The Blog Post of Epic Proportions, Part II: Dino Day and Autumn Festivities

Part II. Last weekend's awesome adventures. I had so much fun I didn't even know what to do with myself.  Ridiculous.

Thursday we slept, did laundry, and cleaned the house!! SO exciting, right? But really, on Thursday night we ate at Madison Square Eats. If you read my last post, you know we went for dessert with my family, but this time we went hungry. I got franks from asiadog: the ito (Japanese curry + homemade kimchi apples) and the sidney (Thai style relish with mango + cucumber + red onion +cilantro + crushed peanuts + fish sauce). Austin had a burger from Graffiti/Metaphor that was pretty impressive. We enjoyed eating dinner under the lights and then went for a dessert milk shake at the Shake Shack across the street in the park. Peanut butter...mmmm.

So busy! Madison Square likes to Eat.

My asiadogs.

Lights, hustle and bustle! This place was hopping.

Delicious food, delicious times.

Friday we went went here...dun, dun, DUNNN!

(jessicahish.com)
Pardon my French...but it's just oh. so. true.
Honestly, I hope this doesn't offend anyone, it just made me laugh :)

We woke up and made pumpkin pancakes, which of course just started out the day right. Pancakes are always Austin's thing...he always makes them when we have people stay over. They're kind of infamous. But these pancakes, these were on a whole 'nother level. If you know what I mean.

Pumpkin freaking pancakes. Yes.

This museum, let me tell you. It is out of this world. First of all, the hype builds with the coolest subway stop in the entire world. It makes me smile every time I pass it. This time, we got to stop. Dinausaur fossils, starry skys, insects, the sunrise, all built into the subway tile.

(via ideonexus.com)
Awesome, no?

We arrived at the museum with high expectations, and this is how we were greeted.

Entrance to awesomeness.

Well hey there, Mr Dinosaur.

Oh, and hi, hello. You are so tall you barely fit in my pictures.

We started out in the Hall of African Mammals and were greeted by a herd a elephants.

The Circle of Life was playing in the background...ok not really, but is this not freaking awesome??

Big fellas.

We also saw the big 5 and giraffes, zebras, and gazelle galore. Not quite as cool as Kenya, but the next best thing here statewide. I'm pretty sure Africa takes the cake when it comes to awesome animals. They are just too cool for school.

Giraffes!

Zebras, zebras, zebras.

Cape buffalo

Hippo at the watering hole. Fun fact from Kenya: did you know that hippos are the most dangerous of African animals to humans?  They are super territorial and a lot of Kenyans are attacked when they go to get water. I cared for a little girl who was bitten by one and had her arm completely crushed- so scary!

There's always tons of gazelle...

Ok, so every time I see this picture, this song we sang in Sunday School back in the day comes in my head...Who's the King of the Jungle? Hoo-hoo *pounds chest* Random, I know.

Mufasa.

Then, we went to the Planetarium where Whoopi (Goldberg, that is) taught us about the creation of stars (not in real life, but she narrated the i-max style movie). Super interesting.

To infinity, and beyond! (Ok, are these comments nerdy enough for you yet?)

The North American Mammals seemed a little lame after the African Mammals, but they were still pretty cool. The epic flying squirrels were my favorite.

Elk

Holy antlers, Batman.

dun, dun, DUNNNN!

Then we saw LOTS of Indians (did I mention lots of Indians?), people groups, giant redwood stumps, and the Hall of Creatures (!!!) This was a bit too awesome to take. Trust me, you'll see.

Totem. LOTS of Indians.

Learning to read stumps.

So, so old.

And...the Hall of Creatures!!!! fdkla;reuiak!

Wall of butterflies.

By the time we got to the Hall of Oceans, my phone was dead and Austin's was practically there. Can you tell we were a bit picture happy? So we will save that for a future blog post. But let me just tell you, it was AWESOME. As in, replica of a freaking whale suspended from the ceiling awesome. Are you seeing a trend here. Austin wanted to save his camera for the 4th floor, which houses these guys....

Dinosaurs! The highlight of the day. Duh.

Triceritops, right? I think I need to brush up on my dinos.

But this one I know...T-rex!! How about those teeth? :D

We shut the museum down and didn't even feel like we saw half of it. We were so enthralled that we bit the bullet and bought season passes. It pretty much pays for itself if we go back at least 3 times...which I'm pretty sure will not be a problem. We got our membership cards in the mail yesterday. So legit.

After the museum, we walked around the lovely Upper West Side, which is rapidly becoming one of my favorite neighborhoods. Then, going with our dino theme we took the train up to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que for some amazing wings, ribs, bbq chicken, and pulled pork.

Dinosaur BBQ

Then we fell asleep watching Jurassic Park. Perfect way to end our Dino Date.

Soooo...I am going to dub this Chapter 1 of Part II. See what I mean when I said epic? I think you have enough to feast your eyes on for tonight, will finish my updates tomorrow! :) Good night, dear void.

