Pyramid Mountain

This weekend we had a wonderful hike at Pyramid Mountain near Montville, NJ. We found it online by chance, and decided to give it a try... we're so glad we did! It's a very big park, really gives you the sense of being away from everything. Oliver loved it, and the park must be near a flight path because there were tons of planes flying overhead and that was extra fun for Oliver! We had an unexpected surprise near the top when we realized we could see the NY skyline. You'll see it, too, if you zoom in on the photo of Andy and Oliver with the distant views. When we got up to Tripod Rock, we were glad we walked all that way because it was really cool. Andy, of course, had to conquer it with his sweet skills! Oliver tried to follow him, actually - he loved climbing around the rocks. Gorgeous day out, we're looking forward to going back soon and trying some new trails.

A visit with cousin Saul

We made another trek into NYC last week to see Rachel, Beth, and Saul and have a nice dim sum lunch... it was SO nice to see them, but Oliver didn't fare well without his usual late-morning nap. Lunch hit right about the time he should have been deep asleep, and he let us know it! Unusually grumpy at the restaurant, so we didn't get to have much of a feast... but he seemed to enjoy our nice walk down the busy streets afterwards - it was a truly gorgeous day, and he finally fell asleep in his stroller after a while, and slept about a half hour (not much!). Rachel and Saul and I got some ice cream (Beth had to leave after lunch for her conference) and we all played in a great little playground when Oliver woke up. He was ok on the train trip home, despite a 50 minute delay getting out of Penn Station (only one track was open for in and outgoing trains, eek). Here's a picture of Oliver climbing around our seat on the train home. It was so cool seeing Saul - he's got so much to say, and is interested in everything, and just so sweet!! We can't wait for our next visit!

First time on a bike...

But not the last! Here's Oliver a couple of weekends ago, getting a feel for dad's bike... we think he liked it!!

Busy, busy boy

So, this morning Oliver discovered the drawer under the stove where we keep all our cookie sheets and other large, flat metal items, and while I sat here on the couch, he brought them all to me, one at a time. Very busy, very determined. After two large cookie sheets, two cooling racks, a muffin tin and a splash guard were strewn about the living room, he set out to return them to the drawer... I haven't checked to see what that looks like, but I'm sure it's amusing! I think he's only brought two things back so far, actually. It's quite a noisy endeavor. Oh, here comes the cookie sheet, back into the living room...

Yesterday we had a little walk down the street, and he was extremely fascinated in the big oil truck parked next door (engine still running). He stopped nearby and just stared at it, pointed to it repeatedly, murmered interesting noises, and waved at it a bit. The oil man saw him and smiled, and when he drove the truck away, he waved at Oliver. Oliver watched the truck turn the corner, and then waved back, and kept waving for quite some time. Very cute boy!

Right now Oliver's dad is out on his mountain bike with a fellow biker we met at the park a few weeks ago - it's sunny outside but very cold still. When he gets back, we're all going out for a walk in the woods or possibly down to Frenchtown, NJ for a bike along the canal path on the Delaware River. We're looking forward to trying out Oliver's new bike buggy - we'll take lots of pictures! xoxo

BEAR!!!

Background: A week or so ago, when mom was visiting and we were wandering around the yard, we noticed a chunk of our fence had been smashed in (or out) by something unknown force. It was in the bottom of the fence, about two feet wide and maybe 3 feet high, the wooden fence pieces just strewn about near the opening. Then a few days later, at the other end of the yard, another area was damaged, this time high up and much messier, not a real opening like the last time. The (relatively) good news is that we've realized recently that the whole fence is old and in disrepair/rotting and needs to be replaced, so at least this isn't happening to a "good" fence.

ANYWAY! This morning I pulled aside the curtains in the living room to look out at the birds on the feeder, and what did I see?? I think you can guess from the title and the pictures! A bear! Not a baby bear, a big, wet (rainy day), full grown bear! 4 feet away from me, eating up our bird seed and having destroyed the iron rod that the feeder hangs from. I dashed to get the camera and got a couple of blurry shots, but this afternoon I looked up when passing the window, and there he was again! So this time I got several good shots, all of which are shown here. I also got a longer look at him, and as soon as he saw me he ambled quickly away. I tried to see how he got out of our yard, but didn't see him exit - I assume he stayed close to the deck on the yard below, and went out the opening at the far end... otherwise, he's taken up residence under the deck, but I won't be investigating that by myself!!! So, that's the news from the wilds of New Jersey!!

