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!

Oh, one more thing!

Notice the matching white shirts on the boys last post. I forgot to mention -- our school has a uniform. The boys are required to wear khaki pants, and white or maroon shirts. Miles likes it, Damion was disappointed because he can't wear his skate shirts. This was quite a shock to us, so Kris and I ended up dropping nearly $200 on new clothes for the boys just so they could go to school!! Fortunately we still caught some sales.

Now, our routine is the kids wear their white / maroon shirts and pants to school, and then change when they get home into their jeans and t-shirts. This will hopefully preserve the whites, and give them a chance to wear all their other clothes.

Tomorrow, destination Empire State Building!!

First Day of School

Apologize for the delay, but the boys had their first day of school Wednesday.

I admit, we all had a fairly overwhelming day. The school is much different than our school in Portland. For one, the school is much more "urban" -- in every way. The school is in the middle of town, there is no playground. The kids don't have recess, they simple move from subject to subject. The school is in the older area of Hoboken because the school closest to our place is full.

The first day was an adjustment for all of us. So here are some pics:

The boys gearing up for their first day:


Elevator down please!

Damion, a bit nervous:



The walk to school...yes, it was chilly:

Clearly we celebrate Christmas later than usual here :-)


The twins:

It had warmed up considerably between the morning and the afternoon when we went to pick the boys up...

A couple of pictures of the school itself:




Miles after his first day! The woman to the right is his teacher, Mrs. Sturdivant.


By the second day of school we were all more comfortable with the walk there and back, the school, the people, and the curriculum. By now, the boys are making friends and having a great time at school. As you can see, the park on the walk home from school makes a great resting (playing!) point --



Stay tuned for tomorrow, Damion's Birthday, and I'll make sure to post tomorrow night!!

Our goal today was to more or less finalize the house -- unpacking, settling in, cleaning, etc. We more or less accomplished our goal: we got bills paid, accounts balanced, cardboard taken down to recycling, counters cleaned off, trash taken down, boxes unpacked, and laundry done. This was all before lunch. We then left to go to lunch and get some shopping done. We went to Chili's in downtown Jersey City, and par for the course, ate way too much. We then went to Linen's and Things, and par for the course, spent way too much. :-)

On our way home, we decided to take a detour to a place surprisingly accessible to us -- actually it's about ten minutes away. Get Ready For It...Liberty State Park! No really -- it's more exciting than it sounds. This is where the ferry docks to take you to the Statue of Liberty, and they have a ton of grounds accessible behind the statue where you can take walks along the river, have different view points along the way, etc.

I'm almost surprised to say, but even from our vantage point, the Statue of Liberty is AWESOME. It's incredible not only because it's as big as I would have imagined, but honestly, the sheer power of seeing it nearly gives you goose bumps. It really is an incredible sight.

Before we get to the pics of Lady Liberty, we must start with one:


Kristal has habitually (obsessively?) taken pictures of me driving since we first met. Literally, for ten years I've been getting my picture taken from the passengers seat. As we tour around the east coast for the next little while, I undoubtedly will get my picture taken time after time, and while I'm sure it's nothing I necessarily need to share, it's something that is a fact of Lance Driving. And since it's a necessary thing for me to get my picture taken while we're driving on trips, it will undoubtedly become a necessary thing for me to post on this blog. Yay.

Ok, enough suspence. Here are the pics!

Our first trip to the City

Well, not exactly. Last night, Kristal took the train into NYC to pick up Kebra (Kristal's sister) who is out with us. Other than that, we "boys" have not been to the city since we moved here. Today's outing was a mission: go to Katz's Deli for lunch, then make a trek through Chinatown -- I have always wanted to go through Chinatown. We also made it a stretch-goal to take a jaunt up to Times Square to the huge, four story Toys-R-Us so the boys could use a gift card. The place actually has a ferris wheel INSIDE.

We started out, and damion was less than enthusiastic about all the walking ahead of us:


But once we hit the road, the train ride from Hoboken to the city was fun, and when we sat down at Katz's, the the boys warmed right up to it. Just as some context, Katz's is one of the most famous deli's in NYC, and was featured in the movie When Harry Met Sally. Many, many famous people have dined there, including three presidents. The pastrami is TO DIE FOR. It has been featured as the best in the nation.

Clearly we had a good time:






After way too much pastrami and corned beef, we taxi'ed to Canal and Centre streets, to Chinatown. We had a great time walking around. We hit the Chinese Ice Cream Factory (a small ice cream shop) that features flavors such as Red Bean, Wasabi, Ginger, and Green Tea ice cream. Even though it was about 40 degrees outside, we couldn't pass up some ice cream. The boys both go Mango, Kris got Green Tea, Kebs got Chocolate, and I got Ginger. They were out of wasabi. :-(

Somehow Damion got into this picture when he wasn't supposed to:


Few general pics of Chinatown. Doesn't do it justice, though. The sheer density of this area of New York is amazing. I read that it's nearly impossible to find an apartment in this area of town because generations of chinese simply pass on their apartments and rooms to friends or family. People immigrate to this area of New York literally every day, and locals can go years without speaking a word of English.



Not sure who thought this was a good idea for the name of a restaurant:


The famous McDonald's in Chinatown:


We then cabbed it up to Times Square so the boys could rock Toys R Us:


Clearly Damion is happy with his purchase:


And on the walk back to the train, Kris spotted this sign. This place scares me:


And that more or less concluded our trip!