The Blog Post of Epic Proportions, Part I: The Hewitt Family Storms the City

Unbelievable. I just started this little old blog, and am already so far behind on my updates. Unbelievable, Pt II. It has been snowing all day. Yes, snowing. Happy Halloween, I guess? This gives a whole new meaning to that whole frost on the pumpkins bit, Mr. Riley (I always think of my grandpa quoting that poem and Little Orphan Annie this time of year :)). 


And just as I start writing this, this song pops onto my Pandora. Isn't it weird how Pandora or even your average radio station just reads your mind sometimes? We'll go with it I guess...snow day. *Update: We have. Stayed in and read/watched movies/slept all day. Made a massive vat of chili we dubbed "The Devil's Chili" because it was SO hot...guess that's what 4 jalepenos will do. And the recipe even called for 6?! Appropriate for a Halloween snow day though, right? :)

Anyway, like I said in my first post, this blog will not be perfect or necessarily even updated regularly (obviously). Sometimes I feel inspired and have the time, and sometimes I am just busy. Lately, we've been busy. Visitors, exploring, soaking in the essence of the fall season in the city. I believe in the importance of being present in the moment, and devoting myself to the people I am with (don't even get me started on how social media has ruined this--another reason I suffer with blogging regularly), so this blog may suffer in the meantime. But don't worry, I will do my best to update when I can (my updates just might not be the timeliest :)). Thus, "The Blog Post of Epic Proportions."


Part I: The Hewitt Family Storms the City

So, my family came to visit- YAY! We love New York so much, but the only thing it's missing and makes us homesick at times is that we can't share it with family and friends. I was so thrilled when my family decided to take a long weekend to come up to visit. Two weekends ago now, shesh...time flies. My parents had never been to the city before, so we had lots of fun touring the town. Heck, we had fun being tourists for the weekend. The city is so big with so much to do, so it was fun riding around and taking notes of places and spaces we want to delve into sometime in the future. That's us up above in Times Square on the big ol' tour bus we took throughout the city for the weekend...kind of cool seeing the city from above the street level. A totally different perspective...I think tourists might have something in the whole "looking up" bit :).


On Friday, the family arrived and Lillie peed on the couch she was so excited. We were too, but we held our bladders. She proceeded to be cute the whole weekend, even if her sleep schedule was massively thrown off by our coming and goings.

We wrote greetings on our freshly painted chalkboard wall. So very hostess-y right? Oh and that's our new wall spice rack we made from one of the old crates we had. I like that it's a little spice display...I think spices are pretty, is that weird? Side note: At some point, I really need to get some apt pics up here. But that's for another day. 

We went for a walk in the neighborhood. According to Abbey, we saw the Brooklyn Bridge...even though New Jersey was on the other side ;). We love our views of the George Washington Bridge!

Doesn't Austin make the GW bridge look good?

Then we went down and got some lunch at our favorite Grey's Papaya for some franks. Recession specials all around! I also tried the Pina Colada juice for the first time-- not the classic Papaya, but super delicious! We stood in the window and took in the Upper West Side (No Meg Ryan or Tom Hanks sightings though) and then took a walk along the Hudson by the Boat Basin. Hello, New Jersey! (If you haven't seen You've Got Mail, you really should. I make way too many references here, but that's just a part of my daily life. Just ask my bestest and former roomie Aubrey)

Then we headed up to Austin's school. Which is really so, so beautiful and I promptly kicked myself for not tagging along with him more.

Then, the night of all nights! For my mom anyway :). We went to Carnegie Deli for some massive sandwiches (ruben, please?), legendary cheesecake, and celebrity sightings and reminiscence over the floor to ceiling pictures covering the walls. We tried to stay dry in Times Square, and ended up heading to FAO Schwartz to reinact the piano scene from Big (seriously, not the funnest scene ever?) and to see some pretty epic legos. Finally, we went to see Mama Mia! on Broadway (mom's dream come true, just look how excited she is in the pic below) and had so much fun we ended up singing the songs the entire way home on the subway.

Saturday we toured away, taking in major sights both downtown and uptown. We made a stop at the Greenmarket for some sweets and apple cider, and of course for some coffee along the way (since there's a Starbucks on every corner). For dinner, we stopped at Eataly for pasta and took in the Flatiron building from Madison Square Eats with some donuts and macarons for dessert.

Sunday we went and saw Lady Liberty and for a cruise along the rivers to see all the bridges (the Brooklyn one included this time, Abs :)). Then went over to Brooklyn and I kicked myself again for not making it over there yet (there's too much to do in the city before we start crossing bridges). 

We ended the night with soul food at Amy Ruth's (delish...seriously like the best mac and cheese I've ever had) and capped off the trip with a night walk (my favorite) along the High Line to see the city all lit up.  (photo via http://www.thehighline.org/)

It was a whirlwind trip, but we had such a great time. It was so great to be able to share the city with our family, and for them to be able to see some of the reasons we are so in love. Can't wait to have them back!


Fin, Pt I