I’ve kind of been a slacker this month and haven’t been writing much. It’s not that there hasn’t been anything to write about I’ve just been too lazy to sit down and write anything. But you know now that I’ve actually sat down to write my mind has gone absolutely blank. Nada, I haven’t got a thing.

I wasn’t sure I was going to write about this before the actual event in case it turned out to be an absolute disaster and then I could pretend it never happened but on Saturday Jen and I going to swim in a meet. I’m going to be doing the 50 Free, 50 Fly, and 200 Free. (I’m not sure what I was thinking signing up for a 200 free.) Jen is doing the 50 Free, 50 Fly, 100 Free and 100 Fly.

We’ve been encouraging Andrew to try colouring with crayons but so far he doesn’t seem very interested in doing any actual drawing but apparently the crayons are pretty tasty. He started chewing on one before we managed to get it away from him and in the short time he was chewing it he managed to turn it into a pulpy mess. Andrew is one of the pickiest eaters I’ve ever seen but he seems to have no problem munching away on crayons.

Happy Canada Day!

The NYC trip pictures are finally done and you can find them here, enjoy.

Continuing with our journey we started day two by taking a cab from our hotel down to Battery Park on the southern end of Manhattan where we caught the ferry to Liberty Island.  No tourist trip to NYC would be complete without visiting the Statue of Liberty.  We didn’t have tickets to actually get inside the base of the Statue but I wasn’t disappointed about that since you aren’t allowed to climb into the Statue anyway.

When we were done we hopped back on the ferry which then takes you to Ellis Island.  When we got off the boat a park ranger was just starting a tour so hooked up with him as he walked us through the same path that newly arrived immigrants would have gone through.  In going through Ellis Island the typical amount of time it took from arrival through complete process was only a couple of hours.  After five years of process just to get a temporary residence card it’s hard to believe that the entire process only used to take a couple of hours.

From Ellis Island the ferry dropped us back off at Battery Park where we walked up to through the financial district to the site of the World Trade Center.  Just knowing the events that took place there and standing outside the site is a moving experience.   As for a memorial nothing has been done but they do have displays with all the names of people who died, a timeline of the events from that day, and stories from some of the rescuers who were there that day.

From the WTC site we headed up into Chinatown and then into what’s left of Little Italy.  After eating dinner in Little Italy we took what I would have to say is probably the most frightening cab ride of all time back up town.  Our cabbie was weaving in and out of lanes, between cars, around buses, through almost red lights, and all the while not leaving more then a couple of inches between us and any other car on the road.  The Riders Bill of Rights apparently meant nothing to our driver.  As we were clinging for dear life in the back seat of the car we ironically happened upon an accident involving two cabs.  Our driver quickly dodged through the intersection and around the accident and when we had to stop at the next red light he and another cabbie started discussing what could have possibly gone wrong.  They were completely mystified how this could have happened.  I wanted to suggest that it just might have something to do with the driving but thought better of it.

We were pretty beat but the day was not yet over.  Packing up our paparazzi gear we headed back to the theatre district to see if we could catch a glimpse of Julia Roberts as she was leaving the theatre.  Based on the police crowd control from the previous night we scoped out a sweet spot to get a good view but that night the police decided to abandon any type of crowd control and our sweet spot wasn’t so sweet after all  We did manage to catch just fleeting glimpse of her but not get any pictures but were still counting it, we saw Julia Roberts. Total Celebrity Sightings: 9.

That pretty much wrapped up the trip.  We slept a little later on Sunday morning and when we ventured out of the hotel 6th Ave. completely shut down for a street fair with vendors selling all kinds of stuff.  We got some lunch and headed back to Rockefeller Center where we went up to the 67th floor observation deck and took some scenic pictures of the NYC skyline.

There you have it, NYC in two and half days.  We survived and more importantly Kelly and Wade survived the whole weekend with the kids.

I’m finally getting around to writing about our trip to NYC and I’m going to get through everything I’m going to have to break it up into a couple of posts.  Jen and I had a fantastic time and we managed to cram in all kinds of stuff in the short time that we were actually there.

