Bill, Carol's sister and brother-in-law.

My new family is learning the Cook philosophy of "There is always more to do." So on Saturday we went to DC and toured the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. It was really memory lane for me. In my previous life, I spend a week at the Air and Space Museum in a special Associates Program. Lots of lectures, lunches and dinners with special folks like Paul Garber, Director Emeritus, and many behind the scenes activities. The typical day started at 8am and ended at 11:30 or midnight. Sorry, no pictures from that ancient past.

THIS time we did take a few pictures.

Eastern DC-3

1903 Wright Flyer

 Amelia Earhart's Lockheed Vega 5B

 

Lindbergh's Ryan NYP

"Spirit of St Louis"

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It was too pretty a day to stay indoors - at least that's what the other three people in our group thought. I could have roamed about the Air and Space all day.

Some great time spent with Bobbie and Bill. Then it was back to the "routine" of Salem, VA.

We're having more fun than anyone deserves. But I saw this great quote the other day which explains it.

JUSTICE is when you get what you deserve.

MERCY is when you don't get what you deserve.

GRACE is when you get what you don't deserve.

I am NOT the King of Slugdom

But I certainly qualify as a Crown Prince.

So I haven't blogged in five months. And the last blog was about Christmas.

I've been very busy.

Summer was a whirlwind of travel.

And now I'm

Pretty much doing nothing.

Kids got back into the school routine. Carol got back into the work routine. I got back into the House Daddy and be a slug routine.

So this should be my "What I did this summer" blog. But there's some catching up to do before I get to that.

The teachers were amazed and pleased that both kids had their homework from the time they were away all done. Apparently many parents don't get on their kids quite the way we did.

Emily's French teacher came into the conference in February, laid her notebook on the table unopened and said, "There simply isn't any area where I could ask for improvement from this student. She is always prepared for class, with her homework done. She is cheerful, courteous, eager and happy to participate in class and just really wants to please." In not exactly the same words, all of her other teachers said pretty much the same thing.

I said, "Would it be possible for you to put that child on the bus a couple of days a week because that is not who gets off the bus at our end."

Carol said, "If that's asking too much, could you just give me a video of your class so I could at least SEE that child."

When I said that if she only had 6 hours of "nice" a day in her, it wasn't fair that the teachers should get it all, they replied, "Oh Yes, it is. Because of all the other kids we have all day that aren't like her."

ANYWAY - they BOTH finished the year on A/B Honor Roll. A first for Emily - with all the pressures of her first year of High School.

We are so proud of both of them.

And again, life threw us a curve ball. They were supposed to spend all of Spring Break with their Dad. Long story, but that did not happen. We had to go to Baltimore on Thursday for the funeral of Carol's Grandmother. Easter Sunday is the one time each year that our entire parish goes to one service.

Gee, that leaves us with the first part of  the week with nothing planned.

So at the last minute we decided to go to NYC for a quick, one night trip. The overnight bus left Roanoke at 10pm Monday and got us to Canal St at 7:00am Tuesday morning. A quick cab ride to the Fairfield Inn just off Time Square had us at the desk asking - at 7:30 in the morning,

"Any chance of an early check-in?"

"No Problem, your room was unused last night. So it's ready."

A quick shower, big complimentary breakfast and by 10:00am we were walking down 8th Avenue.

 

POST OFFICE

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

THESE TWO DON'T NEED CAPTIONS, DO THEY ?????

   





















WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT IN - DUH - BRYANT PARK

ONE OF THE  LIONS AT THE LIBRARY
















 St. Patrick's Cathedral

Some of the Easter Flowers

We got to St. Pat's in time to celebrate Noon Mass. Then it was walking again - to Grand Central and Rockefeller Center.

Here are a few more pictures - Rock Center, its famous statues, topiaries and LEGO store .

 











Then I stood in line at the TKTS booth to get tickets for an evening show. Carol and the kids left me to go have some fun.

Got tickets for Chicago and headed back to the hotel to put our sore feet up for a little while. The Sheraton right next to our hotel has an excellent restaurant - The Gotham Bistro.  The lunch - which was actually two entrees and two appetizers with non-alcoholic drinks was just a little over $75.00 but we had a Restaurants.com $25.00 gift certificate so it was "only" $60.00 with the tip. Love NYC.

Then

BROADWAY

And after the show - a stop at Junior's, who has finally ventured from Brooklyn to Manhattan - for some of their incredible cheesecake. Remembering the size of the portions from last time, we got two individual servings to share between the four of us. We ate about half and saved the rest for the next day.

Off to a sound sleep. Well deserved. We did a lot for one day. The kids were real troopers. No complaining about all the walking - well, only a little.

The next morning, with a little later start, we did some more sightseeing.

I got back in the TKTS line while Carol and the kids roamed around Times Square.

