Wurst and Durst: March 2019

We had to drop off some box tops at Afton's friend's house (I'm one of the box tops moms) one night and they had a huge owl in their tree. Dan took Sam skiing this same weekend so it was just me, Afton, and Eli. I introduced them to George of the Jungle starring Brendan Fraiser. A true classic which I remember seeing at the dollar theater in Charlottesville when it came out!

Dan sent me a few pictures while they were gone.

Dan and I were lucky enough to have my mom watch the kids so that we could take a short trip to New York City before baby #4 comes along and we can't go on vacation sans kids for years. We flew out on a Wednesday morning and landed around 10am. Dan's first Uber experience was from the airport to the hotel. Driving in NYC is crazy to me. Our driver was great. She spoke Spanish better than English, so she and Dan mostly chatted. I was surprised with how much I could still understand from my long-ago college Spanish classes. We dropped our stuff off at the Casablanca Hotel (cheesy name, fantastic hotel) and then headed to the Top of the Rock. We wanted to do that first thing since the weather was going to get progressively worse during our trip. Beautiful morning to take in the sites and figure out the different buildings and the lay of the land.

Above is looking south (see the Empire State building?), below is looking north to Central Park.

Next we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We were hungry when we got there and decided to eat it the cafeteria. Worst food of the whole trip. Not good and way overpriced. Our one true misstep of the trip, I'd say.

I'm a sucker for stained glass. I thought this Tiffany display was amazing.

My one complaint about this pregnancy is that I do have a pain low down in my pelvis. So walking hurts after a while. We were at the Met for a long time and eventually I'd just plop myself down on a bench and wait for Dan to finish looking at something and then we'd move on and I'd find another bench. So on and so forth. But that place is massive and there was tons to see. We found out later that we could have gotten in free with our VMFA memberships... Dang.

We took a long walk along the side of Central Park and stopped at the Frick Collection on the way. Wednesday afternoons it's "pay what you wish" which we timed perfectly! Then we walked back to our hotel off of Times Square, dropped off our stuff, checked out the wine and cheese reception that our hotel offered each night, and headed to dinner at Tony's di Napoli, which adjoined our hotel. It's a family-style restaurant so that portions are gigantic. We chose eggplant parmesan to split, along with fried zucchini. It was all delicious but SO much food.

The restaurant had paintings of various famous people. I don't remember who this was supposed to be, but it looked exactly like a woman we know from church so I had to snap a pic and send it to her!

Thursday morning we went to the Manhattan Temple. We hadn't been to the temple since July (in Utah) because the DC Temple is closed. It was so great to go and spend some time there. I love Dan.

We walked over to Levain Bakery because EVERYONE says you HAVE to have their cookies. So we bought three different flavors and had ourselves a taste test. Their best seller is chocolate chip with walnuts. We thought that was the worst of the three (not bad, just not amazing). Our favorite was dark chocolate with chocolate chips. SO good. Second was dark chocolate with peanut butter chips. Yum.

We traveled back to the hotel to change and then stopped at Los Tacos No. 1 for lunch. Authentic Mexican-style tacos were delicious (although a little spicy). There's nowhere to sit, though, which isn't great. You can see the line through the window. We got there right before the lunch rush.

We went to Grand Central Terminal and took a self-guided audio tour.

This area was called the Whispering Gallery. You stand in one corner, directly behind Dan, and face the corner and whisper something and the person standing in the opposite corner can hear you.

Such a beautiful place!

Next we stopped by the New York public library to check it out.

Pretty ceiling in the Reading Room.

After that, we headed back to 30 Rock to see the monologue rehearsal for the Tonight Show. Basically you stand in line for a long time. Then you go to this other room and sit for a long time. Then you get in line again, go upstairs, and stand around for a long time. Finally you get to go in to the room where it's filmed. Dan and I were the last people in there. The man leading us in gave us the tip that if you stand up and cheer for Jimmy Fallon when he walks out, he usually acknowledges you. So we did that and he looked up and pointed at us and said something about us so that was fun. Then he tells about 30 jokes and depending on how funny we (the audience) think they are, he and some writers pick which jokes make it into the actual monologue.