On Friday morning we started out and headed to Rockefeller Plaza to see NBC Today in person. (No, we didn’t get on TV.) Since it was a Friday they had the outdoor concert series going with special musical guest Earth Wind and Fire. I don’t want to say that I’m not a fan of EWF, okay, I’ll be honest, I’ve never really listened to enough EWF to know if I’m a fan or not, but the following week the musical guest was Phil Collins so lets be honest, we got gipped. It’s not like we had front row seats, or even a good view for that matter, so I don’t feel like it was that much of a loss.  The concert area and the outdoor studios that the Today show uses are across the street from each other and we managed to position ourselves at the back entrance to the studio so we got pretty good looks at Campbell Brown, Matt Lauer, and Al Roker as they were moving from concert to studio.

After EWF had completed their performance we walked around to the front of the studio to get a glimpse of interviews but security was pretty heavy and kept people moving so we didn’t get a chance to linger very long. However, we did manage to linger long enough to see Ann Curry doing an interview with someone and Cambell Brown do an interview with Jean Chatsky from Money magazine.  Total Celebrity Sightings: 5.

After the Today show wrapped up we went on the NBC Studio Tour where we actually got to stand in the Dateline studio, the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams studio, and view the Saturday Night Live Studios. We never bumped into anyone famous walking the halls but it was still neat to see the studios in person. Each studio is much smaller then they appear on television, especially the SNL studio. Both the Nightly News and SNL air live with no tape delay in the Eastern TZ so if they screw up it goes on the air as is. Brian Williams writes about 95% of all his own news copy so what he reads during the broadcast is what he wrote himself. The tour guide said he is typically in the building from about 9:00am to 9:00pm every day to make sure that when the news airs across all time zones he doesn’t have to update any of the stories in the event that things have changed. The SNL studio was originally built to broadcast symphonies so apparently it has very good acoustics for musical performances. The tour guides comment was that if the band you hear during SNL sounds horrible it’s because they are. (They didn’t bring up and I didn’t have the guts to ask about the Ashlee Simpson lip syncing incident but I have to think that would be an exception.)

With the NBC tours wrapped up we walked on over to the United Nations. The guide book we had suggested “for an unusual treat try a multi-ethnic meal while visiting the UN at the Delegates’ Dining Room.” With voracious appetites we entered the UN only to find out the guide book apparently failed to mention that to get to the Delegates’ Dining Room you had to pass through security and to pass through security you needed to know someone inside the UN to sign you in. We ended up settling for multi-ethnic UN Coffee Shop kosher hot dogs instead.

The official UN tour was pretty interesting. You go into the Security Council Chamber, the Tursteeship Council chamber, and the Economic and Social Council Chamber which are all different branches of the UN. The tour then culminates with a visit to the General Assembly chamber which is the one you typically see pictured in the media. After the tour you can explore the UN grounds but unfortunately for us the main garden had been closed off by the Secret Service for “someone really important.” And before everyone asks, yes it looks just like it did in “The Interpreter,” though now that I’ve been there I want to see the movie again since I have a better idea of where things are.

When we were done at the UN we walked back to the hotel for a little rest but not before stopping at the Grand Central Terminal just to say we’ve been there.

We wrapped up the day by going to see the Broadway show “The Wedding Singer” which was fantastic. I highly recommend it if you can see it.  I still liked Mama Mia more since I’m such a big Abba fan but this came in a close second.

We were still on our celebrity look out and who was sitting two rows behind us during the show but David Copperfield. You read that right, we had better seats then David Copperfield. I’m not quite sure how that happened but somehow we managed to pull it off.

After the show we were walking up 45th Avenue heading towards Times Square when we passed the Bernard Jacobs Theatre that was showing “Three Days of Rain“, which was the Broadway show starring Julia Roberts. There was a huge crowd gathered outside the theatre entrance we assumed trying to catch a glimpse of Julia Roberts but it turns out she had left just before we got there but we managed to catch glimpses of her co-stars Bradley Cooper and Paul Rudd as they were leaving. Total Celebrity Sightings: 8.

After walking around Times Square for a bit we headed back to the hotel where we collapsed in bed from exhaustion.  Actually, I take that back, we did make one stop on the way back to the hotel to listen to NYC’s emanate Barry White impersonator caroon at the corner of 6th Ave and 50th.

