Give Love Away

You know you're in full (US) holiday mode when you allow your kids to have donuts and bubblegum for breakfast. We have been punctuating these obscene pig outs with copious amounts of kale but it's still sickeningly indulgent. We have become obsessed with local Brooklyn artisan donuts from a place called DOUGH. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on which way you look at it the outlet is located within walking/waddling distance from Rach & Sam's. They make the light, fluffy donuts with toppings such as chocolate salted caramel, toasted coconut, dulche de leche, chocolate earl grey, hibiscus, lemon poppyseed, nutella filled, most of which we have sampled/scoffed during our stay. 

After our first stop at Dough we jumped on the G train to the New York Transit Museum. The boys rated it very highly (as did I) and love all the interactive displays and old subway carriages. They also had a great exhibition of album covers using the NY subway. A truly impressive museum housed underground in an actual subway station. 

A great Brooklyn day for our last full day in New York. 

Highline

Sam, Sadie and Jed came home from the Yankees game with colds!! Jed went down like a ton of bricks and spent the day in bed, sleeping, sneezing and sweating. The sitter was here looking after Sadie, who was home from school sick, so Leo and I popped out for a few hours in the afternoon. 

We went into Manhattan over to the west side to check out the highline, a new park, walkway built on an disused, elevated train track. It was such an impressive and wonderful free (not common in NY) space where people gathered to walk, rest, sunbake, eat and chat. A beautiful little green oasis amongst the madness of Manhattan. 

After a quick stop at the fav frozen yoghurt spot, Pink Berry, we rushed home to make the patient chicken soup. 

Yankees with Uncle Sam

Sam kindly took the boys and Sadie (her first Yankees game) to the Yankee Stadium to see his team in action. Sam and Sadie were a little heart broken that the Yankees lost but everyone had a great time and the boys were amazed at the spectacle of it all. 

I met Kristin at the Williamsburg Flea market and we had a lovely time shopping, grazing and chatting. Rach and Anna met us after swimming lessons and we ate donuts sitting by the sparkling East River looking over towards the Manhattan skyline. 

Makers Faire

The Makers Faire is an annual get together of inventors and inquisitive folk who gather to see what people are making and producing in the world of science and technology. It's super hands on and visitors get to watch 3D printers churning out products, get hugs from passing robots, watch gallons of coke explode when mixed with mentos, take part in a nerdy derby and a million other and fascinating displays. 

We met Rick and his family there and joined the throngs to make many great discoveries. Rich joined us for a bit before heading off to the airport and we made our way back from Queens to Brooklyn quite exhausted and overloaded with new ideas. 

Work it

Rach talked me into going training with her in Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Jed was keen to come along to laugh at me. Gorgeous Mariam who was training us had Jed working out too and he ended up doing about 70 push ups by the time she finished with him. I survived but only just. 

There was great fanfare for Rich's departure back to Sydney but he was back on our doorstep a few hours later because his NYC - LA leg was delayed and he couldn't make the connecting flight to Sydney. While he was gone Jed went with Sam, Rach and the girls to a school movie fundraiser and Leo and I walked to a bustling local Ramen restaurant where we were lucky enough to score a table and have a delicious dinner.