A New Year and a New Look

It has been so long since I last updated our family blog and so much has happened. I felt like it was time to give this blog a facelift and lighten it up a little, hope you like the new look. First I want to start by wishing everyone a belated and Happy New Year! I hope that everyone's (the five of you out there who read this) holiday season was healthy and happy. Greg, Jorn, and I spent a week traveling the Tri-State area visiting friends and family. First stop was New Jersey to see the Nanas and Papas of Holiday City!

Here's Nana (Connors) opening her Red Hat piggy bank. Anyone who knows Nana knows her favorite past time is shopping till she drops so we thought a "Shopping Fund" container would come in handy not to mention that she is a card carrying member of the Red Hat Society.

Then it was Papa Joe's turn to open his gifts. See just to the left of Papa Joe...yeah the dancing singing Santa Claus and Frosty the snowman? Well, multiply those two guys by about 10 and you'll have the amount of motion activated Christmas singing critters in Nana and Papa's house. It has become a "tradition" for Greg to set them all off at the SAME TIME and let's just say that it can cause a severe case of sensory overload. Here's Greg suffering from the after effect.

We also spent time with Papa John and Grandma Audrey but somehow they managed to evade our camera. Now that I am looking for pictures for this post I really am surprised that we managed to leave there without a single picture :-( We had unseasonably warm weather so a bunch of us headed out to the Popcorn Zoo which was established for the sole purpose of providing a refuge for wildlife that are elderly, sick, abandoned, abused or injured, and which could no longer survive in the wild. Jorn and I got up close and personal with this Tiger. Papa Joe, Papa John, Grandma Audrey, Greg, Robin, and Brittany all had a great time too.

Next it was time to head off to the Big City for a visit with Grandma Julie and Jorns first trip to the Museum of Natural History. We spotted this billboard on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway! Of, course, we had to take a picture.

To get to the museum we had to use public transportation. Jorn had never been on a city bus or subway before. He was SO excited! Here we are on the "Big Bus". You could tell that Jorn was amazed he didn't have to sit in a car seat. Such a big boy!

After the bus came the TRAIN! Anyone who knows Jorn knows about his obsession with trains. This was such a big deal for him to ride on a subway. Greg and I took him on the LIRR when he was a baby but he doesn't remember that at all. As far as he was concerned this was his first time on a real train. He is still talking about it!


Check out Grandma Julie, Greg, and Jorn outside the big Museum of Natural History! My friend Aimee from High School gave Jorn a book called, "How to take your Grandma to the Museum" and Jorn and I read that book a whole bunch before our trip. He actually recognized the layout of the museum! The book really helped Jorn prepare for this massive intake of information so if you're reading this Aimee...Thanks!

After all the buses, trains, and dinosaurs it was time to take a nap! I struggle every day to get Jorn to rest his little head and here he is asleep on a wooden bench in the loudest, busiest enviornment that he's ever been in. I guess he has the same reaction to sensory overload as his dad!

After his nap it was time to head to my favorite section of the museum... the rocks and minerals! I think Jorn liked it a lot too since this is the actually the most child friendly area. He could touch the gigantic meteorite, run around on the ramps that bring you from section to section, and dwell in the atmospheric lighting. The colors are amazing, so are the textures. Being in these rooms again made me wish I had gone into geology but what could be better than sharing a kiss with my little guy? Our trip to the museum was great. We didn't get to see very much, it was a lot to take in and a lot of walking but I know we will return and explore some more.

When we left the museum it was just about time to meet my brother Pete for some dinner. He is at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan now so it was just a hop, skip and a jump over to his studio to see his latest work which was amazing. Really amazing. You can check it out on his website. We wound up in this shady Irish Pub where the food wasn't so great but the Guinness was cold and that was all that mattered to these guys (except for Jorn of course, though you'd doubt it from the picture)


After the Big City we headed to Brooklyn to visit the newlyweds, Jarret and Robyn, in Park Slope. We had a short but sweet visit (again no pictures :-( sorry) . Sadly we missed their wedding in October so we were really happy to see them. Little did we know that when we left Brooklyn we'd be heading into this storm.

It took us 8 hours to make a 2 hour trip going 20 miles an hour in second gear the whole way. Thankfully we made it home safely just in time to ring in the New Year.