Trip recap
Okay, so there was no 32 week photo. Sorry about that. I had hoped to take one before leaving for the airport Friday morning, but there was (a) not enough light and (b) not enough time. So, you'll just have to wait for the 33 week photo this Friday.
We arrived in New York on Friday around 11 AM. Baby Ridge was not a fan of takeoff or the flight noise. Whenever our baby becomes startled, he/she dives as deep towards my back as possible and literally burrows. It's a very weird feeling. The flight caused my fingers and toes to swell a little, which my midwife had warned me about....but I was spared from the dreaded cankles!!!! From there, we took a shuttle bus to Penn Station and we walked to a luggage check place and put Ethan's one carry on (his messenger bag) in storage for the day) and caught the train to the upper west side to go to the American Museum of Natural History. Since we both needed lunch, we looked around for a place and when I saw Shake Shack, the deal was done. I've wanted to go to Shake Shack for a few years and just never found the time or wasn't near one... oh my gosh. So delicious. We both had cheeseburgers, and split an order of cheese fries. The best part for me was the chocolate concrete (frozen custard) with peanut butter fudge, hot fudge, and triple truffle chocolate cookie dough.
After lunch, we headed to AMNH, and spent a few hours walking around checking out the mammal and dinosaur exhibits. Ethan was a happy man.... he loves his dinosaurs. I had forgotten that the movie "A Night In the Museum" had been filmed here, so it was fun to walk through the museum and recognize a lot of it from the movie. I had only been to AMNH once before, and that was back when I was 20 or so when my grandmother and I went to NYC together.
We left AMNH, picked up the bag, and met Irene and Phillip in the city. At this point, I was pretty tired from walking for several hours and was experiencing not-so-fun Braxton Hicks contractions, so we headed back to Brooklyn and had falafel and hummus for dinner from a Lebanese place around the corner. I think I was asleep within 2 minutes of my head hitting the pillow!
The next morning (Saturday), we were all up at 10 and had breakfast together (pancakes with Nutella and maple syrup that Phillip made). We then headed into the city together to check out the SoHo autumn fair and the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. The fair was fun... I openly admit that the only reason I wanted to go to the fair was for the food. We ate gyros and I got my long- awaited caramel apple, which was totally worth the wait. It had a little bit of chocolate on it with mini m&m's as you can see.
We also tasted some vegeterian appetizers that Irene picked up, and some German apple strudel.
Here we are in MoMa in some weird draping exhibit... notice how big I look in this picture. This was after hours of walking. This is what happens to my body after hours of walking and at the end of the day. Both Phillip and Irene commented on what a huge size difference there is first thing in the morning and then in the evening.
I think we were only in MoMa for a couple of hours and then we headed to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to try Fornino's brick oven pizza. Well.... Fornino's ended up being pretty cheap because we had our pizza comped.... there was a major delay in the kitchen for some reason and our waitress came and apologized and just told us it was on the house. We weren't complaining about it or anything, but when the pizza finally did show up (an hour after ordering it) Irene and I were both ready to pass out from extreme hunger! The pizza was awesome, and I'd definitely go back there again despite the slow service. I think everyone deserves a second chance, especially if the service speed is the issue and not the food. We then called it a night and headed back home to Brooklyn, where we stopped at the Little Cupcake Bakery to pick up mini cheesecakes and Brooklyn Blackout cake. It was fun just hanging out at the house and eating our desserts. The whole reason we came to New York was to see our friends, not to see the city, so we are grateful for the time we got with them!
Sunday morning Ethan and I headed to Union Square to meet up with Holly, Mike, and Katrina. I worked with them for 3 years as Katrina's nanny. The last time I saw Katrina, she was 6 years old. She is almost 12 now, and in the 6th grade, and about twice as tall as she was the last time I saw her. Mike and Holly look exactly the same. We met up at Steaks Frites for brunch, and I ordered the croque monsieur and the steak fries, and we just spent a couple of hours catching up, Katrina's school was right around the corner, so they took us over there and we were able to see some of the school. They've done an amazing job with Katrina. She's the kind of kid Ethan and I hope we have. The vote cast by them is for girl.... we are getting more girl votes these days but nobody can say why they think that other than a "feeling".
After we parted ways, we went up to Herald Square and did a little shopping. The maternity sections in NYC stores are so huge compared to the stores here in Atlanta. I got one cute sweater for myself. It was a little weird being in New York and not being able to go and shop like I normally do in my favorite stores. Actually, all weekend I kept shocking myself by looking at my reflection as I walked by shop windows. I don't look that big, but I do look pregnant, and I am just not used to it yet! So when I look at my reflection I immediately think "Woah!".
Sunday night, Phillip and Irene cooked for us all. Phillip made a pasta dish with bacon and onions in the sauce which was quite good. They had been apple picking the previous weekend so they made apple crisp AND apple pie. We ate both apple dishes with copious amounts of vanilla ice cream and then headed to bed because we had an early ride to the airport this morning at 6:30, which meant a 6 AM wakeup time. Fortunately, I was awake because the baby had woken me up so Ethan didn't have to rouse me from a deep sleep. I know he would have felt terrible if he'd had to do that! We were at the airport in 31 minutes thanks to our extremely efficient and friendly car service driver, and our flight home was uneventful. I totally crashed for 2 hours after arriving back home and slept. Then I went to work... .and am now home blogging about the trip before I forget the details!
