New York City, 9/27/07 Thursday

First of all, we appreciate the kind words about our pictures. As a general rule, we are like any other people who take pictures. We get some good ones, and we get some not-so-good ones. Sometimes the good ones are mine, sometimes they are Derek's - we're pretty even. Derek's are generally more artistic, in my opinion, and he does a lot of landscape ones. I am more of a people photographer.

Mom, we definitely don't post all of our pictures. Here's a list of the numbers of pictures we took each day.

Sun. 299, Mon. 172, Tues. 180, Wed. 153, Thurs. 66, Fri. 243, Sat. 53

In our opinion, Friday was the best picture day so hopefully you like our NEXT New York post.

Thursday we planned for the Museum of Natural History all day long. It didn't open until 10:00 so we decided to spend the morning really enjoying Central Park.

We went to the turtle pond and it was true to it's name. The small turtle kept swimming in front of the large one and getting right in her face like they were kissing. Probably some mating ritual but it was amusing to watch. The big one would just swipe his face away with her big front flipper (if that's what you'd call it). He kept coming back for more.

Are you familiar with the Bugaboo strollers? This is the Bugaboo Frog and it is all one stroller with a bunch of attachments and setups. I'll admit, they are pretty dang cool and very smooth to push (I only know because I saw one at a boutique in Oregon and pushed it around in the store.) Keep in mind that it is a single stroller so it is nothing, if not impractical, for a parent with more than one child. Also keep in mind that the BASIC setup (without the bells and whistles and attachments) is over $700.00.

I started noticing quite a few of these strollers the first day in New York and was flabbergasted that so many people would own such a posh stroller. Then as the week went on I realized that a Bugaboo in Manhattan is like a BMW or Lexus in Orange County. They are so popular there that they become ordinary. After pointing out so many to Derek in just a few hours, I decided to keep a count of them. Central Park, of course, had the highest volume of strollers. We spent an appreciable amout of time in Central Park on two different days. On one day in just over 2 hours, we counted 24 of them. Our official count for the week was 71 Bugaboo strollers.

We headed on over to the Natural History Museum once it opened up at 10am. We spent all day there and really enjoyed it. As it was closing, we realized that there was an entire half of a floor that we had missed somehow. Darn it! I loved the space show, it was very well done.

This place was PACKED with dinosaur bones. We took a million and a half pictures for Ryan, but we'll spare you. :)

Derek and the Stegasaurus.

Check out the size of this Sequoia. It's like an orange on a toothpick. If you click on the picture you can get an idea of how old this thing is.

After it closed, we headed over to Pepe Verde's for some authentic Italian. Looks ordinary, but mine had spinach and ricotta cheese and I really enjoyed it.

Then we went over to the highly acclaimed Magnolia Bakery and picked up a cupcake for each of us ($2 a piece). They were tasty but VERY rich. After a few bites I had Derek finish mine. I'm not much of a frosting fan and this was some serious frosting folks. The ambiance in the bakery was pretty fun and they had some great looking things.

We saw Les Miserables that night and I REALLY enjoyed it. I was familiar with a lot of the music but didn't really know the entire story beforehand. The performers were outstanding, and it was very moving to me. Admittedly, I got all teary eyed more than once. I was not disappointed.

We got back to our hotel that night and Derek came across this newspaper which listed its opinion of the 10 most overrated dishes in NYC - including Carnegie Deli's "Woody Allen" and the Magnolia Bakery cupcakes we had just partaken in. We both got a good laugh about that. I would agree, they were both a bit overrated, but we were glad, nonetheless, to have tasted for ourselves.