We made it back from New York in one piece, or at least I’m pretty sure I’m in one piece after taking what has to be one of the most “exciting” NYC cab rides of all time.

I’ll have lots more to write about once I get a little more sleep.  Our flight was delayed last night and we didn’t get home until midnight so I’m a little beat.

Alex didn’t have school this past Friday so we turned it into a father and son outing day. Jen was home and was going to take Andrew to a pool party with her so it was really a good time for us to just go out. We started off in the morning by going to the mini-golf course to play a round of golf. I figured it was best to try and get an early start since the weather here has been about a zillion degrees and I didn’t want to be out playing golf at high noon in the sun. We arrived at the mini-golf place and of course to get to the mini golf course you have to walk through the arcade where Alex spotted the air hockey table so we ended up getting side tracked for a moment before we started golfing.

Alex is getting much better at mini-golf and on the first hole he managed to need only three shots to get the ball in and I needed four. (I’m not sure if that speaks more to his ability or my complete lack of golf skills.) We managed to burn through 18 holes faster then expected and I found myself back inside playing a couple more rounds of air hockey. I managed to convince him to try the “18 Wheeler – Pro Trucker” and a couple laps around the track on some motorcycle game but we always came back to air hockey.

When I was finally cleared out of cash it was lunch time and Alex decided on “Steak and Shake” since he was hungry for a shake. After lunch we had about a half hour of down time and then we went to see the new Pixar movie “Cars” which we both enjoyed. Can’t ask for a better day then that.

Like I promised in previous post when I found the Mother’s Day Ice Cream Pizza recipe I was going to share it with you. Here it goes,

My mom is the greatest!
Just take a look,
Here is my favorite thing that she cooks:

She makes it with
regular ice cream and
chocolate ice cream and
pepperoni! It tastes
like sugar!

Here is what an ice cream pizza looks like:

(At the bottom Alex has drawn a very colourful ice cream pizza.)

So the other day when I came home from work we were sitting around the table eating when dinner when Alex starting saying, “We have a surprise for you.” He wanted to tell me what it was so bad I thought he was going to explode. He just starting making thing up, “Dad, you know what the surprise is? It’s (Jen’s eyes would get really wide at this point and she would just about jump in to stop him from saying anything but he would finish the sentence with) milk!”

After dinner I had to go hide upstairs and hide while Jen and Alex worked on the surprise and when I got to come back down stairs I had to close my eyes and Alex brought me a bowl with the surprise. He was jumping all around he was so excited when he yelled out “Open your eyes! It’s ice cream pizza!” I will say the ice cream pizza he had put together was probably a little better then the original recipe. It started with a pastry base with cinnamon and sugar spread on top, then two scoops of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream on top of that and all covered with hard shell ice cream topping with a few chocolate chips and sprinkles to round it out. Tres tres delicieux. Feel free to try this recipe yourself.

I’ve added a couple of pictures to the web site from our trip to The Science Place a couple of weeks back.

I mentioned in my previous post that we just got back from New Orleans but didn’t say anything about the trip. We were only there for a couple of days to see Jen’s Dad get awarded his Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies. Over the weekend I got the pictures of the ceremony sorted out and added to the web site. I was working on some other pictures I took when we went to the science place but just ran out of steam so I haven’t posted them yet. Look for those in a couple of days.

Looks like one of the great Canadian Halloween traditions is going to be coming to and end this year.

A 50-year-old Halloween tradition in Canadais about to come to anend as UNICEF has announced the cancellation of its orange box campaign.

After consulting with teachers and parents about its Halloween program, the United Nations Children’s Fund said the time has come to put the cardboard boxes to rest
(Source URL: http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/05/30/unicef-boxes.html)

I still remember the year I dressed as Luke Skywalker for Halloween and I had my orange UNICEF box tied around my neck with string and I went door to door collecting candy and spare change. Geez, I must have been in grade two or three at three at the time. Actually maybe it was grade four since I think that was the year “Return of the Jedi” came out. Just about every house I visited had some kind of penny container, plates being the favourite of old ladies from what I remember, and all the kids carried around their UNICEF boxes. After the “Trick or Treat” and getting the candy it was “Do you have any change for UNICEF?”

I tell you by the end of the night that box sure did get heavy hanging around your neck.