And now.... I am going to collapse in bed. Tomorrow I turn 31!
We arrived in New York on Friday around 11 AM. Baby Ridge was not a fan of takeoff or the flight noise. Whenever our baby becomes startled, he/she dives as deep towards my back as possible and literally burrows. It's a very weird feeling. The flight caused my fingers and toes to swell a little, which my midwife had warned me about....but I was spared from the dreaded cankles!!!! From there, we took a shuttle bus to Penn Station and we walked to a luggage check place and put Ethan's one carry on (his messenger bag) in storage for the day) and caught the train to the upper west side to go to the American Museum of Natural History. Since we both needed lunch, we looked around for a place and when I saw Shake Shack, the deal was done. I've wanted to go to Shake Shack for a few years and just never found the time or wasn't near one... oh my gosh. So delicious. We both had cheeseburgers, and split an order of cheese fries. The best part for me was the chocolate concrete (frozen custard) with peanut butter fudge, hot fudge, and triple truffle chocolate cookie dough.
After lunch, we headed to AMNH, and spent a few hours walking around checking out the mammal and dinosaur exhibits. Ethan was a happy man.... he loves his dinosaurs. I had forgotten that the movie "A Night In the Museum" had been filmed here, so it was fun to walk through the museum and recognize a lot of it from the movie. I had only been to AMNH once before, and that was back when I was 20 or so when my grandmother and I went to NYC together.
We left AMNH, picked up the bag, and met Irene and Phillip in the city. At this point, I was pretty tired from walking for several hours and was experiencing not-so-fun Braxton Hicks contractions, so we headed back to Brooklyn and had falafel and hummus for dinner from a Lebanese place around the corner. I think I was asleep within 2 minutes of my head hitting the pillow!The next morning (Saturday), we were all up at 10 and had breakfast together (pancakes with Nutella and maple syrup that Phillip made). We then headed into the city together to check out the SoHo autumn fair and the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. The fair was fun... I openly admit that the only reason I wanted to go to the fair was for the food. We ate gyros and I got my long- awaited caramel apple, which was totally worth the wait. It had a little bit of chocolate on it with mini m&m's as you can see.
We also tasted some vegeterian appetizers that Irene picked up, and some German apple strudel.
Here we are in MoMa in some weird draping exhibit... notice how big I look in this picture. This was after hours of walking. This is what happens to my body after hours of walking and at the end of the day. Both Phillip and Irene commented on what a huge size difference there is first thing in the morning and then in the evening.
I think we were only in MoMa for a couple of hours and then we headed to Williamsburg, Brooklyn to try Fornino's brick oven pizza. Well.... Fornino's ended up being pretty cheap because we had our pizza comped.... there was a major delay in the kitchen for some reason and our waitress came and apologized and just told us it was on the house. We weren't complaining about it or anything, but when the pizza finally did show up (an hour after ordering it) Irene and I were both ready to pass out from extreme hunger! The pizza was awesome, and I'd definitely go back there again despite the slow service. I think everyone deserves a second chance, especially if the service speed is the issue and not the food. We then called it a night and headed back home to Brooklyn, where we stopped at the Little Cupcake Bakery to pick up mini cheesecakes and Brooklyn Blackout cake. It was fun just hanging out at the house and eating our desserts. The whole reason we came to New York was to see our friends, not to see the city, so we are grateful for the time we got with them!Sunday morning Ethan and I headed to Union Square to meet up with Holly, Mike, and Katrina. I worked with them for 3 years as Katrina's nanny. The last time I saw Katrina, she was 6 years old. She is almost 12 now, and in the 6th grade, and about twice as tall as she was the last time I saw her. Mike and Holly look exactly the same. We met up at Steaks Frites for brunch, and I ordered the croque monsieur and the steak fries, and we just spent a couple of hours catching up, Katrina's school was right around the corner, so they took us over there and we were able to see some of the school. They've done an amazing job with Katrina. She's the kind of kid Ethan and I hope we have. The vote cast by them is for girl.... we are getting more girl votes these days but nobody can say why they think that other than a "feeling".
After we parted ways, we went up to Herald Square and did a little shopping. The maternity sections in NYC stores are so huge compared to the stores here in Atlanta. I got one cute sweater for myself. It was a little weird being in New York and not being able to go and shop like I normally do in my favorite stores. Actually, all weekend I kept shocking myself by looking at my reflection as I walked by shop windows. I don't look that big, but I do look pregnant, and I am just not used to it yet! So when I look at my reflection I immediately think "Woah!".Sunday night, Phillip and Irene cooked for us all. Phillip made a pasta dish with bacon and onions in the sauce which was quite good. They had been apple picking the previous weekend so they made apple crisp AND apple pie. We ate both apple dishes with copious amounts of vanilla ice cream and then headed to bed because we had an early ride to the airport this morning at 6:30, which meant a 6 AM wakeup time. Fortunately, I was awake because the baby had woken me up so Ethan didn't have to rouse me from a deep sleep. I know he would have felt terrible if he'd had to do that! We were at the airport in 31 minutes thanks to our extremely efficient and friendly car service driver, and our flight home was uneventful. I totally crashed for 2 hours after arriving back home and slept. Then I went to work... .and am now home blogging about the trip before I forget the details!
And now.... I am going to collapse in bed. Tomorrow I turn 31!
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