explorers

On Day Two of the Andersons' trip to Setauket, the family rose and set out on a morning adventure. The parents opted to run around the neighborhood, the siblings decided to take the dog for a walk. We ended up at the neighborhood beach access.

I was amazed at the change in terrain down by the beach. There was more sand but the dunes had been flattened, and it was easy for Moose to walk.

Lead the way, Mooser!
We just kept walking . . .
We found a creature or two.Ryan enjoying the sun.

Beautiful peaceful ocean.

What do you wanna do? I dunno, what do you wanna do?

King of the Rock!

We walked out to the tip of Crane Neck and found an area of the beach where hundreds of star fish and shells had washed up on shore. I mean, hundreds. We were walking all over the star fish . . . it was a bit horrible, the carnage of echinoderms. There was a bucket nearby so we collected a few of the finer specimens.
I started to worry about Moose and the dead starfish and all the shells and rocks hurting his poor little pawsies. But at this point we were at the tip of the peninsula and figured it was faster to keep walking home on the beach than to walk all the way back to the road and then home.

So we kept walking.

We took breaks for little Moose to rest his feet.

He walked slower and slower, and he grew thirstier and thirstier.

We came upon a boat, and I considered paddling it home, but it had a large hole in it.

A lobster boat! Maybe they'll take us back!

But they passed us by.

I volunteered to carry him.

But that only lasted a second or two.

Well, soon enough we rounded the corner and found the path up to our house. And while Moose pretended to be exhausted the entire time, he perked right up when he got in the house and found his new favorite toy - a squeaky hedgehog my mom brought him.

And we had quite the haul drying on the porch!

andersons in nyc

Oh, the big city. You entice us with your lights, your sights, sounds, and tastes. You lead us into lines and tease us with gusts of cold wind. You tempt us to tramp up your streets and down your avenues, always searching for the next attraction. We leave you at night with blistered feet, satisfied with our exploits, but with deep respect and understanding that we will never, ever conquer you.

But we will do our best.

The Anderson Family Agenda was no less daunting than I expected. Everybody had a "wish" to fulfill.

Little Historian Elyse wanted to see Ellis Island, which involves waiting in line for a ride on a ferry. The seas were a bit choppy, the wind was brutal, but since the immigrants did it, we could, too.

Manhattan skyline: just like 1921. Or not.

Picture of Mom and Dad:
Eyes are shut, Dad, let's try again:

Augh! Too wide!
Finally.

Our little statuette:
And Lady Liberty herself.
She's a grand old flag.
Mom and Dad weren't the only ones struggling to take a picture. "Leave your hair alone," they said. "It doesn't matter." Clearly, it does matter.
If you've ever been to Ellis Island, this is the first thing you see when you walk in the door of the "baggage room." I wonder if baggage claim back then was as hectic as it is now . . . ?

The wall of faces.

The Great Hall at Ellis Island.We explored some of the exhibits off of the hall, which I hadn't done before. These are some of the original cards used to test if the immigrants were literate. I thought it was cool that most of them were Bible verses.

Some preserved part of a wall with original graffiti. What if this was your ancestor's signature, scrawled while they were waiting to be let in to America?

Elyse and some ancient monies.

After covering US immigration from 1892-1924, we headed to our favorite Chelsea Market for lunch and a cupcake from Magnolias. Then we zipped uptown to the much anticipated Zabar's. The gourmet and kitchen department store did not disappoint!

Cheese hanging from the ceiling!

Babka - in the chocolate and cinnamon variety!

There were also umpteen varieties of olive oil, jam, salami, granola, bread, baked goods, and basically everything good and right in the world. Ahhh. We filled our grocery bag with several loaves of bread, a cinnamon babka, two kinds of cheese, and a salami.

Ryan had the privilege of toting it across the Big Apple and through Central Park.

Lovely Central Park.

Lovely family time in the city.

for love of a toy

One thing about Moose.

(As if there was only ONE THING you need to know about this creature! Consider this your lesson of the day.)

He l-o-v-e-s his toys, especially squeaky purple monster. It would be more aptly named "silent purple monster" since he has loved the squeaker right out of the thing.

The other day I heard a commotion upstairs and, upon investigation, saw this:

He is such a human sometimes. You can read his feelings in his eyes.

(Don't just stand there! Do something!)

Unfortunately, I did just stand there. It was too funny.

"PLEASE!" yelped the dog. "My TOY! It's STUCK!"

Umm, Moose, I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything, but . . . I don't think you're going to fit.

So-close-just-one-more-inch . . .

Defeat.

Sigh.

It just breaks your heart. I was torn between teaching a lesson of perseverance or giving the guy a hand. Since it seemed unlikely he'd get it on his own, I helped him out this time. There was much dancing and singing songs of praise and thanksgiving.

a week

After a weekend of *s*n*o*w* . . .

Boy, was I thankful for a SunnyMonday!
These shoes had not seen the light of day in a long time, lest they should get mud on their untarnished surface. They did get a little splashed up as I ran through the melting snow, but I was just happy to find out I could still run after months of muscle atrophy.

Tuesday, the temps dropped again. To add insult to injury, the power went out.

I do a pretty good Laura Ingalls Wilder impression, what with all the wedding lanterns all over the house. We huddled in front of the fire to keep warm and ate the ice cream to keep it from suffering a slow meltdown in the powerless freezer.

Wednesday: snow flurries. Fed Moose peanut butter.
Thursday: A Wintry Mix. Just trying to keep warm.

Friday: Snow flurries.

Saturday: SUN! Finally. Celebrated with some pancakes.

And a bike ride.

Saturday night we had the privilege of going to the London Philharmonic, courtesy of some friends who had been given tickets. As you can imagine, the symphony was amazing. The principal violinist was only 23!, and he played on a 1699 Stradivarius. Seriously.
(We didn't take any pictures but I thought this one from Valentine's day kind of fit anyway.)

Sunday: Cats beat the Gators, and we joined 3 million Cablevision viewers who couldn't watch the Oscars on TV. Of course, we never watch anything on TV because we don't have cable, so we're used to the streaming scene. This was just especially funny because the first channel we picked, the MC was too annoying. Then we picked a channel streamed out of Britain, so we saw a bunch of British commercials, but then they talked too much between the stars so we switched to a Spanish station, but when they dubbed over the speeches, we had to make another switch . . .

Anyway, it's all good.

Hope you had a nice week out in your neck of the woods!