NYC - Saying Goodbye to NY and the end of our fun trip (lots of pic's again)

After we left Lower Manhattan, we took the subway up to Midtown, and got off at grand Central Station. then we walked up 5th ave. past all the fancy stores. We passed the American Girl Store, but Build-A-Bear was too much, we just had to go in! Sariah happened to mention that everyone else in the family (o.k., except Liam) has a 'real' Build-A-Bear, adn she has never gotten one. We looked around and found the perfect bear to keep as a memory of her trip. Sariah got the I Love (heart) NY Bear, and we got the Statue of Libearty outfit for her. Sariah wanted to name her bear something that would also help her to remember her trip and be significant to her. She finally decided on Tricia-Marie. She picked a couple of names of people she'd spent time with, adn put them together. I thought that was sweet. :-)

Too cute!

We went into the Disney Store. They have a door man! They had a lot of cute NYC specific Stuff. We got Liam a new baseball bat, ball and glove of NY Mickey. I got a bag and sweatpants with 'I Mickey NY' on it (like the I 'heart' NY Logo. Here is one of the amazing window displays. I thought it was so pretty.

I tried to take a picture of 5th Ave. with all the lights and the Empire State Bldg. at night, with my jiggly hand it was hard. This one didn't turn out too bad. By the time we walked up to 5th and 59th FAO Schwartz had closed so we didn't get to go in and see the fun toy store. Oh well.

We did take a Carriage Ride through Central Park. That was fun. Then -out of time and out of money - we headed back to Rach's to spend the night.

In the morning 'A' and 'T' came and climbed in bed with Sariah, adn they got their Build-A-Bear friends also. On our way walking home to their apartment, I saw a pile of moving boxes someone had put out for the trash, and grabbed one to help protect Sariah's Characature that she had drawn on our travels home. I was able to cut the ends off the box, and two sides, and tape it together (with the rest of the tape I've been using to tape my still sore -broken- toes to help me be able to do all the walking I've been doing). It worked great! we were able to fit it in the suitcase and it didn't get messed up or bent at all.

'A' is very creative, and asked if she could have the rest of the box that we weren't using (I wished then that we'd gotten more boxes for her to play with). She decided to make a house. She started coloring and decorating it right away. She made windows and drew portrait pictures on the walls. She allowed 'T' to color, but only on the parts that weren't showing as much or the extra end pieces we'd cut off. ;-) They had so much fun making their house! 'A' had Sariah help her put in a doggy door (a plastic baggy), so her build-a-bear dog could come and go... :-)

After packing and repacking all our suitcases and bags, I realized I only had directions TO Rach's house, so we got on the computer and printed out directions to drive from Manhattan back to JFK airport on Long Island. I thought we'd left in plenty of time to drive there and be there early enough to check in and make our flight, but then with all the traffic, one way streets, difficult to understand directions and wrong turns,(at one point it said make a sharp turn onto the 59th street entrance to the Bridge, well, it didn't specifically say what road we should have turned onto to get to the sharp turn,, it was actually on 58th somewhere I think?) we were on our way - finally on the Van Wyck expressway - heading to the airport, when Bill called to ask if we were about to board the flight. I had to sadly express that we weren't even at the airport yet. (close, but not quite there, and we had to turn in the rental car, take the air train to the terminal, check in, etc...). Bill got understandably upset, but started calling and making arrangements. They couldn't get us on another flight out of JFK that day that would have gotten us home, but we were booked on a flight out of LaGuardia Airport that would get us where we needed to be. We had about 3 1/2 hours to get to LaGuardia, and check in. Sariah thought that was a ton of time and we'd be just sitting around for a long time! We got on a bus that took us to LaGuardia, (for $7.00 a person - the guy at the rental car return was getting us a taxi that would have cost us $40.00). By the time they finally directed me to the right ticket counter (I walked back and forth from one to the other about 4 times with our stuff - but luckily the two counters/airlines were right next to one another). I had to get our tickets reissued at the one airline, then go to the other counter to get a new ticket for their airline since we'd been switched to another sister carrier. They have gotten to where they have the self check in kiosks, and after you do that part of it they only have ONE person helping tag your bags, and weiging and putting them. So we would have to wait our turn and then hold up everyone else while we took care of each step of our ticket switch head ache! When we FINALLY got everything taken care of and were actually checking in, our main bags were each too heavy by 2 or 3 pounds... so I had to take some things out of the big suit cases, and stuff it into the other smaller bags. It's amazing how one pair of shoes, and another small thing or two weigh about 5 lbs! We got that taken care of and then had to walk our bags around to security, where they sent our checked bags through an x-ray scanner, and would open and go through your bags if there was anything suspicious in them. I was a bit nervous, as we had transfered our 1/2 gallon of apple cider from the Farm, into several smaller more securely closing topped juice and water bottles, and put them in in ziplock bags, and then inside our checked suitcases! The next part was when WE went through security, we got our tickets tagged as the one's to be searched, since we'd JUST bought our tickets at the last minute basically... so Sariah and I both had to get a more detailed screening, and had to wait for a female to come pat us down. I wanted to ask if we could have her do it again so I could get a picture, but Sariah didn't think that was amusing at all. ;-)

Finally, we boarded our plan and got in the air, headed back home. Sariah made me take a bunch of pic's of her and her bear, in the plane. She pretended to cry that she was leaving NY.

She also took a bunch of pic's out the window of the plane as we prepared to leave (the guys on the flight line, the guys loading our luggage, etc).

We arrived in Ohio, and had a couple of hour lay over. Sariah passed teh time by playing her D.S. - she tried to teach me how to play a game or two. Then we finally arrived home in AL. We were so glad to be safely home and return to our family. I think Liam was a bit mad at me, since he gave me a cursory hug then sort of ignored me for a while. Since I came home however he has been quite clingy. Sometimes it isn't so bad to get to sit and snuggle with my little guy. I'm sure my days are numbered, and one day we'll wake up and he won't want to snuggle and hug on mommy so much any more, so I'm trying to enjoy and take advantage of it while I still can! I sure missed my family while I was gone! I had a lot of fun, but, It's good to be home!

Life takes over... take a moment to pause, and reflect

I have been trying to finish with the NY trip posts, and get back to our regular lives...

****** However******

As I began to post about this moment of our trip, and looking for pictures (to show the BEFORE as well as the after - that I took), I found a photographers web site with a picture and a simple but I think eloquent message, so I am now posting his web link and then I cut and pasted the response I don't know if he will ever see (will he be notified of a response to a blog post he wrote over two years ago now???). I felt it was important... to remember. So for today that is all I will post and the rest of my life will just have to wait a while longer.

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http://lanescheideman.blogspot.com/2006/09/sphere-by-fritz-koenig.html

Thank you for this post. I had the opportunity recently to go to NY (I used to live there 20 years ago, and hadn't been back since the tragic events of 9-11). I don't remember the Sphere as it originally stood - for peace - in the fountain in the middle of the World Trade Centers. I'm sure I have seen it, but, I was young and didn't understand the impact of what the artist originally intended. After finding it and feeling the significance of the battered Sphere in Battery Park, I went looking for pictures of it from 'before'... I found it very hard to find! I would type in the artists name or the name of the piece and all that would come up on the internet were picture after picture, post, after post, about the it now residing in Battery Park - temporarily. So, thank you for posting the picture (I think quite stunning) of it as it once stood at the WTC, and for your blog post about your feelings of it. I didn't personally loose anyone close to me on that day, but I lost countrymen/women and sat watching my news (before I went to bed on the eve of 10 Sept in Asia, where I lived at the time with my family on a military post, in a foreign country) and felt torn and broken by what I was seeing. Remembering that when I first moved to NY all those years ago, my friends took me to the City, R worked on Chambers street (I saw that street sign on the ground on the news). They took me up to the top of the Towers to the observation deck... I had personally been in one of those two buildings... my feet had stood where so many were now dying... I felt the attack very personally. My heart ached and I cried for those in peril, as I watched helplessly, waiting for whast it would mean in my life - being locked down on base unable to go ANYWHERE for days. Our children's schools closed for several days until we could figure out the state of the World and how it would personally impact our lives living abroad. What was our 'threat level'? So, again, thank you for posting your thoughts, and your picture. I hope others will take a moment to remember as well...

