Easter in Georgia

It was fabulous spending Easter in a place that somewhat resembled spring instead of the cold barren tundra we call New York in early April.

Tiger Cub got all dressed up for the occasion and we had a great time seeing lots of friends and family. Some of the fun times included...

• Playing in a backyard. This only sounds unremarkable if you don't live in an urban concrete jungle.

• Reading books and playing with Grandpa.

• Watching a train from a restaurant window.

• Visiting the Georgia Aquarium.

Happy (Belated) Birthday Tiger Cub!

The Tiger Cub is 2 Years Old!!!

We did celebrate Tiger Cub's birthday on the actual day (sort of, nothing compared to last year's throw down).  My journalistic duties have just been seriously lacking lately.  Luckily I have lots of pics to guide my memory...

On the morning of February 21st, we started with a mommy and Tiger Cub date to Toys 'R Us.  It involved lots of running through the aisles.  TC was pretty into the TC-sized Spiderman but we settled on buying just a small Spiderman toy.

Later we opened a few presents.

We thought we would take TC to see his first movie.  But when we got there, the theater was closed due to a pipe break.  Bad luck or were we mercifully spared from spending $40 on Sponge Bob Squarepants?  Either way, two of us were disappointed we couldn't sit down for an hour and a half and the other one was just happy to play in the snow.

 

Afterward, we warmed up at Tiger Cub's favorite restaurant, Chipotle.  This picture was taken while we anxiously waited for dad to return with our spicy chicken!

And of course...cake!  TC was way more into it this year.  Lemon icing for the win!

Dominican Republic Winter Escape

We're barely into 2015 and have already had one great vacation to the beautiful and sunny Dominican Republic.  Years ago we went to Africa in February and declared that warm climate vacations are the best escape from a New York winter and that it should become an annual thing.  It didn't.  But this year we again went somewhere hot and international, our favorite combination.  It was our first time leaving US soil with the little man and his last free plane ride (going out in style!).

We're not into resorts so we found this little beachfront complex on Airbnb and happily parked ourselves there for a week. The beach was a semi-private strip of sand that we shared with a handful of locals who used it for swimming and launching their fishing boats.

Five years ago we would've tried to see the whole country in a week; now we're content to sit in the same hammock day after day.  

Our own beach was nothing to complain about but the Samana Peninsula has other really amazing beaches worth traveling to.  Here's a postcard, I mean a picture of Tiger Cub, at Playita at sunset.

Playita was also pretty nice at mid-day and late afternoon...

But our favorite beach was Playa Rincon, which they say is one of DR's top beaches.

The water was so clear and innocent and we were so comfy in our beach chairs, that Tiger Cub got to do some wading on his own.

The waterside restaurant at Playa Rincon was also the site of one of our best DR meals.  Fresh local fish and pina coladas served in pineapples.  Yes please!

We visited El Cabito, a restaurant and hotel that was more for cliff jumpers than for people with toddlers.  We only had drinks because we couldn't trust ourselves there long enough to enjoy a meal.

Want to see more?  Probably not, but just in case, here's a whole album of our trip.

2014 in Review

An extremely brief overview of 2014...


January: Tiger Cub started walking.  How little was he 12 months ago?!

February:  We celebrated TC's first birthday (a couple of times).

March:  Visited the Central Park Zoo.

April:  We discovered the Queens Science Center.

May: The R family vacationed in Pine Mountain and Callaway Gardens.

June: It finally got warm enough to play in the park fountains.

July: We spent a lot of time outside with friends during our favorite season of the year.

August: Hilton Head with Grandma and Grandpa.

September: Who can resist back-to-back beach vacations?  This time to Destin.

October: The year's most surprising twist - we sold our shipping store.  So long to our tiny stake of Queens Blvd.

November: We relished the last mild days before New York winter hit.

December: Lots of family dropped in on us for Christmas in NYC.

Bring it on 2015!

Another NYC Christmas

Christmas 2014 was the 4th straight Christmas we spent in New York City.  This year we had family visiting AND temperatures in the 50s and both were a real treat!

At 22 months, Christmas morning was only of mild interest to Tiger Cub.  He enjoyed his gifts once they were open but it took tons of help and coercing to get him to rip the paper off.

Halfway decent Christmas morning family shot:

We ate out A LOT, which is something we've generally tried to avoid with a little guy in tow.  As long as we came prepared (snacks, ipad, etc.) Tiger Cub handled the restaurants like a champ.  He especially likes booth seating...

And using chopsticks!

Cool Uncle Matt with Tiger Cub in the park after dark:

Adventures in Santaland 2014

This holiday season marked year two of Macy's Santacapades which I'm pretty sure makes it a tradition.

Here we are, up and at 'em.  New York City Christmas crowds can't hold us back.

We know from last year that Santaland is the best part of the Santa experience so we went slowly and enjoyed it.  TC was a lot more into it this time and especially loved all the trains.

It wasn't until we rounded the corner to see Santa that things started getting a little hairy.

It's set up so that Santa completely blindsides an unsuspecting toddler.  You're cheerily walking through a happy Santaland forest full of Christmas trees and trains and suddenly you make a turn and Bam! Big Santa under bright lights.

Here is TC first setting eyes on Santa.  Probably also when he decided he had zero desire to walk toward that large man.

Tiger Cub was saying something about get me the bleepity-bleep out of here.

So dad stepped in as mediator.

We regained our composure over lunch at Moe's.  Tiger Cub looked quite dignified in his office casual attire and fit in perfectly with the Midtown Manhattan Friday crowd.