Oh snowy day

Monday, January 26, 2015

With all of the sun and fog and toes in the lake, it would seem as though we haven’t had our fair share of winter.

I’m here to prove to you that not only has blustery weather passed through the Northeast corridor, but that we’ve also been taking advantage of the season.

Some of you may recall that last year our winter season went down the tubes because our pipes froze and burst. I won’t go into the details, but despite all efforts to keep our house at a minimum temperature and turn the water off whenever we leave….sometimes the weather/housing construction gods are in cahoots and will foil your best efforts to maintain a flood-free zone. It was a mess and a three-month effort to clean up.

The good news is that new insulation has made our home much cozier than ever before, giving us renewed freedom to freeze our nose hairs off doing all manner of winter activity.

There’s the obvious winter sport: skiing….a favorite pastime, especially now that we have two down/one to go in our efforts to get our three kids on skis. This weekend I even used poles. Poles I tell you! No backwards inverted pizza as I steer a rickety kindergartener down the mountain. I was carving skis and planting poles and it was northing short of a miracle.

It may surprise you that New Jersey has skiing, but it shocked me to find out that our neighborhood ski area, Mountain Creek, has over 1,000 feet of vertical drop spread across 3 peaks. Look across the foothills and you can see the ridge of the Appalachian trail. If it weren’t the closest ski resort to Manhattan and overrun with a bunch of wild-on-foot yahoos, it would be pretty much perfect.

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NYC

Bryant Park Skating

Monday, March 17, 2014

I’m wiping a tear right now. Bryant Park skating is over for the season. We had some fun there this year. First, there was this event. And a few weeks ago I headed back there with the kids in tow.

I have to be honest here: skating with kids is challenging. If you’ve got a kid who can skate, fantastic. If, however, you have the misfortune of teaching someone to skate, Godspeed.

Although I haven’t actually done any of these activities, my reading of 19^th Century literature suggests that cotton picking or perhaps coal mining are activities that would result in similar back pain.

There’s the obvious hunching, the lifting from odd angles, the propping, dragging and carrying. It’s enough to make you the star of your own Salonpas commercial.

But the kids really do love it, which makes it all worth it.

At first we had plans to skate at The Standard Hotel, which is walking distance from our apartment. But an employee hockey tournament was underway, so we needed to change venues. We pivoted, flagged a taxi, and headed north to Bryant Park.

Stepping out of the taxi, I was pleased to find out that Lauren’s water bottle had upended into my skate. Never mind that it was below freezing and were about to spend the morning at an outdoor rink. The skate would go on.

I got the kids ready first.

With my 100% non-sporty eyewear and beat up hockey skates, we were ready to rock & roll.

One of the great things about Bryant Park is that you can skate at the foot of some of New York City’s tallest skyscrapers.

After skating, Sam chased some indoor pigeons, not realizing that if he actually caught one with his skates on, we’d have blood on our hands.

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Blog

The selfie

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Warning, you’re about to see many pictures of me in a faux fur hat. If you’re not interested in seeing this since you hate a) selfies or b) fur hats, feel free to ignore this post and move right along to more intellectually stimulating conversation about Thanksgiving and its history. It’s not boring, I promise you. I limited the history part to one short paragraph, and I can guarantee that you didn’t already know what I uncovered in my research.

Back to the hat. I hate taking selfies, but if it weren’t for selfies, nobody on this planet would know what I look like. My husband doesn’t walk around with his iPhone yelling “Hold on, the light is fantastic! I just need to take a quick picture of you.” My kids don’t say “Wait – Mom- can you make that silly face again?” No, it’s just me, art directing like a maniac, “Sam, stand against this wall, that Mohawk is awesome!” [click] “Emma, show me your bucket of beer, is that yours?” [click] [click].

So yes, sometimes a selfie is necessary. Take for instance the hat that I wore to a skating event in Bryant Park. If you’re in NYC anytime soon, it’s worth checking out the Winter Village, they have a ton of quirky food vendors, and the mother of all skating rinks:

It’s the type of setting where this happens: