One year ago today this little man made me an aunt, a title I have always wanted!
On Saturday we went to the Statue of Liberty, a place Jim has wanted to visit since the second we landed at JFK. The weather was a little dreary, but our trip was anything but. We ate some lunch by Lady Liberty, and enjoyed her goodness!
It was a day full of awesome chance meetings. We were in line for the ferry when Jim saw an old friend from the MTC. In talking to him (and his fiance...they got engaged YESTERDAY!), it turns out that he served his mission with one of our closest friends here in NYC, Jon. AND, it just so happened that Jon and Diana (and baby Dabid) and her sister, husband and kiddies were at Liberty Island also enjoying a much needed relief from law school. We all met up and had a blast spending time together. Diana's niece, Livy, is such a doll and played so well with T. By the end of the trip he was calling Lady Liberty the Statue of Livy!
Jim sang these words ALL morning "people all around the world, we're going to America!" 
We spent Friday checking out Coney Island and boy, oh boy, did we have a BLAST!
We started out at the original Nathan's hot dogs and T downed my whole corndog. It was good, but it didn't live up to the California State Fair (not even close!)
We played on the beach and Talmage LOVED feeling the sand between his toes. But, the water was freezing so we decided taking a dip was probably best left for another day.
A funnel cake was a great dessert as we cruised the Coney Island boardwalk.
And then we went to the New York Aquarium which is just down the boardwalk from Coney Island. On Friday's you can go inside by paying a donation (instead of the HUGE normal entry fee) after 3 pm, so we decided to go see the sea!
The aquarium was AMAZING. Talmage loves fisheys and super enjoyed seeing so many of them. His favorite area was the sharks...he is still talking about them. He's also been showing me his shark teeth. Well, he's also still talking about the walrus (which scared him out of his pants when he started barking!) And then there are the sea lions, which he's always obsessed with. OK, he liked them all.
The sea lion show was incredible. It was a full 30 minutes and those sea lions were super impressive. Talmage especially liked to hear them "talk" and see them jump.
I really liked the turtles. They were ginormous. Seriously, the biggest turtles I've ever seen. T saw them from a distance in the tank and said, "Hi turtle," and then when it came closer he gave a little gasp and said, "Hi big turtle!" 
T and I were waiting outside Daddy's classroom and greeted him when he finished his test. We headed out for Central Park, which T calls Special Park, and enjoyed a picnic (and ice cream).
Talmage was in 7th heaven having his Daddy around. They were pretty much inseparable. Here they are watching the sailboats at the Special Park pond.
After watching the toy sailboats in action, we decided to take a boat out on a spin ourselves. Daddy rowed us around the lake, and T and I sang row, row, row your boat, a sailor went to sea and some Little Mermaid ballads! It was so peaceful, and definitely didn't feel like you were smack in the middle of the city (well, except for the crazy skyline).
The flowers were in full bloom around the park and were gorgeous! And PS--JIM'S DONE WITH SCHOOL! Woo-hoo!
We hit up the carousel so T and Daddy could take a spin with the horseys. Talmage loved all the horses in central park--real and plastic!
I was SO relieved that T didn't get sick the 4th night, but the little buggar decided that if there wasn't barf on the bed he would make a different kind of mess...a mess involving his McQueen markers! He colored all over that darn bed and when I caught him red-handed, he said so matter-of-factly, "Mom, I color on bed. Ok." Oh the attitude of a 2-year-old! Is it totally mean that I'm making him sleep on the scribbles until laundry day? ;)
T and I had blood drawn on the same day this week and neither of us were all that happy about it. We both are scared of needles, we both don't like to watch them enter our skin, and we both shed at least one tear in the process. It's lame, except for the band-aid part, cuz everyone knows that band-aids (especially camo band-aids) are cool!
