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.