Weekend at Cape May

We spent last weekend at the North Wildwood beach of Cape May with my sister and brother in law.  We had great weather and no one had a major sunburn.  Ashley brought Norah some toddler sized beach toys which were greatly enjoyed.  All in all the trip was a success. 

Aunt Ashley with NorahKeeping Balanced  Making friends with valuable resourceWe couldn’t get her to drink milk in the mornings but after being on the beach for an hour she was thirsty enough to give it a shotAshley, Norah, Matt

A Portrait of a Seashell Collector as a Young Girl

 

Norah Explores Manhattan

Norah and I were invited to accompany our friend Christy on an apartment hunt in Manhattan.  It was very exciting.  I am amazed by how tight the market is.  Manhattan apartments are shockingly small - I stayed in my cousin’s in the same neighborhood 10 years ago and experienced that shock back then, but what shocked me this time was how high in demand these small apartments are.  Christy received a phone call that an apartment had been leased when we were minutes from touring it.  I think it is so bizarre that New Yorkers have to work with brokers (note the plural) to find apartments.  These brokers are sort of like realtors only they don’t offer you a bottled water or diet coke, drive you around in their air conditioned SUV or buy you lunch.   This is incredible to me when they typically make 15% of your entire years worth of rent.  A broker might even even say unhelpful things like “don’t waste my time,”  “there are no more apartments in Manhattan,” or “apartments always look smaller when they’re empty.”  Actually all three of those incredibly lame comments were from the same lame broker.  Christy in her wisdom had appointments with three brokers in one day and I think we saw about a dozen different apartments in all.  Fortunately there was one apartment that had everything Christy and Jace wanted in their new home:  

Location:  Amsterdam and 72nd (Amsterdam is Christy’s favorite street in the Upper West Side)

Character:  Hard wood floors, high ceilings and beautiful molding in a “prewar” building

Bedroom:  The bedroom is large and has lots of natural light

Closet Space:  There are three good size closets

Good Kitchen:  It very well may have more cupboards then their current kitchen

Living Room:  Good layout for furniture

Bathroom:  A little small but very attractive

Amenities:  Elevator and Doorman

After a long day of apartment hunting we ate at the Shake Shack and met up with Hillary and Lincoln.  Norah and Lincoln were happy to see each other again Norah held on to those fries from the shake shack for quite a while.  The funny thing is that we didn’t even order those fries.  She made friends there who shared. 

Hillary and I took the kiddos to Central Park where they could catch up a bit. The next day Hillary showed me around Manhattan while Christy took care of her apartment application details.  Hillary had free tickets for a circle line cruise that she shared with me.  Norah looks a little grumpy in this picture.  It is pretty accurate. After the cruise we took a bus up to Time Square.  I had exact change for the bus but I didn’t realize you couldn’t pay cash – you needed a metro pass.  It was pouring down rain and we were already getting wet and I was feeling a little distressed as I walked off the bus in shame when a nice New Yorker told me to get back on and paid my fare.  It made my day.  That experience along with the guy in the cafe that gave Norah whole milk for free and the lady who found Hillary’s wallet and arranged to return it to her gave me a great impression of NYC.

Hillary took me to 30 Rock so I could pay homage to Liz LemonNorah and Christy were inseparable.  Norah is a pretty friendly baby and usually happy to meet anyone, but this was special.  Norah would actually cry if Christy walked away from her.  When Christy set her down Norah quickly held her arms up to be picked up again and when we were on the trains she preferred to sit with Christy over me.  I’ve never seen Norah do that with ANYONE before.  It is so unprecedented that I seriously think they have some special spiritual history together.  Maybe they were BFFs?   Multitasking  

Festivus

I am continually amazed at how many different festivals there are in Ithaca.  We have been here two years and I’m still hearing of new ones.  There were TWO competing festivals today: The Scottish Games and Celtic Festival and the Dragon Boat Festival.  The Ithaca Scottish Games and Celtic Festival was definitely one we’ll return to next year.  We hurried down to Stewart Park as soon as Norah was done with her morning nap.  I was worried we had missed the bagpipes but Bryan in his wisdom assured me that there would likely be continuous bagpiping.  He was of course right.  They were actually having competitions between different bands from the Central New York region.  There were bands from Buffalo, Syracuse, Rome and a more local Fingerlakes band.  I’m impressed that many people play bagpipes.  In addition to the fabulous bands, we enjoyed watching the athletic competitions, looking at sheep and over hearing a mom sternly say “We came to listen to your father play the bagpipes, NOT to play on the playground!”  Lots of children were wearing kilts and I asked one little boy if I could take his picture with Norah but he was embarrassed and ran away. 

This was Norah’s favorite part.    These ladies, along with the sheep, were demonstrating how wool becomes yarn and eventually a kilt.  Norah just wanted to see the sheep.  Bryan snapped this little treasure \Even the Carousel was getting into the spirit of the Festival by abandoning the usual organ music and playing Celtic tunes.  We stopped by the Dragon Boat Festival afterwards just to check it out.  It was pretty neat but I’m glad we prioritized the Celtic Festival.   We also caught the end of Victor and Kurt’s soccer game after the Dragon Boat festival.  It was just the Saturday afternoon that kept on giving. Norah was wiped out from all the festivals and took a nice long nap.  Then we had Christy and Jace over for Dinner.      It was good we did or I might not have gotten invited to go to NYC tomorrow with Christy.  That’s right,  Norah and I are headed to the Manhattan right after church tomorrow.

Simply Refreshing

It has been wicked hot here in Ithaca. After almost a week of 100+ degree days the usually lush green grass is as crisp and brown as it is on the prairie. It's been so hot that Norah and I have been going on extra trips to the store just to escape the heat. On one such trip I impulsively bought 3 jugs of Simply Lemonade for Bryan. It was on sale and poor Bryan has to wear pants to work no matter how hot it is. Since he is the only one drinking it he sometimes drinks right out of the jug -- we're in the privacy of our own home right? No one is looking. Well today he finished one off, put the lid on and handed it to an eager Norah. She started walking around pretending to drink from it and after every pretend gulp made a loud refreshing "aaahhhh" sound. Bryan might have to start drinking from a glass after all.

Bye Bye Momma

Even though I don't rock Norah to sleep at bedtime anymore, I still rock her for a little while as part of her bedtime ritual. Tonight we were a little rushed and neglected to put all the toys away first. Norah saw the stragglers and scrambled off my lap to play with them so I put them away and asked her to say bye bye to the toys. She complied and we resumed our rocking for about a minute before she squirmed her way off my lap again. Norah walked a few feet away, stopped, turned and looked at me, waved and clearly said "bye bye" and then ran away into the other room. The little stinker!

Bye Bye Toys

Hicks Family Reunion 2010

Bryan’s entire family came out for the Fourth of July weekend.  It was the first time we were all together since last summer when we all saw Taylor graduate from High School.  Now Taylor is about to leave for his mission in Mexico City so this is the last time we’ll be together for two years.  Highlights of the trip were lunch at the Boatyard Grill, a Cayuga Lake tour and visit to Taughannock Falls.  Norah basked in the attention of her doting grandparents, uncles and aunt and enjoyed following Murphy (a dachshund) around the house.

From Left to Right: Kimball, Courtney, Lindsey, Bryan, GregoryHydrating Murphy was a really good sportLeft to Right: Taylor, Bryan, Courtney, Gregory, KimballNorah didn’t want to sit for the Family Photo So we bribed her with a flower