We had a fantastic spring break week in New York and Massachusetts! We took a road trip instead of flying, which gave us more flexibility in our schedule. Dan and the girls had a half day on Friday before spring break began, and our plan was to leave as soon as school ended that afternoon. Unfortunately, Hallie woke up sick on Thursday with a high fever. She stayed home with me on Thursday and Friday, but we still decided to leave town on Friday afternoon, trusting that she would feel better as the days continued. The 9-hour drive was tiring, but worth it.
We stayed at Paul and Wendy Jensen's (our sister-in-law, Dawn's parents) house on Long Island. We enjoyed seeing them and appreciated the accommodations! They had a lovely guest suite with a bedroom, bathroom, living area and kitchenette. It was fantastic, except for "the incident" our first night there. Hallie had done well on the drive to NY, but was exhausted and miserable by the time we arrived. I gave her melatonin, thinking it would help her sleep through the night. Instead, she got me up an hour later, and could only tell me, "I don't know how it happened!"
I followed her into the bathroom and found my worst nightmare. The only explanation Hallie and I could come up with is that she fell asleep fast and got stomach cramps, so she slept-walked to the bathroom and ... there. was. diarrhea. everywhere.
In her melatonin-drugged state, she first thought that the cabinet under the sink was the toilet. Then she must've realized she was in the wrong place, because she moved (leaving a trail all over the carpet) to the toilet. She somehow made a mess on every other part of the toilet before she found the seat, where she finally woke up, surrounded by poop, and with no memory of how it happened!
So ... I spent the next hour bathing and changing Hallie and getting her back into bed, and rinsing out her clothes and the bathroom rug so they could be put into the washing machine for a deep cleaning. Then I used an incredible amount of Clorox wipes and plastic bags to clean up the worst mess I've ever seen. I don't know how her little body produced that much!
I recreated the scene of the crime.
After scrubbing, sanitizing, and gagging my way through the bathroom, I took a very well-deserved long, hot shower. Somehow, Dan and Emma slept through the entire episode, and woke up to a sparkling clean, sanitized bathroom.
On our first day, Dan took us on a tour down Long Island memory lane. This was the house where Dan grew up in Wantaugh, NY
Lee Road Elementary School, where he attended.
The church where his parents got married and where their family attended for years.
Another church that Dan's family attended
Dan's mom lived in this house for several years
Then her family moved to a nearby town and bought this house.
Jones Beach, where Dan visited each summer.
We stopped to have ice cream at Friendly's.
Hallie's "puppy" ice cream. Questionable-looking, but she said it was delicious.
That night, we attended the NY Islanders game at the new USB arena!
The last time we went to an Islanders home game, it was in the original coliseum and Emma was about 2 years old. It was fun to take the girls to see their dad's home team!
Hallie and I walked around the arena, scoping out the food options and picking up some free giveaways from vendors.
Dan in his happy place - and the Islanders won!!!
The next morning, we started our day with a tour of the Empire State Building. Or as Emma calls it, the portal to Mount Olympus! (according to the Percy Jackson books and TV series)
The self-guided tour included an interesting museum explaining how the Empire State Building was built.
Dan got involved in the work.
This was a virtual elevator that showed a video of the NYC view.
The next section of the museum was dedicated to the Empire State Building on screen.
There were tons of photos and video clips of famous actors, characters, and scenes with the Empire State Building. The building has been featured in hundreds of scenes - from King Kong to Sleepless in Seattle - it's one of the most iconic buildings in the world.
The girls were happy when they found a photo of the Percy Jackson TV series cast.
There was a fun photo op with King Kong's hands breaking through the windows to grab unsuspecting visitors. The hands didn't move, but King Kong's face was a moving video that showed him peering into the windows.
Another photo op at a reporter's desk, while WWII planes flew outside the video screen windows.
Dan showed the girls the major NYC sights from an indoor viewpoint.
One area of the museum had several viewfinders. Each one had a panoramic view of a NYC scene. One viewfinder showed Times Square, another showed Central Park, etc.
We finally rode the elevator up to the 86th floor to stand on the famous balcony overlooking the city. The ceiling of the elevator showed another video of the Empire State Building being constructed around you as you rode to the top.
