NYC :: central park

It was the absolute best type of day for a visit to Central Park. We were greeted by a singer and quartet under a bridge singing the song that was sung at our wedding. There was a guy making huge bubbles and he let a very excited Aiden try. There were many pigeons to be chased/terrorized and luckily they showed up right when Aiden needed a jolt of excitement.  KC thought the park was a perfect place for a nap.  The big kid playground had streams of sun coming from in between the buildings.  Aiden thought they were good practice for climbing the other "mountains" all around the park.  The Chess and Checkers House is the highlight for Aiden.  He couldn't believe that the nice conservancy ladies had so many chess sets!  He beat me, of course.  Then we were on to other sites, which included Belvedere Castle and the hula hooping violin player that charmed Aiden.

In order to keep the engines revving and the good behavior train rolling, Aiden picked out three "perfect pez places" to pop out the Spiderman pez he'd picked out at the megatoyopolous we'd visited earlier. He was partial to the shady rocks that crop out all over the park. Stop one had a slight modification when KC and I couldn't make it up the slope he'd chosen to perch on top. Stop three was a cool overlook by the boat pond. Our nearly three hour jaunt through the park would not have been nearly as much fun without those pez and my boy who loves em.  The part of the park that I found out is called The Ramble nearly ran us dry - we were almost out of water, cell phone battery, pez, and energy when we finally emerged from the deep forest of twisty paths and steps.  We did manage to make it out to 5th Ave eventually, and a nice doorman helped us hail a cab.  Aiden was hesitant to get in "a stranger's car" at first, but once he saw the tv built into the seat he hopped in out of curiosity.  (Before we left we read fun kid's books that talked about the subway, but somehow he didn't know about cabs ;)  Phew, we made it back to the hotel to meet daddy and one of my favorite people, Frank!