Staten Island

This week is spring break. Coming from BYU, we are so not used to all these breaks, but we'll take 'em! Nate still has lots of studying and reading to do, but today we decided to take a little day trip to Staten Island. It was so weird, as soon as we got out on Wallstreet (the kids fell asleep, so we decided to get lunch before we got on the ferry), it felt like we were some place far away. It felt like we were on a vacation. While we were down there, we got the impression that kids on Wallstreet are somewhat of a novelty. The people in the little cafe we went to were quite taken with our children. Nate said it was like when the Chinese see blond kids in China, the way people reacted to our kids. So that was kind of fun.

The New York Stock Exchange

After lunch, we walked down to the ferry station and got on. Asher was thrilled to be on the boat, and kept exclaiming that it would be dangerous and scary to go swimming. I'm glad that he seemed to have some sense of danger when looking down from the boat into the water. 

When we got off, we walked down the harbor and stopped for a little while on a little "beach" area. Asher and Sayer would have been happy throwing rocks there for hours and hours. It really made me so happy to see them so happy and having so much fun. My boys seriously love being outside, and it makes me sad that we haven't been able to be outside much lately. Thankfully the warm weather is fast approaching, and days like today will be more frequent. 

After the beach, we decided to walk to this park we saw on our map. Of course it ended up being MUCH further than we anticipated, not to mention completely uphill and in the ghetto. I was very grateful when we finally found it. It was worth it... it was a very nice big park with a little lake and lots of grassy areas. Again, the boys would have played here forever. 

We did have a little scary moment, when Asher decided to almost run into the busy road. He had been walking up the hill, just looking around, but then all the sudden he decided to run toward the road, and Nate (in my opinion) was not running fast enough toward him, and I was freaking out. Luckily, as I said before, Asher seems to finally be sensing when things are dangerous, and instead of heading into the road, he just turned onto the sidewalk and started running down it. But Nate was so far behind him, he totally would have been able to run into the road before we could get to him. Oh my gosh... it makes my heart beat faster just thinking about it. Anyway... when Asher came back, I gave him a little talking to, and he almost seemed to be expecting it. 

Heading back to the ferry was much more pleasant, and we had a nice quick trip back to Manhattan. By the time we got off the boat, Sayer was starting to lose it. He has a bad habit of taking his binky out while in the stroller and dropping it on the ground, and unfortunately, he chose a time to do it when Nate and I were deep in conversation, and so we didn't notice until much later. So the poor tired and hungry kid had a rough ride home without his binky.

Despite the rough ending, it was a very fun day. The weather was perfect, and I think Asher and Sayer really had a ball. We are hoping to be better at the family outings once it starts getting warmer, and are already looking forward to the next one.  Well... we might need a nap first! ;)