i like to ride my bicycle...

Bicycles!

Since our stay in Hawaii - the children have been begging to ride bicycles again. They love any sort of bike and ask all the time if we move can we get a bike. They ask if they can have one in our place too - but they usually say very quickly, "I know, I know - we don't have enough room". Which we don't - so that is why it's fun to find a place where we can ride together as a family & get some of the cravings out for a bike ride.

Since Bryson's schedule is somewhat open right now with work, I had a feeling he would be off today as it's the last holiday weekend in the summer. I hoped that work might stay a little calm, so that we could go back to Governor's Island! We went there exactly one year ago today when Nana & Papa Lord were in town - which I just went back to my old blog and realized I posted a 'Coming Soon' post with a few pictures & hardly any descriptions of what we did. I can't believe a year later and I still haven't finished that --- and OTHER projects!

Well, a year ago to date, we went out to Governor's Island. It's a natural island that is out in the New York Harbor - it's a short ferry ride from Manhattan or Brooklyn - you can see the Statue of Liberty close at hand from the north shore of the island (we must really have a thing for North Shores! That's where we stay in Oahu, we live on the Northern tip of Roosevelt Island, and we loved the Northern part of Governor's Island....funny to think about actually!

We did miniature golfing and walking around the island last year, however the one thing that we had told the children we would do was bike riding and by the time we got to the rental hut on the island they weren't letting any more bikes go out for the night. The kiddos have not let us forget that we need to go back to ride bikes!

We took the ferry over from Brooklyn since I was already there on Thursday @ Pier 6, and realized a ferry left right from that Pier. I also needed to take back some items to Ikea which is only about 10 minutes away from the Pier. We decided to drive and make a morning out of the errand before we took the ferry over to the island. By the time we parked (which luck is usually on my side, as I've been able to find street parking this entire week when we go out for an adventure!). When we got to the end of the Pier, the boat was just leaving and we had 20 minutes to pass until the next ferry came along. Thankfully - the Pier is full of the different playgrounds that we had discovered on Thursday - that way it was a playtime until we needed to load up.

We hoped on the ferry & some gentlemen we were standing next to offered their seats - which I gladly took, however Madeleine was rather keen to stay right by Dad as much as possible today :)

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After walking through the island to the family bike rental shack - we made our choices and then were off to explore the biking paths around the island. It was a little bit muggy outside - however look past Bryson Sr. on the first bike - and you can see a glimpse of Lady Liberty from this vantage point.

Our view from where we stopped for a snack and to refuel with water. Speaking of fuel - little Bryson saw a dial on the front part of Bryson's bike and asked him if that is where we needed to put the gas in!

This bench was over by the tire swing, and I decided to move it closer so I could watch the kiddos. Have you seen anything so clever and functional as this bench? It was so easy to move - if we ever get a backyard I'd love to put some benches like this back there.

Last year it was the Unicycle Conference or meet-up on the same day/weekend. We enjoyed watching a few tricks each time we saw them!

What a fabulous day! I'm so glad the kiddos reminded us that it was definitely time to go on a long bike-ride together as our family. We all had a really, really good time!

Until next time Governor!

Oui ou Non?!

Gazing out the window tonight, Bryson Jr. exclaimed,

'Oh look!

It's a croissant moon!"

{it must be that New York accent! He thought he was saying crescent - or that croissant was crescent. I love his little accent on some words...it's darling & hilarious!}

Which that darling little homemade french saying, brought me back to last week....a good laugh of a story. We went to a friend's home out in New Jersey last Friday night to escape Hurrican Irene....more on that will come, but it was rather interesting as we ended up going more into the storm that out of it . We didn't know that at the time, but of course hindsight is always quite perfect.

We stayed with friends that we know through work, as the wife and the children were off to another state to visit family. The entire home open - except for the husband, and one day, we were in the kitchen cleaning up after a meal and I asked about their recent adventures over in Europe. I asked what his favorite place was they had visited, and he replied enthusiastically, "Oh, it was definitely Ver-sal-es."

Hmmm...I thought to myself for just a moment. Ver-sal-es? Where in the world....and then he went on to say that the Hall of Mirrors were magnificent and the incredible gardens, etc. That is when I realized where he was talking about.

At an appropriate time in the conversation, to reply to what he was talking about this area, I told him that I also had been to and loved Versailles - trying not to be obnoxious but also speaking clearly so that hopefully he could hear that the ending of the word is silent, the LL's are dropped and your voice almost seems to sound like a sigh to go along with that you say it Ver-SIGH {this explanation is phonetic, not correct grammar!}

He once again was very excited as he came back with more things that he loved about Ver-sal-es. And I did a different kind of sigh and realized that unfortunately this was one French word that would not be pronounced correctly during this conversation!

Oh la la!

Oh, the places you'll go!

Pier 6 ~ Brooklyn NY.

I love finding new places around the city that we love.  Today, we ventured down to Pier 6 in Brooklyn - it's an area that they have slowly been converting, and now there are 6 Piers dedicated to being part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park.  Pier 6 opened last summer, and I heard rave reviews about the space and it had a water feature -- -which we love water features! --- so I knew that we needed to try it out.

It has been a little tricky to actually get to many of these places to try out their water features.  We have left the previous 2 summers right when school gets out and then when we return there is a frenzy to get ready for back to school.  This year is busier than ever - PTA could easily consume my life, and some days there has been a lot going on.  Tuesday for example - we finally got out of the apartment around 6pm.  That was a long day.
                                                     





















I knew that the kids deserved a break & to help me stick to the plan of getting out on an adventure - I signed up to host a playgroup for today in our ward.  It turned out that there were only 4 of us that showed up...but those kiddos played, and played to their hearts content.

And we now have a new favorite place to go!

Thankfully one of the other moms sent me all the pictures from today, because I did not take my camera out once!  I actually had to leave early from the playdate - I had a meeting back at school with The Trio - I finally found a nickname that works for our Principal, Assistant Principal and Test Administrator - which I think she has another official title, but I can't remember what it is...and since it is obviously so long to type out all their titles I realized today I shall refer to them as 'The Trio'.  So much easier!  The amazing thing, is that my friends offered to let the kiddos stay with them, and then they would bring them back to the island.  Seriously - that is a wonderful offer and I was a little nervous about leaving them in a place crawling with children...but then I realized they would be bored if I took them back to the meeting....because in meetings you can't be as goofy as one can be walking from the park to get ice cream!!!

 The crew - not sure how she got this group picture - but look how fun!  I'm at the meeting - so these are the amazing moms that are watching my kids...and the crew of kids.  Madeleine was in heaven that another girl showed up --- whew!

I had thrown out the idea of stopping at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory - however there was another amazing ice cream shop they walked to where everyone got a nice cold treat.  What a perfect day!  The sun was out - it as warm.hot - but not too hot.  And to spend with friends --- I think we need to balance life with a few more of these outings!

Thanks Brooklyn.....we'll be back for another day in your area!

p.s. remember how I was excited to come back to consistent Internet access?  That will happen NEXT week.  The past 2 weeks we have been home, I have to sit in a chair and be connected to the router - wireless is a thing that is not working at our place for whatever reason.

I don't know who is more excited ---- me for wireless internet again, or Bryson for the Cable T.V. that he decided to sign up for --- because after all, why just get wireless internet when you can get the BYU Football games for fall season?!

Hopefully when wireless is on, and once our big school supply fundraiser is over and the kids are all in school full time (yes - all 3!  hooray!) --- I'll be back to posting more regularly.  There is still summer to post about you know! :)