Below is part of an Essay written about the Sphere.

http://www.newarkmetro.rutgers.edu/essays/display.php?id=297

Endurance, the Sphere and Memories of 9/11 By Eudora Min
"September 11 hit everyone by surprise, and no one was prepared to forget the World Trade Center. After the destruction, the Sphere by Fritz Koenig stood strong, reminding us all of lost lives.Before September 11, 2001, the Sphere stood in the center of the World Trade Center Plaza, as a monument to world peace. After the attack, it was recovered, with holes and dents, and inside it was another story—a Bible, an airline seat and even papers from an office. People found it significant that the statue was able to endure after such a dramatic attack. The Sphere currently resides in Battery Park, alongside an eternal flame, as a memorial to those lost in September 11.The 25-foot statue is hard to miss when you walk in Battery Park. Its once smooth exterior is almost unrecognizable—the Sphere now resembles a broken-down soccer ball. While in old pictures it is proud and shiny, the statue is now dull, perfectly symbolizing the state of the country after September 11. ...

The Sphere has gone through a major transformation from its first installment in 1971. It was created by the German sculptor Fritz Koenig and was issued to pay tribute to peace through the World Trade Center. Koenig was born in 1924 in Germany and is famous for his metal geometric-form sculptures. Koenig actually created memorials for Nazi concentration camps in Austria and various others in Israel, but he did not want the Sphere to become another memorial for the lost ones. However, after seeing the new worn-down beauty of the Sphere, he commented that it “now has a different beauty, one I could never imagine. It has its own life—different from the one I gave to it.”

With the constant flow of people in and out of Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty ferries and the various acrobats and animated Statues of Liberty, it seems as though the Sphere has become just another tourist attraction for New York City. Battery Park is the perfect place for a tourist attraction, and the placement of the Sphere in that park could not be more appropriate. Along with three other significant memorials in lower Manhattan—one at a firehouse adjacent to ground zero, one at the civil courts building and one across the river at Exchange Place—the Sphere brings together the tourists and the natives, the past and the present."

Give me Liberty... (again, very picture heavy)

After our lunch we took a nice walk around the tip of Manhattan. They have a lovely walkway along the river, to Battery Park. The main things Sariah wanted to do when she came to NY was to see Ground Zero, and to go to the Statue of Liberty. She is sad thast you can no longer go UP in the Statue. I'm glad I did that in my younger years...

As you walk along the tip of Manhattan, you begin to see Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty. People walk, jog, roller blade, ride bikes, etc along tis river area. It

was mid day when we were there and people were laying out enjoying the sun. There were guys fishing (I don't know exactly what fish they were catching)... they'd set out several poles in a line.

This was a neat memorial, I wish I'd gotten a better picture of it.

American Merchant Mariners' Memorial at Battery Park.

http://www.walkingoffthebigapple.com/2008/06/marisols-american-merchant-mariners.html Here's a blog link with info about it.

IKEA is even in NY!!! (This is for another post... but I think we should start a campaign to get IKEA here in the Huntsville AL area.)

On the boat to Liberty Island.

Last year in school Sariah had to memorize the Poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus -

The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Sariah had a little fun with her crown we'd already bought, and a torch she found in the gift shop.

Back on the boat - Saying goodbye to Lady Liberty!

After we got off the boat and walked around Battery Park, we found people doing characatures, so Sariah got one, it turned out really cute.

She paid for it. Of course they suck you in by saying it is only $5.00 and then try to force you to pay for a (cheap) frame for another $15.00, making it a total of $20.00 and if you don't take the frame your picture will get ruined! I didn't have that much left on me (after buying t-shirts and sweat shirts for the girls) so I said No, and he said how much do you have??? I think between Sariah and I both we ended up with $11.00. Then we saw several people taking pic's with someone dressed up in a Statue outfit. When they finished as the person started to move on, I said could we get a picture, adn the people from before us, said they'd take the picture so we could both be in it. they actually took about 5 pic's for us on our camera. We thanksed everyone, and the statue person said, that will be $5.00. I had no Idea! I told her there was no sign or anything and she should post a sign with a price on it if that was what she expected. I suppose that it made sense (she had a little box I noticed to put the money in on the ground tucked next to her stuff, with a license on it, -authorizing her to sell her wares (pic's with her in costume) there in Battery Park. I just didn't realize BEFORE we had already committed! Sariah and I both dug through all our stuff and scraped together $5.00. I don't know what we would have done if we hadn't been able to come up with it. Show her we were deleteing the pic's off our camera??? Who knows!?!