(Say hello to a super long blog that I really should have condensed into a few paragraphs, but didn't want to. Bear with me folks, or just skip to the pictures...I'll never know.)

Saturday we took the bus to NYC for another fun filled day. All week we had been watching the weather and kept hoping that the rain that was predicted would magically disappear before it hit the East coast. Unfortunately, we went to sleep Friday night knowing that there was a 100% chance of heavy rain and thunderstorms for the next day.

After a bus ride, that Max slept through and Russell talked through, we were dropped off at The Met (The Metropolitan Museum of Art). As we stepped off the bus into the drizzling rain, I had one moment of "ugh! This is going to be a crummy day." That thought lasted about 5 minutes and 5 minutes only. As we stood waiting in line to get into the museum, I looked at Max with ketchup covering his face as he enjoyed a hot dog from a street vendor and I realized that rain was not going to slow us down. He was unfazed by the drops of water falling from the sky, landing on his bun and making it soggy. He was enjoying his time in NYC already, and nothing was going to keep us from having a great time.

We spent a few hours in The Met admiring the art work. The boys had been given an assignment (Yes, there was schooling involved. Not all fun and games.) to complete during out time at the museum. They were to pick out 5 pieces that they enjoyed, draw it, write who it was by and the title, and then do research on them come Monday morning. Luckily we had an excellent tour guide (aka, RC) who also gave the boys a fantastic lesson on colors, shapes, perspective, etc..

(I could not use a flash, so these are a bit blurry.)

If you look at the pictures you will notice that Max really took his drawing seriously. He was always drawing and seemed so studious. When we were getting ready to leave the museum and I took a look at their sketch books I noticed that Max had been drawing bits and pieces of things he saw, and then drew a circle around everything and put arms and legs on the circle. He then wrote his name on each drawing several times to make sure we knew who it was by. Maybe someday it too will be in The Met...

Both boys LOVED the arms and armor wing of the museum. They bounced from exhibit to exhibit pretending they were knights using the swords and armor they saw.
We then took a walk down the street to see The Guggenheim. The line was out the door, around the corner and down the street, so we admired the building from the outside and then headed to the subway to catch a train to the Brooklyn Bridge. The bridge was definitely the highlight of the day. It was drizzling, then clear, then pouring, then drizzling, then pouring, and we were all DRENCHED by the time we made it across, but we had a great time. We stopped to watch cars whizzing below us, we were able to make out the Empire State Building when there was a break in the fog, and we were also able to see The Statue of Liberty in the distance. We quoted The Newsies movie and stopped for Maxwell to take our picture, which he had been wanting to do all day. He did a good job...
By the time we got to the Brooklyn side we were soaked and needed something to eat other than granola bars, nuts and dried fruit I had stashed in my purse (makes us sound like squirrels). We walked a bit in Brooklyn and tried to imagine ourselves living there. Some of us could picture this more clearly than others. We went back down to the subway were it was warm and dry and took the train back to the Manhattan side to grab a bite to eat. We ended up roaming the streets looking for something to eat that was not a chain restaurant and close to where our bus was to pick us up. We found a little shop, got some sandwiches to share and enjoyed a break from walking.

This video was taken by R.C. when I stopped with the boys to play a "guess what color car is coming next" game. The rain had let up for a few moments and you could see the skyline of the city pretty well.

By the time we were ready to head to the street our bus was to pick us up at, it was just barely raining. We grabbed a cup of coffee for the ride home and tried to figure out where in the world our bus was. As we were standing around waiting, a man walked up to Max and handed him a balloon, smiled and walked away. Later, as we were still standing there waiting, he walked by again, patted Max's head and expressed his joy in seeing he still had the balloon. R.C. and I were certain he was trying to impress the beautiful lady he had with him. Finally our bus came, and just in time. As we were waiting outside it began to thunder and lightning and we were not on the bus 5 minutes before it began to pour and really storm. Max was asleep along with R.C. before we left the city and Russell and I played the alphabet game. We got all the way to Y and then Russell got quiet. I thought he was asleep so I didn't say anything, but then he turned to me and said, "how about we tell people we got all the way through the alphabet, and just forget about Z." No sooner had I told him that we didn't have to lie, but we could be done playing, and he was zonked out on my lap. (R.C. did wake up shortly after he fell asleep. He did not sleep the entire way. If I don't mention that, I will not hear the end of it...:) ) The ride home was long and stormy. It took almost 5 hours due to the storm!

The boys did wonderful! I was so proud of them for walking so long and not complaining. Many kids would have wanted to be carried, but the boys were troopers and kept up with the hustle and bustle. Max would get bumped periodically while walking and we tried to instruct him (as all good parents would do, right?!) to yell out, "I'm trying to walk down here!" in an annoyed voice, but sweet Max would not do it. Good for him.

Random/pointless things I noticed, or thought of, during our trip:

1. I actually uttered the words, "Hey, R.C., did you notice how good that subway car smelled?" 98% of subways smell like pee (Sorry! I know! But it's true!), but for some reason on one of our subway rides we had a car that smelled like butterscotch. Yummy!
2. Scary, gangster looking people don't look so scary when they are using an umbrella to stay dry just like me. They may be tough, but they hate to be wet and soggy like the rest of us. It really knocks them down a notch or two.
3. On the ride to NYC there was a guy on our bus who had his hair "nicely" styled. It was flat all around, except for right in front. He had a patch of hair that he had spiked straight up. I wondered what he was going to look like when he got on the bus to come home after being in the rain like everyone else, but to my surprise he sat in front of me with his hair still standing tall. I don't know how he did it! Everyone else looked like they had a bucket of water dumped over them. This guy really knows what he is doing in the hair styling department.
4. Art students don't go to NYC to see art. They go to shop for clothes at stores that we have in the mall a mere 4 blocks from the school. (This was a bus charted by RISD so all passengers were students. That's how I know they were all art students)
5. I have gotten to be quite good at ignoring people yelling things in the streets, homeless people asking for money, and vulgar things happening around me when I am out and about. I did find it hard to look away when I noticed a man licking (yes, licking!) a bus stop wall though. I guess I am still a work in progress when it comes to gawking.
6. I'm not old, but I sure felt like I was when I listened to conversations being had around me on the bus. Was I really like these kids when I was 18-22 years old? Surely not, right!?? :)
7. All kids should be done with strollers before or by the age of 5. We passed a kid just chillin' in a stroller while his mom (poor thing!) pushed him and he looked to be about 5-6 years old. (I know some kids have health issues and need to be in a stroller/wheelchair. I'm not trying to be rude or insensitive to these kids. Stop writing your hate mail now, please.) It's strange to see a kid pass you in a stroller and give you the "I'm lazy and don't want to walk, you got a problem with that" look. I will quote R.C. and ask, "how old is too old?"
8. I have a super awesome little family!