A visit to see Aunt Arlene!

Since moving to NJ, we've been looking forward to seeing Aunt Arlene, my father's mother's brother's widow (get that!), who lives less than half an hour away, in Pompton Plains. We finally visited her today, and she's doing great. Here's a photo!

New Yorkers are NICE! Except for one.

Ok, make yourself a drink and get comfortable, this one's going to be a long one!!! This week, mom's visiting from Tuesday evening through mid-day Sunday, and when we were planning the visit, we decided to have a big gala day in New York City, with two main goals: a dim sum lunch in Chinatown, and a visit to the Orchid Show at the New York Botanical Garden. This required lots of pre-planning, since Chinatown is at the very south end of the city, and the garden is north of Manhattan, in the Bronx... but I'll start at the beginning.

We left home with enough time to get to the train station in Dover (less than 15 minutes away) and park, not counting it being nearly 10am and all of the parking lots were full! But when we drove by the station, we noticed the VERY FIRST parking spot was open, so we gleefully pulled in. Then we realized that the parking meter was broken (thus no one else had parked there), but we said, "screw it!" as the train was leaving in about 5 minutes and we didn't have time to look elsewhere! Oliver was *very* fascinated with the train, as you can imagine... he spent the whole trip to the city (about 75 minutes) watching the doors open and close, looking out the window, watching other trains zoom by, and just generally admiring the novelty of it all. Here's a picture of him on his first train trip.

When we got to Penn Station, we followed signs to the subway lines and got a train straight to Canal Street in Chinatown. The reason I've called this entry "New Yorkers are Nice" is that the ENTIRE day, every single time we got to stairs or an escalator or a door (which is OFTEN, when you're navigating the NY subway system), someone came right over to help us. We never asked, they just came right up and offered - they held doors, carried the front of the stroller up or down stairs, helped with directions, often at great length. It's one thing if it happens once or twice, but it was all day, consistently, and it was quite impressive! Except one guy, but we'll get to that later!

So when we got to Chinatown, we walked several blocks to our restaurant, passing the busy street vendors selling purses and scarves, Chinese souvenirs, toys, fruits and vegetables, fresh fish (see photos). We chose a highly rated dim sum restaurant, Ping's Seafood, and had a wonderful assortment of our very favorites: shrimp dumplings, pork and shrimp shumai, pork buns, sticky rice, crispy dumplings... all insanely delicious. I got two portions of pork shumai, as I knew Oliver loved them - he couldn't get enough!! As you can see...

Sadly, the time came when we had to finish our dim sum lunch. :-) We got the subway up to 14th street, then changed trains to go allllll the way up to the end of the green line in the Bronx, the second to the last stop. Unfortunately, the Botanical Garden is about 10 blocks from the subway station, so we could either walk or take the bus, and there was a bus waiting right there, so we hopped on. As much as you can "hop" with a big stroller, a near-30 pound boy, and two increasingly fatigued women! We told the driver we'd like to get off at the garden, and he said he'd make an announcement (foreshadow). So we went to the back of the bus (as requested by said busdriver, with our big stroller). A few minutes later, after we'd stopped, we heard an announcement to the effect of "mother with stroller, exit here for the Botanical Garden." So we jumped up, made our way through the throng of people to the back door, and a man there tried to yell to the driver to OPEN THE DOOR! And two seconds later, the bus drove away from the stop! So we were trapped on the bus, watching helplessly as the huge grounds of the garden passed us by and we got farther and farther away. A few blocks later, the bus finally stopped and we got out, exclaiming very unladylike things to the bus as it drove away (or more specifically, to the driver, the one New Yorker who failed us miserably)... what's the point in saying you should exit the bus, but not opening the back door and then driving away???? So we walked as quickly as we could back to the garden entrance (we were now late for our scheduled entry time), and thereafter returned to our only good NY experiences!

With tickets to the orchid show at the garden, we wandered around and marveled at it all - a very impressive exhibit! Oliver, surely exhausted at this point (approaching 4pm) with no nap all day, was happy to run around and investigate everything. He had lots of admirers as he went from place to place, kept everyone smiling.

When we left, we had to decide if we'd try to make our way back to the subway station, then take a subway (during rush hour) down to Grand Central, then have to get to Penn Station from there - OR take a cab! So we decided to take a cab! Which turned out to be a wonderful decision - it wasn't *too* expensive, and Oliver finally got to take a nap! He was strapped into a safety belt between me and mom in the back (eek, no car seat!!), and within about 3 minutes he was snoring next to me (see photo in part 2), and got to sleep almost 40 minutes, when I had to wake him up at Penn Station (which made him very grumpy, poor thing!). Such a well-deserved nap - what a great boy he'd been all day!! And talk about New Yorkers - our cabby actually apologized to us about the heavy traffic!! We were enjoying every minute of the ride, though - sleeping boy, a chance to sit down, perfect!

At the station, we quickly realized there was an express train leaving for Dover in about 4 minutes, so we rushed down to the track, and we managed to catch it, even making our way with the stroller down a big escalator! Amazing, considering the hundreds of people swarming around. As soon as we got on the train, two businessmen jumped up and offered us their seats - we were so grateful! Oliver was a bit cranky on the ride home, not terrible though, and certainly understandable. The icing on the cake - no ticket on the car when we got back to the parking lot! So, that's pretty much the story of our day, a wonderful day in the big city. Now Oliver and I are all geared up for another trip to Chinatown in a couple of weeks, where we'll be meeting Rachel and Beth and little Saul for dim sum... you can NEVER have too much dim sum!

What's new in O-land

Hello! Trying to keep my *vast* blogger audience out there happy and satisfied... :-) Let me see what's new with O... well, mom had a great morning today (Saturday) because when O woke up at about 7:15am, dad took him downstairs to play and have breakfast while mom got to sleep in!! This was great, but especially great for dad, who had a crazy busy week and literally had not seen Oliver (awake) since Sunday!! Then a little later, Andy took him to a local children's musem, and I got to stay home and take a shower (wheee!) and do some housework, like filtering through the huge pile of mail on our counter. Nice morning! I got an email from Andy, out with Oliver (he can send emails with photos from his Blackberry), with this photo and the text "Not working out as planned!" Apparently O had fallen asleep in the car on the way to the museum... not an unusual ocurrance! But then an email came in after that, saying he was back on track, and showing him at the musuem. They had a good time, despite the torrential rain outside. We had a great webcam with Steve and Al during O's afternoon nap just now, and we brought the computer upstairs so they could see him napping! Very sweet. Guess there isn't tons more news right now... but I'll be back soon!

Brought to you by the letter "G"

So Oliver's favorite new thing to say is "g!" A hard g, as in "great" -- he keeps repeating it, ga, ga, ga, and sometimes adds an east european flavor, a gutteral "hg" or "ghh." It's very cute, he keeps exclaiming with enthusiasm about whatever he's doing - "g!"

We had a nice day yesterday, left after breakfast to drop off the car at the Volvo dealership for service, got a loaner car (big fun changing over the car seat, NOT!), then went to Trader Joe's for groceries and then a chinese lunch. Oliver *loved* the pork buns, and the sesame chicken! How many 16 month olds can join you for lunch at a chinese restaurant?? He's the best. In honor of our oil change, here's a photo of Oliver a few weeks ago at a children's museum, in one of his favorite places (behind the wheel!).

When we finally got home he had a great big long nap, having missed his morning nap. It was a really warm, sunny day outside, so we went for a walk down the street when he got up, and he was so fascinated with everything - he stepped happily in puddles, stopped for a long time to listen to the leaves rustling on the trees, watched the birds and airplanes, kicked at the little bits of snow around - he doesn't miss anything! Then we went for a swing on his swingset, and played around the yard for a long time. He's already helping in the garden - he noticed some little pebbles that were on the patio instead of along the side of the house with all the other little pebbles, and he stooped and put them all back with the others! Then he decided to walk the whole length of the yard right through the 1-foot wide strip of snow that's left there, leaving little baby footprints the whole way.

He's been in great spirits lately, laughing at things a lot. When we went for a walk this weekend, at the end we took him out of his backpack and he walked the last bit with us. Andy was walking along the edge by the snow, and when he kicked a bit of snow in front of us, Oliver laughed. So he did it again and again, and Oliver was just cracking up, like this snow was the FUNNIEST thing ever! He's so unpredictable!!