NYC - day 5

This morning we took a trip to the MoMa. Wow, much nicer than Guggenheim, wonderful collection, a lot of paintings I have leaarned about in school, but turned out the be hanging in NY.

 

After the MoMa, I returned home to Skype with the boys and A and K went for a walk along The High Line.

 

In the afternoon, we had reservations for the Russian Tea Room. I thought the blinis with caviar were sublime. Had a great time having High Tea with the girls. And I know now for a fact, Red velvet cake is wonderful.

 

After the Russian Tea Room, we went back to the appartment, and a drink at the local wine bar. Again, a wonderful dayin NYC.

NYC - day 4

So day 4 in NYC, our feet are still doing fine, so we  planned on going to Ellis Island, but due to Hurricane Sandy we ended up at Liberty Island.

They view of Manhattan downtown is spectacular from Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty was great to see up close.

After lunch, we walked through Wall Street towards Soho to due some more shopping. E. wanted to go home, so we got her a taxi and we continued to the Empire State Building.

 

I must admit, I saw the enterence in White Collar, but in real life, the enterance is spectacular. I love Art Deco and this is a wonderful example of that era. Luckily it was not busy, so we didnt have to cue to get up to the 86th floor.

 

The view is fantastic.

Afterwards, we had diner in Little Italy at Fiat 500, a small restaurant with great pasta.

NYC - Day 3

Today we visited the Museum of Natural History, and after a lot of skeletons and animals, made our way over to Central Park and Bloomingdales to do some shopping.

We also visited FAO Schwarz and offcourse I had to take a picture of the Lego storm trooper for my boys.

K wanted to visit Central Park, but the rest of us taught we had been walking enough, so we took a carriage ride through Central Park and discovered that the Zoo has no lions, so helas, no Alex the lion...

And before grabbing some diner, we stilled our hunger for boys at Abercrombie. But the girls didnt want to go on the picture with the guy, sojust the guy...

NYC - day 2

So, this morning we got out of bed early and took off to the Guggenheim. When we arrived there were lines of waiting people so we decided to have a walk in Central Park and when it started to rain , we quickly grabbed a cup of coffee in some cafe.
After a while, because we had a nice talk with a local lady, we visited the Guggenheim, but we were all a bit dissapointed, as there were not many paintings around???

 

Afterwards we watched a parade to to celebrate the German-American connection and walked towards Grand Central Station. We believe that we have a nice station In Antwerp (and it is!) but Grand Central is also a very nice station to visit.

Then, we had lunch, saw all sorts of landmarks and had diner. A long day with more walking than we anticipated, but we saw a lot.

NY, here we are!

After a mere 12 hours travelling, we arrived in the USA... It took us less than an hours to clear customs and the border control and then we stepped into a nice Sunny Indian summer.

NYC was more busy than expected, but hey... it was 5.30 when we got out of Penn station into the NY Streets and we were not alone...

And after a mere 20 minutes in a yellow cab we arrived at our appartment. Great place, spacious , wow...

Finished

So my WIP is finished, and here she is Aquamare, She turned out beautiful. She was made of a Heidi Bears pattern.

Back to school

Yes! The boys are back to school. It has been a great summerholiday, but I am glad school started again. OK, making sandwiches and stuff in the morning is not so fun, but I am glad we are getting back in some sort of normalcy.

Birthday party son #3

Son #3 has his birthday in the summer school vacation, so we celebrated his birthday today for his classmates.

 

We did it in Jobland, as it is probably the last time we can celebrate it overthere as they are getting to big. But the people over there do a wonderful job in entertaining the kids.

So a lot of songs and dances, pancakes and hotdogs, candy and presents = a great birthday party.

Almost back to school and WIP

On thursday we went to the school to see in what class the kids would be, Always an exciting moment, will they be with friends or not and which teacher will they have? But all kids are in fun class with their friends, so they were happy. Mum is a bit less happy, because we also got the books with us, to wrap ythem in proective paper and adhesive plastic. A fun thing to do, so after we did some groceries at the farmers market in Antwerp, I wrapped all their books.
And I also prepared my school stuff, both for my French lessons as for uni.

 

And because I havent been posting about my WIP, here it is, well one of many... I will show pictures when it is finished.

Family weekend

 

We had our family weekend last weekend. We spent a weekend together with the cousins and their kids. we spent it at some recreation park, called the weerterbergen.

 

 

We didnt have luck with the weather as it rained two days, but they had a lot of indoor activities, like bowling, glow in the dark golf, a tropical swimmingpool and all sorts of activites, so we had a reat time and it was fun talking to each other.

 

The ice cream pictures were taken on Friday when the sun was shining.

Back home

We are back home after a wonderful holiday. Corfu was nice, very hot, but worthwhile visting. We had a nice breakfast and then the kids couldnt wait to see their other grandparents.

Last day in Corfu

 

So we went to Corfu town with the kids and they saw these fish spas, so we did one with the whole family. We got a private room with these fish tanks and after wahsing our feet, we could put them in the tanks and the fish started nibbeling. I must admit, it is very relaxing, I dont  know what the fish do.... but it feels nice.

Today we visited Aqualand... and the kids loved it. It was very hot, around 43 degrees at midday, but as we were in the shade and with all the water, it was OK.
As DH has an earinfection and cant swim, I had to take the kids in all the slides, and other stuff and mum had to show how is boss, so I went into the  Free Fall, a slide with a 14 m free drop... I did it, it was fun and in the eyes of the boys I am invincible... LOL. And I will enjoy it while it last.

We had a great day, DH and I went into Corfu town tonight to have a last greek coffee as tomorrow we fly back home.

Saturday

 Today we sailed to a little Island not far from the marina as they expected more wind today.
The boys swam to the Island with all the empty plastic water bottles they have been collecting over the last days and they scavenged the Island for driftwood but found something better, a pallet.
They then spent some time duct taping everything together and made themselves a raft.

 

And this is the result, they spent the rest of the afternoon waterskiing on their raft.

 

 

But around 15.00, the weather turned and the wind picted up, so it was a bit rougher to get back to the marina, but we made it, even after having to turn because a peddle of our dingy went overboard. But we managed to pick it up despite the wind and the waves.

UPDATE - it started raining around 19.00, but you could walk between the raindrops as they barely reached the ground :-)

What has been going on?

 

As you can see, son #3 lost his first tooth.

We saw Dolphins swimming with us. We also saw them jump around the boat, but I didnt manage to capture it on camera... To bad, but you can see the dorsal fin.

 

And all we have been doing, is swimming, swimming around some small Island, swimming in the pool, swimiing in the sea... we did a LOT of swimming...

The food is great, the coffee is even better, so we are having a great time.

Greece - Updated

Ok, it seems  that it is more difficult than I thought to update your blog when you are in Greece. so I haven't managed to upload pictures yet. I will try again tomorrow as it is getting late.

OK, so we sorted out how we get a decent connection. We bought some broadband so know we can connect to the net :-)