Damion's Birthday Yesterday

I still can't believe it, but Damion turned 9 years old yesterday. It blows me away to think that he's that old. He has grown into a funny, intelligent, and extremely kind person. He makes me proud of him nearly every day, and we have been amazed to watch our child grow into the person that he is.

As per the Lance Family tradition, Damion gets to pick:
1) What he wants to have for birthday breakfast - Eggs Benedict
2) What he wants to do for his birthday - Go to the top of the Empire State Building
3) Where he wants to go for birthday dinner - Go to Mars 2112

So, let's get to it!


Damion has loved Eggs Benedict for years. I keep wondering why he picked up on wanting the most expensive thing on many breakfast menu's -- don't most kids just like a Mickey Mouse pancake or something? He must take after his mother. :-)

Anyways, Kristal made a great eggs benedict and hash brown breakfast. Afterwards we were off to the City!


We had several pictures of us waiting in line at the Empire State Building, but they were boring and truly captured how "fun" waiting in line for 30 minutes can be. Finally, we made it:


Honestly, though it may look like I was having a bad day in all these pictures, I swear I wasn't. The Empire State Building was actually incredible. It doesn't seem like it, but it literally towers over other buildings in Manhattan. In the pictures that follow, you can see just how much higher it really is.

The happy couple:


Miles being camera shy, which he seems to be a lot these days:

An amazing view of the Chrysler Building:


Confirming what we all know, New York City has a lot of taxi's:


Some ice-skating rink, this is not Rockefeller Center.


Same rink, but check out this shot of the shadow of the Empire State Building:





Yes, there were pigeons up on the 86th floor!



One other highlight, but that was only captured on Kebra's camera, was that the boys and I paid a little extra to take an additional elevator up to a viewpoint on the 102 floor of the ESB. As you can imagine, it really wasn't much more spectacular than the 86th. But, Damion wanted to go to the TOP, and well, you just can't cut short if you're going to the top. The elevator is a manual elevator controlled by a knob and closed by a gate. There is a permanent elevator operator guy that runs the thing up and down. On the way down, we were the only one's in it. The guy, who had clearly been doing this for years, asked the boys if they wanted to run us down. So he let them both grab the knob, and slowly start lowering the elevator down the 16 floors back to 86. It was awesome! Once we got close to our desintation, he instructed them to start easing up on the lever, and sure enough, they landed us right on the floor we needed. For some reason, I don't think the boys really understood how cool what they were doing was, maybe it was the guy that intimidated them a bit. I really thought it was cool though.

After the ESB, we took a subway to Times Square, where Mars 2112 was:




Now. Mars 2112 is a theme-restaurant where you "travel to mars" to dine. :-) You start by paying a $2 "cover" for everyone in your party. lol. You then enter this Star Tours-esque ride where you traverse to Mars. It was actually pretty fun, and the boys loved it. Once you arrive at your destination, you climb down these stairs and enter a dining room that is HUGE. The expansive room is covered in "Mars rock" on all walls and ceiling, has neon lights around, and other "Martian" decor.

I kept thinking of Total Recall in the place.

They sang to him:
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday dear Earthling
Happy Birthday to you




Yes, all the wait staff were wearing uniforms reminiscent of original Star Trek.

The happy couple:


A real, live, Martian!!


The boys nearly refused to get their picture taken with this guy, but we cornered him and were determined not to leave Mars without getting a picture with a Martian!

We took the subway back to 33rd and caught the Path train back to Hoboken. Here's Kristal and Damion on the subway:


Back at the house, we opened presents. We didn't open them earlier because in the City Miles needed to get Damion a present.

A Solar System mobile kit (we put that together tonight):


And this is a new Tony Hawk game for the Wii:

And last but not least, cupcakes!



After cupcakes, it had been about 3 hours since we had eaten, so Kristal made a snack plate (crackers, salami, cheese, veggies, etc...) and we watched Karate Kid parts II and III (Thanks Bets!). The boys love Karate Kid these days. LOL!

It's supposed to snow tonight, but doesn't look like it's getting cold enough quite yet. Also, I have a really busy week ahead of me, being out for dinner probably three nights. So no guarantee's on blog posts this week. I'll have the camera with me though, so we'll see!