As we were leaving the building, an employee stopped us to ask if we'd like to go to a taping of the Seth Meyers show. We had checked everything off our list for the day so we thought, "Why not?" Again, there was lots of waiting and standing, but eventually we made it (the last standby people to do so by like two people). We got to see him do his monologue, interview JJ Watt and Tim Meadows and some other people. Then we left. We felt like we knew 30 Rockefeller Plaza pretty well by the end of that day. We stopped at Juniors to split a sandwich and have some famous cheesecake.

We also saw a New York police horse and Dan took a picture for Afton.

Friday started at the Oculus, which is basically a subway station and mall right next to the 9/11 memorial and museum.

We walked around the memorial. It was really sad. Next we went to Federal Hall to see where George Washington was sworn in as the first president. They had the bible that he used during the ceremony. I thought that was really cool.

The building itself doesn't look like it used to. It's been redone a few times. We went into a Tiffany store and browsed, had paninis at a legit Italian place, found a great viewing spot fo the Brooklyn Bridge (too cold to walk across it),

had some okay ice cream, and saw the Flatiron building.

It's one of the few remaining buildings designed by Daniel Burnham, who was in charge of architecture for the Chicago world fair back in 1893. I got to see some of those buildings when I went and saw Candice 4 years ago...

After that, Dan took me to the flagship Tiffany store on fifth avenue and got me a beautiful band to wear with my engagement ring and a different band he bought me on our first anniversary. I love it and was totally surprised! We stopped off at the hotel and then ate some New York pizza at Pizza Suprema by Madison Square Garden, where there was a Rangers game happening that night. We hit up the MoMA (it's free Friday nights) and I got to see some Van Gogh's.

I thought the museum itself was kind of underwhelming and I'm so glad we went on a free night! Next we hit up the Morgan Library (also free on Friday nights), which used to be J.P. Morgan's home/personal library. His book collection is straight out of Beauty and the Beast.

We capped off the night with a chocolate shake from Ben & Jerry's which I requested extra thick and was more like chocolate milk. Still yummy, though.

Saturday was our last day. We stored our luggage at the hotel and spent a very cold 1.5 hours walking around Central Park exploring the sites.

We tried to eat at Jacob's Pickles for lunch but it was super crowded, so we went to Mille Fieulle but that was slightly underwhelming. We picked up a few more of our favorite Levain cookies, Dan hit up Los Tacos No. 1 for another round, then it was back to the hotel to get our things and off to the airport! In the airport, Mom called to tell me that while she was at the park with the kids, a guy backed into our van with his truck. So that stinks. I'm just glad no one was hurt. We got home around 7 and Mom left for Earlysville. The kids loved having her and it took a few days for them to stop calling me "Grandma."

We've gotten pretty good at Jenga around here.

On the day our zoo passes expired, I took Eli for one more visit.

Valentine's Day.

The kids had Presidents Day off so we went bowling.

For Christmas, I got my parents tickets to see the Piano Guys when they came to Richmond in February. It was great! We had dinner at the same place we did two years ago, also.

Battleship with Dad.

Library lego creations.

He wants to see the fish every time we go to Walmart.

Eli started swim lessons and I let him play in the kids pool one day before lessons started.

I gave a talk in church. Afton drew this picture for me afterwards.

I'm still doing a play swap with five other women from church. I love it so much. These kids are such good friends and I'm so glad Eli has them.

Dan went on a ski trip to Utah. A friend from church decided to come along and they met up 2 of the 3 days to ski together. Dan's trip out there was FOREVER long and he ended up getting in twelve hours later than he was supposed to, but it all worked out in the end. He also stayed with Erin and Clark at night which was great. He also skiied with Clark and Andre one day.

His first day was at Alta.

Justin Brockbank and Dan.

Clark and Dan.

I'm guessing this is Justin's cousin-in-law below on the left. He showed them some really cool places that they wouldn't have found on their own and Dan loved every second of it.