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!

New York, New York

It's been a few days - just trying to get back into the swing of things with the kids going back to school, and everything. Now I'll get back to our New York trip.

After the Farm, we went across the Hudson River to visit another family that I worked for. They have this really cool house. It was originally bought from a Sears Catalog in the early 1900's and sent by railraod cars, in pieces, or something and then assembled on location. I'm sure it was originally some wealthy person in NYC's summer home or something. It is located along the Hudson River, in Nyack, just above the little community of Peirmont (a quaint little village). I could see the Tappan Zee Bridge from my bedroom window and at night it was all lit up and quite beautiful.

It has this beautiful arched doorway into the Living Room. and Arched built in bookcases next to the fireplace in the living room to echo the doorway as well. In the hallway to the guest bathroom, and basement is this cool brick floor. And then the kitchen used to have butcher block counter tops, but, it was very narrow and confined, so about 10 years ago they expanded it. It is very nice now, and I love the windows that you can see out and sort of brings the woods inside...

Bill and I got engaged when I lived with this family, (as a matter of fact, in this house), and we really loved this family and their kids, so, when Bill graduated from West Point, they came for the graduation, and at the end of it, the Cadets usually throw their hats in the air. I told Bill he couldn't throw his high, so that he made sure to get his hat back and give it to Adam (the then little boy I took care of from this family). It was cool to see that Ad still has the hat in his childhood room at home. And I made Sariah wear the hat for a couple of pictures.

PICTURES of my/our travels...

I was able to go back and put the pic's in the posts, so the information about what the pic's were was already there and I didn't have to rewrite stuff I've already written... or post pic's with no info to identify them.

So if you are interested in going BACK to previous posts from the past week or so... you can SEE what we have been up to.

I still have more to post, but I may wait another day...

Twin Babies

Here's mom with twin babies at nearly 37 weeks preg. We walked to a park a couple of blocks away, and Rach even climbed on the tire swing for a minute with the kids. How cute is that! Doesn't she look great?!









Here's a couple of cute pic's of the cute twins. With big brother and big sister.









And with Sariah and I getting a turn to hold them. :-) they are sooo cute!

They sleep in thier little bassinet -stroller- for now. They like to be close to one another (who can blame them after 8 months together in momma's tummy). So they swaddle them up tight and put them back to back (so they don't punch each other or puke on each other...) and they sleep pretty good.

Cider House Rules (picture heavy)

Well, before we could leave for the city, Sariah wanted to go back by the farm. Randy was going to be making cider, and we wanted to watch, and we wanted another donut for the road...

First the apples are gathered, then dumped (a variety of around 5 different kinds of apples), into a machine that washes then and removes most of the leaves. Then it gets dumped down onto a convery belt type thing (that is mostly original, and quite old), and the apples are sprayed off one more time and then transported up to the third floor, where they get dropped into a machine that basically pulverizes them. Then R pulls a lever and the apple mush drops down onto the 'car', that has been prepared with a layer of a wooden pallet, then a piece of special fabric, that catches the apple mash. Then, they spread it all out and fold the fabric up around all the sides, lay on another wodden pallet, and lay out another fabric piece, and pull the lever again, so that more apple mash comes down the chute, and they do this layer after layer, until they have about 14 layers. As each new layer is added, it gets heavier and heavier, and the juice begine poouring out the bottom of the 'car' which is covered in a plastic and the juice goes down a tube and into a funnel and pours downstiars to another level, and is poured into a screen, to filter it more finely, then it pours into a very large wooden barrel, then it travels through tubes down into a smaller wooden barrel (Sariah helped clean and wash it out in preparation for the fresh cider to be made). Then the cider is run through a UV ray machine that kills any possible bacteria that migh be left, and heats it. Then the cider is run through another series of hoses to a very large cooling machine, where it is pulled into another barrel and is then gravity fed into a bottling tub. The bottles are fitted onto one of 5 nozzles, and filled. Then the lids are fitted on the bottles, and the labels placed on the jugs.

After the apple mash on the car is high enough - the 'car' is pushed down to the press. The press has a hydrolic lift that puts up to 2,000 lbs of pressure or more on the stack of pallets and apple mash, forcing the cider to pour don through the funnel into the large wooden barrel downstairs.

After about 30 minutes or so... the hydraulic press is turned off, and the 'car' is pushed out the other side of the press and the 'blankets' of left over apple mash that is now nearly dry - as the juice has all been pressed out - are undone and the leftovers lifted off (in a large flat brick of apple peels, seeds, etc) and folded up and then thrown out into the woods, where it is basically mulch, adn will go back into the ground. (sometimes hunters will come gather some of it and place it to get the deer interested and come eat it so they can get their venison).

Once we got over to the farm, Sariah didn't want to leave. She got to help with making the cider.

She also helped Kristamarie put out pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. Then we went over to the farm store, and Tricia's treat shop, and Sariah got to help make some treats, (chocolate dipped pretzels) and stock and organize shelves and then Tricia taught her how to run the register, and she spent most of the rest of the afternoon running back and forth between shops ringing up customers. She was having a blast, and it helped make her even more determined to go back next year on fall break and work the harvest at the farm. I even helped wait on a few customers and helped make and bag some carmel apples.

Then, we went back to the Cider Mill. We helped bottle and label and stack the bottles of Cider in the baskets and then took them to the cold storage room, and clean up the cider tanks, etc. I think Randy said they made a total of nearly 900 gallons of Cider that day. They do that weekly durring the fall. Amazing!

I had no idea what all went into running a farm... I can't believe that after living with R and B for a year and a half - through two fall harvest seasons, I had so little knowlege of what all they did. Granted the farm is bigger than it used to be. The farm store sells more items, they have a gift shop as well now, and then there is Tricia's Treats. That started with Tricia making several batches of homemade cider donuts in the morning, and she would be mobbed before she got them out to the shop. They have gotten bigger and bigger each year. They straightened out an old barn, and it became Tricia's Treats downstairs, and upstairs are offices. Then this past year they built onto the barn, added a storage basement, and a whole new kitchen area. There are windows so that people can watch as they make fresh cider donuts with a cool donut making machine. They also bake pies and muffins, brownies, cookies and other yummy treats. They sell it, and hot or cold fresh pressed apple cider from the farm. (I am sure I gained some weight, eating donuts and drinking cider).

After a full day - working on the farm, Sariah got to drive us around the orchards and the Christmas trees in one of the Golf Carts they use to get around the farm quickly. We took some more pic's and picked some more apples. Then we went back to the house, ate Pizza, then got on our way across the river over the Tappan Zee Bridge to Nyack, where I lived for a year as a nanny to visit with B and L and their daughter (my Amanda's Name sake), Amanda.

There is so much more to tell, so I'll do it in installments, and add pics as I go along. I may tke a few days just so people can read it, and I can take the time to write and post pic's of our adventures.