Thursday, June 20, 2013

Pappa's Day

For Father's Day I headed down to Calgary to celebrate.  
Of course, it wasn't just about Dad--especially with this little turkey around.
Here she is after a birthday party. 
She decorated that cake herself--a sandy beach with a penguin?
It actually tasted pretty good.


Here's Megs and I "playing" with Erin.
It consisted of us covering her with pillows and blankets and then hitting her as fast as we could with an inflatable ball.
Oh the hours of fun!




Back to Father's day.
Here's how we chose to celebrate the big day.
We hiked Prairie Mountain.
I'd like to say that we had it planned for weeks and weeks, but since the visitor's centre was closed, we had to pick something.
We picked the steepest hike we could find since we knew we would hear no end to "how EASY" it was if we didn't try to tucker our dad out.

Pre hike photo.





I think this is where we had had enough of the steep trail with no end.  Joyce practically flung herself down on the trail and had a tantrum so we decided to turn around. (ha ha)


Luckily, at that precise moment, we passed a couple of hikers who encouraged us to continue and promised it would be worth it.
Are we ever glad we did.


It was worth it enough to see these!
Shooting stars, my favourite wildflower.


It was worth it to see the Canada flag up top.
This photo was taken just before we all broke into patriotic song.
(all harmonized of course)


It was especially worth it when Joyce agreed to trade half her delicious turkey sandwich for my almost equally delicious chicken sandwich (sorry mom).


If you look carefully in some of these photos, you might see the Calgary skyline.



Snow!


Joyce was in a hurry to get down the mountain as it was pretty blustery.
She was kind enough to stop and turn around for this picture though.







Calgary


Father's day at Joyce's house.
She's become quite the artist.


and, quite the little esthetician.
Here she is giving grandma the full treatment






Sunday, June 9, 2013

Nibbling the Big Apple

Mamma G made a suggestion last year to celebrate her 70th year in New York City. 
So, in May we headed on down and pounded the pavement, tried every type of food we could get our hands on and conquered the subway!
We even managed a visit with Terry whom I haven't seen in 7 years since Baltimore--I only wish I had remembered to snap a photo. 

Here's a photo summary of our trip.

Central Park



The Mall


Bethesda Fountain


Bow Bridge


Swedish Cottage




Hans Christian Andersen

Central Park was more beautiful and bigger than I thought it would be.
It's huge!  It would have taken us all day just to walk from one end to the other.

Times Square
In the sun!
In the rain!
New York Public Library


Scenes from our neighbourhood: 60th street and 1st avenue.
The Queensborough Bridge




The green building on 1st Avenue


Chinatown




One of many beautiful buildings.  
This one was in Soho.


Subway


Cloisters






What you shouldn't do with a stick.


Grand Grand Grand Central Station.
It's so sad that they don't make buildings like this anymore.
And to think, it was almost torn down at one point!




Chelsea


The Highline





The Metropolitan Museum
I'm not a museum person, and I thought I was going to be bored here, but it was quite the opposite.


Views from the roof of the Met.
They had delicious lemonade here.
Perfect for a scorching hot day.


Brooklyn Bridge




Prospect Park


An after dinner walk around Brooklyn 
Our waiter at Elberta suggested it, and are we ever glad he did.



The Empire State Building
Unfortunately the day we went, there was essentially zero visibility, but on the plus side, there were no crowds.
We also got good views of our floaters and had a nice chat with the security guard.





Mamma G's first experience with Korean food in Koreatown.


Broadway


A very proud Swede!


Roosevelt Island
We took the tram which was only a block away and cost the same as a subway fare.



Smallpox hospital on Roosevelt Island



Views of Manhattan from Roosevelt Island



Franklin D. Roosevelt
Four Freedoms Park







One of the only places where you don't have to line up to use the bathroom


Torrential downpour!
It sure emptied out the streets of Manhattan



View of the downpour from our apartment.


Nightime views of Manhattan from Roosevelt Island.
One of our better ideas.
No tripod of course...




Our closet in Manhattan.


I sure hope when I'm pushing 70, I'll be able to zip around NYC as well as Mamma G did. 
 She followed me up then down, then up again and down again all over the subway system and battled rush hour like a pro polite Canadian/Swede.
She almost had the Metrocard swipe down pat by the time we left.
She melted the tough New York exterior of everyone we met.
Hope you had a great time Mamma G.  

Just so I don't forget, here's a few restaurants I want to go back to the next time I'm in NYC.

Just down the street from our place
Brooklyn, one of my favourite meals
Nolita, the best hot chocolate I've ever had.

NYC=Yummy for my tummy.