They had an impressive model of the building inside the museum. The actual building is so crowded by other skyscrapers, it's impossible to photograph the entire thing.
Once we finished touring the Empire State Building, we jumped on the Big Bus Tour to see other areas of NYC.
We sat on the top level, which had a clear roof so you could see the tops of buildings as you passed them.
Trinity Church, where Alexander Hamilton was buried.
The 9-11 Memorial
The NYC Library
A giant building filled with all the free books? Yes, please!
Times Square
The Big Bus was a hop on, hop off tour, and we got off at one stop near Staten Island Ferry so we could ride the ferry past the Statue of Liberty.
Dan and I thought the girls would enjoy the close views of Lady Liberty, but they said they've seen better views in movies. LOL!
So they spent the ferry ride acting like crazy people while Dan and I pretended not to know them.
We decided to take the subway back to our bus stop instead of walking back. The girls spotted a rat crossing the train tracks, but I was too slow to get a photo of it.
You don't realize how spooky the atmosphere is down in the subway station until you take your kids there. You're underground surrounded by ugly concrete and metal, low lighting, and strangers who are afraid to talk or make eye contact with each other. You see a city rat scurry across the tracks, and then out of nowhere, WHOOOSH, the subway fills the track and opens its mouth for you to walk into.
The subway was the low point of NYC for both the girls, but it made them stronger people.
We spent the following morning at the Museum of Natural History.
After the museum, we drove to Boston to visit Steve, Sheila, Meera, and Rowan for a few days!
We took a driving tour of the city and its donut shops. When we looked up things to do in Boston, they apparently give donut tours around the city, so we did one on our own. We got to sample donuts from a few different places, but some of the shops we visited were closed or almost out of donuts by the time we got there in the afternoon.
Dan isn't a Red Sox fan, but we of course had to stop by Fenway Park.
We had breakfast at a cute diner called The Friendly Toast
Steve's family lives in the town of Watertown, where their kids can walk to school and local parks. We enjoyed seeing their neighborhood.
Rowan practiced his biking skills for us.
We went to the movies to see "Hoppers" together one night.
Steve took an afternoon off and visited the science museum with us while his kids were in school.
There was a bed of nails you could lay on
An impressive show demonstrating a lightning generator
Computer coding games
A kite-building station
A hilarious game where you had to pretend to be a lion and sneak up on your prey. If you moved too fast, they'd sense you and run away before you could pounce.
A full-sized space pod you could climb inside.
And a dinosaur exhibit
We stopped for ice cream after the museum.
The highlight activity of our visit was Boda Borg. It's an entire building of quest rooms that have different themes. Each quest has three rooms with individual challenges that must be completed by a team of people (one person can't possibly do everything). The outer door color indicates whether the quest is highly physical (crawling and climbing), a mental challenge (memorization or trivia), or a mixture of the two. They give you no instructions before you enter - you just choose a door, enter the quest, and try to figure it out as a team. There's a time limit of less than 5 minutes per room, and if you complete the first room of the quest within the time limit, you can move on to the second & then third room of the quest. If the timer goes off, you have to leave the quest and start completely over, even if you were in the final room at the time. As confusing and frustrating as it is at times, it was a total blast and we all had the best time!
We were technically supposed to have an adult with the kids, but we could absolutely not keep up with them through the non-stop physical challenges they wanted to do. One of us would occasionally go with them, but it was exhausting and we usually made them lose the challenge, so we eventually left them to their own devices.
One of the quests I did with them was an "Escape from Alcatraz" themed room, where the kids escaped from their prison cell by crawling through a tunnel under the sink. Then they had to crawl through tunnels and hide from the spotlights in the next room so they could escape the prison walls.
We were captured and sent back to prison because my butt was caught in one of the spotlights, and they banished me. But they never conquered the entire quest without me, either, so ha! The fast time limits kept the kids fully engaged and excited, because if they didn't like a quest or didn't feel like they could accomplish it, they'd just run to another room to try a new quest.
On our final night in Boston, we hired a babysitter for the kids and went to the Boston Bruins game with Steve and Sheila.
Dan and I finally checked a Boston game off our list.
We loved visiting Steve & Sheila's family and seeing more of the Boston area!