 

 It's a little hard to find "kid friendly" Broadway shows - like we didn't think THIS one would be appropriate

So we went to this one instead.

 And we all loved it.



Dinner at a Thai restaurant on Canal Street and then it was time to catch the bus back to Salem. We arrived in Roanoke at 4:00am and caught a few hours sleep before we got up to drive to Baltimore. More about that in the next post.

LAST DAY IN PARIS - IS THAT SUNSHINE?

We woke up to a bright SUNNY day.

Second one on the 3 week trip.

SO - we HAD to plan another walking tour. A quick Metro ride took us to Jardin du Luxembourg. And we enjoyed walking through the admittedly winter gardens - for a short while before it clouded up and started to sprinkle.







So, ONE MORE TIME, a change in plans took us to Les Invalides.



It's a fascinating HUGE museum with lots of military uniforms, weapons and Napoleon's favorite horse, a little the worse for the wear.



And Napoleon's tomb



It's obvious that I'm VERY tardy in blogging our Christmas trip. So here are some pictures of Paris that I can't attribute to any specific day. But we took them -



and WE WERE THERE -


Views from our flat, with the Eiffel Tower in the distance











We had an uneventful train ride - if you describe 180 mph as uneventful - back to London.

A day of rest and then a LONG day getting home.

In spite of Carol's concerns, the house was standing and the cat was alive and healthy. It was a good time for all.

LIFE IS SO GOOD !

NEXT TO LAST DAY IN PARIS

Monday - Emily's turn to be sick. Carol, Andrew and I head out to see -

More CHURCHES !

and La Conciergerie

This medieval palace is on the island with Notre Dame, along with La Sainte-Chapelle.

Carol's WONDERFUL guide book (THANK YOU AGAIN to Carol's co-worker, Marianne for such a great gift) said that a combo ticket for both was slightly reduced in price AND the line to buy tickets was almost always short at La Conciergerie and VERY long at La Sainte-Chapelle.

PERFECT information. People were standing in an hour long line to buy tickets at Chapelle. We walked half a block past them to the other ticket booth and had our tickets in 2 minutes. THEN we got to walk past all those people waiting to buy tickets and walked right into the Chapelle.

FINALLY - a church where we were allowed to take pictures. Most of these were taken by Andrew. "Great Job, Andrew!"


























Tom and Casey joined us for the tour of the Conciergerie.




Again this picture is from the web because somebody in authority decided to clutter up the biggest medieval hall left in Paris with an art exhibit.



Here's some "street art" on a fountain statue.



Tom had a favorite Thai restaurant he wanted to take us to, so off we went on the Metro. Tom speaks passable French. The young waiter spoke French and Thai. Tom ordered a soup that the menu said included "boules de boeuf" in French or "ลูกชิ้นเนื้อวัว " in Thai. He was convinced that the kids were going to get a really exotic dish with beef balls. When the soup came, I knew they were not authentic because they were about 1" in diameter. I kept trying to tell Tom that they were simple meatballs made of beef because they were so small. The young waiter insisted that they were what Tom thought. Gotta give everyone - except Carol - credit. Thinking they were what Tom said, everyone - except Carol - tried one. I finally convinced Tom to ask the owner, an older Thai lady. At first she said, "Yes. That's what they were." But when I asked Tom to just say, "Testicles." she laughed out loud and said, "oh, NO NO NO. These are not that. Way too small. Just ground beef." When Tom said, that was not what the waiter said, she laughed harder and said that he loved to kid the customers. Tom asked if there was a restaurant nearby that served testicles and she said, "No. But two blocks down is a restaurant that serves penis." We all decided that we were too full to try something else.

On one of walking tours we had gone through the major book shop area of Paris and the kids wanted to go back to Shakespeare and Company.


Of course. We're in Paris - FRANCE - let's spend the afternoon in an English bookstore. It WAS fascinating, just check out the link.

But I thought I'd seen enough English books during our two weeks in ENGLAND. So I asked for a FRENCH bookstore. Specifically children's books because a dear friend had asked me to get a child's book or two for her. She had even given me the lists of titles with the ones she already had marked off.

First section on the first floor - I picked a couple. Then on to the third floor. There was a BIG banner which I couldn't read, but I knew what it meant ! There were most of one of the series my friend wanted, marked down as much as 80%. Some were so old the original price was in Francs. And France went to the Euro in 1998 ! So I bought a bunch.

Another walk to an Italian restaurant that had guys on the street offering "specials with this coupon." Cheap (for Paris) meals and a free drink. Andrew ordered a "personal pizza".




Our meals weren't quite as over sized, but close.

Wall art in the restaurant



Upstairs they had not put away all their Christmas decorations.



Easy Metro ride home.

One more day in Paris.

Life is so good.