Candy Taste Test

The drive back from NY always seems so long, so we try to find creative ways to pass the time. This trip we bought a bunch of weird candy at our first gas station stop and tried it all over the next several hours:

Grandma's 80th Birthday Party

Boy cousins

The whole crew (minus Harper)

 

Tom's surprise candle was a hit

Ruby helping to blow out the candle

On Uncle Kevin's shoulders

NYC Day #2

I stayed back in Rockland on Friday to have lunch with my brother, but the rest of the crew headed back to the city for a second day. Kevin and Benji started with an official tour of Columbia:

After Columbia, the boys made their way to Kevin's favorite, the Museum of Natural History:

Meanwhile, Abby did her own thing in the city, but kindly sent a pic of her enjoying a park:

They all rendezvoused at Yankee Stadium, where they also met up with Chris and his family for the game:

 

Selfie on the train home

NYC Day #1

We were in NY for the weekend to celebrate Grandma's 80th birthday, so we took the opportunity to also spend some time in the city. We had promised Benji tickets to a Broadway show for his birthday and decided the Thursday (which was also Juneteenth) would be the best day for that. The original idea was to go to TKTS and see what they had, but as the date got closer Benji decided he really had his heart set on Hadestown, which turned out not to be on TKTS that day. As we were driving to the city, we made the decision to just buy tickets because they were rapidly disappearing (by the time we bought ours, there were only a couple seats left in the whole theater). This freed up our day, though, so we decided to spend the afternoon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which we all loved:

We took the train from Secaucus to Penn Station and then the subway to Harlem where we ate Ethiopian food

From there, we took a Lyft to the Met and found a long line! The kids went to check out the situation and took some fun pics in front of the museum

Turns out the line looked long but went very fast and we were in

Started in the Egyptian tomb

It started to rain while we were in this room and it was neat to see the lightning out the windows

Federalist building

Tiffany windows are always my favorite

Abby left us at the museum to meet up with a friend and we made our slow way to Broadway:

Before the show

In our seats - we had to sit two by two because there were no sets of 4 seats together by the time we bought our tickets

After the show

Coming out of the train, we noticed that the Empire State Building was lit up for Juneteenth

The elevator had mirrors, so Abby wanted a selfie :)

Swim Meet #2

At home. Managed to catch his butterfly this time:

Family Movie Night In: The Princess Bride

This was a bucket list item for the month - movie on the big screen with themed snacks. We chose The Princess Bride and went to town on the punny foods:

Pita of Despair; Hummus: I do not think that word means what you think it means

The "Bread" Pirate Roberts

Fire Swamp (Salsa)

Rodents of Unusual Size

Val's Miracle Pills (the chocolate coating makes them go down easier); Inigo's 6 (shortbread) fingers

Fezik's peanuts; Princess peanut buttercups