Races and Waves

Monday--Finally made it to Fairway, the best grocery store in the world. Seriously, it was amazing. It has a freezer room so big that there is a coat rack with insulated coats you put on before venturing in. Had groceries delivered. It was sweet.
Tuesday--Track, playground, swimming pool. The kids played for a couple of hours in the shallow pool with a bunch of track friends who also had the same idea. Then a post-evening trip to the library since Brett was working late.
Wednesday--The big end-of-season track meet at ICAHN Stadium on Randall's Island. It was a loud, cheerful, energetic affair--Both kids did a relay race, Jonah did hurdles and 55m run, Maya did long jump and decided not to do her other event. The energy in the stadium was intense--all the kids doing track from 3 boroughs of NYC were there, each park in matching t-shirts (thank goodness or you could never tell them all apart). Jonah kept his hands over his ears because the starting gun freaked him out. I am so glad Brett joined us since it was hard to handle both of them getting stage fright at the last minute. In the end they had a lot of fun and learned a lot. It was great to watch the big kids--there were some amazing athletes there. After the meet we played miniature golf at a nearby golf course, then headed home and collapsed into bed. Kids were wiped out! So was I, actually.
Thursday--Maya lost tooth #4! Actually she woke up with it on her bed, it just fell out in the night. She now has a lisp for the first time in her life and looks so cute. She woke before the tooth fairy too, so we had to pull the old "Are you SURE you looked really well under your pillow? Go look again!"
Friday--Woke up early to make an 8:30 train out of Penn Station headed to the Jersey Shore (Point Pleasant, to be exact) with my friend Kim and her 7 year old daughter Kaitlyn. It was a 2 hour train ride each way (after the subway trip that got us to Penn Station in the first place). The beach was lovely--boardwalk complete with rides, shops, carnival-type games and restaurants. The sand was nice, the waves were big and the weather was perfect. Kids spent 3 hours running and jumping waves (Maya all but body surfing) and building sandcastles before we did a few rides and headed home. Us mommies had a late afternoon inspiration and started collecting giant shells in the breaking surf for the kids--it was hard to leave--in the NW there isn't a whole lot of ocean water warm enough to actually swim in. Kim spent a lot of years as a surfer before kids. If you guessed wrong, you could easily get slammed into the sand, but if you got it right you came up with a large shell that had all 3 kids cheering excitedly in the shallower waves. I won't pretend that the gear I carried wasn't brutally heavy on the way back to the train in the evening time...it felt like kind of a long walk back. The kids loved riding on the train--they did knitting, played games, read books etc. We finally got back home around 7:00, ordered out a pizza and crashed into bed.
Saturday--Visited a newly discovered local Farmer's Market for fruit and veggies and bread, finished our insurance claim for all the stuff broken in the move (finally!) and I got caught up on some paperwork/consulting work while Brett and kids played baseball in the park. Finished off the evening with watching The Incredibles again--such a fun movie!
Sunday--Laundry, marathon game playing with Jonah and then another train ride to NJ (1 hour) to visit our friends that we went to the folk festival with, who live in Madison. It was so nice. Scott took us on a tour of the town--lovely, green thing, with pretty old buildings and a charming downtown. Back in Penn Station we stopped in a KMart to look for swim goggles and happened to walk by a perfect (and inexpensive) bike for Maya. Since we owed her one (from her birthday in March), we decided to buy it on the spot. Perfect timing to bring a bike home on the subway--not too crowded. She is a happy girl with a much bigger bike now, and Jonah is happy to inherit the sparkly pink job she learned on. He picks pink and sparkles whenever he gets the chance. We will probably buy him his own bike for his birthday if he takes to it (and it won't be pink or sparkly). So far he has shown no interest in bikes, but we are eager to be able to tour the park as a family on bikes, so I think we will see where we get with it.

That is it...a busy week. Summer feels like it is ending (tomorrow our high is 66 degrees), but everyone swears September is beautiful around here. We had such fun at the beach I hope to go again in the next couple of weeks. Brett is all excited to volunteer next weekend at a PGA tournament near here. He gets some free passes so the kids and I may go for one day too. Craig Kanada was in first place for a while in his tournament this weekend and Brett is hoping to see him in NY this week. Brett has already been to Westchester Country Club one evening this week for volunteer training--apparently it is an amazingly exclusive club. He said the buildings were incredible, as were the mansions on the way in. The only things the kids and I have planned this week are a field trip to the Transit Museum and newly renamed playgroup, now called Upper West Side Homeschool Recess. Potentially another trip to the beach if it warms up a tad.