Favorite Pastime

So, Madeline and Eva's favorite thing to do right now is perch themselves on the window ledge and watch the world around them with their binoculars. Right now, this pastime is pretty benign- the only things really to see are people playing on the ball field, cars and people on the Queensborough bridge, construction crews working on the building adjacent to us, boats out on the river, the tram as it comes and goes, and the Manhattan Skyline. It will however, come to a sad end when the building in front of us in complete. Ceiling to floor windows, most of which have no window coverings, make for more of Manhattan than you want to see, I am sure :).

Grandpa Chenn Visits

We had Grandpa Chenn visit us in September, and really enjoyed spending time with him. We were able to show him a little of what our life is here like in NYC. He took Madeline down to China Town, on a hunt for a rice cooker, and we spent some time in Central Park together. Marc and Grandpa also were able to spend some time together eating out. They went for Sushi one of the nights that Grandpa was in town. Here is a picture of us all together on the Grandpa's last day with us. We went to the Farmer's Market in the morning and came back to make some pasta primavera, and eat our french pastries we purchased from a bakery in town. It was fun to eat lunch up on the roof together.

Owen's First Birthday!!

September 19th brought William Owen's very first birthday. We celebrated by having some NYC pizza, and some Peter Pan Cake. Owen is too young to ask what kind of cake he would like, but the girls assured me that he would say that he wanted a Peter Pan cake if we asked him. He loved eating the cake of course, and it was fun to watch him cheese it up for the camera. Every time Marc would take a picture he would pose with this big grin on his face, it cracked us up. Uncle Patrick was even in town so we had a pretty big crowd to sing Happy Birthday.

First Day of School

Today was Madeline and Eva's first day of school. It was met with a lot of excitement. Madeline was stoked to find out that she got to have "Hot Lunch" on her first day (and mom was excited to find out that hot lunches were free the first month of school). Eva had her first day of afternoon Pre-K, but accompanied Madeline to Kindergarten in the morning. The school day is from 8:30 a.m to 2:50 pm. The girls only had good things to report about their experiences so we will take that as a good sign. Marc was able to come home early from work (to cram for his exams) but was able to take a shot break so we could have the rare opportunity to have dinner with him, which we did on the roof deck to celebrate.

Fun at the Park

The girls have a new favorite park around her on Roosevelt Island. It is a bit of a walk to get to but well worth it. It has a little "rock climbing" area and lots of other fun equipment. Owen likes it because it is shaded by lots and lots of trees, so that means plenty of dried leaves to eat. One thing I like about NYC playgrounds is that most do not have woodchips, they have a rubberized ground which makes it easy to have Owen (whose favorite food group is "woodchips" followed by "dried leaves").

Visiting Bryant Park

On our way back from Dad's office this weekend we walked through Bryant Park and were amazed at how beautiful it is. It is a park right behind the famous New York Public library (the one with the big lions out front) named after the poet/author William Bryant. There were a few outdoor eateries and a really beautiful vine covered restaurant. The girls were really excited about the Carousel, which we have yet to ride but have made promises to do in the future:). One interesting item of note... fashion week this upcoming week and the famous white tents were all set up in Bryant Park ready to go.

Visiting Dad's Office

This weekend Marc took a short break from studying for the series 7 and we took the girls down to Marc's office- Morgan Stanley's new building on 5th Avenue. We had a good time eating pizza in the conference room and seeing where Marc spends the majority of the day at.