New York City and something to laugh about

We did it. Small fry and I made it all the way to the "Big Apple" and back; both of us in one piece. It was quite the trip let me tell you. Nothing like traveling with a 16 month old while 6 months pregnant, alone, to help you realize just how inconvenient the world is to single parents with babies. Kudos to all you single parents. I am grateful that on most occasions I have my husband along with me to offer extra hands. But we did it and we had fun and we are home now safe and sound and ready to get cracking on the final preparations for the Melon Days booth and small fry's big move into a big girl room and a big girl bed. Here are a few highlights from the trip.
Small fry riding the subway. She loved the "big fast train" and all the people. Talk about a variety pack on the subway. I think she was the only blonde haired, blue eyed person almost every time we rode the subway. She sure generated a lot of attention.

Wouldn't you know that you can travel all the way across the country and your little nature girl will still find a big old stick and cling to it for dear life when you have to leave it in Central Park.

As part of the trip I wanted to get a "mini make-over" and come home with a new look. I was feeling rather drab before I left and so I was willing to spend a little money on myself while in NY. My brother hooked me up with a rather flamboyant man to cut my hair and this is the result. I really like it though it is shorter in the back than planned and I don't think I was nearly "fabulous" enough for the man cutting my hair. "Sorry to disappoint you Darren with my plain old Utah self".

Also as part of the make over I wanted to get some new makeup. We decided to head to Macy's and find a makeup counter to do a consultation. This is the before picture.

And this is the after. Notice the difference? Ya, me neither. Proof of the fact that when choosing a makeup artist to do a makeup consultation you should probably choose one that is wearing more than some 80's blue eye shadow and eye liner. I however had no choice. She was the one assigned to me. And actually I did end up getting a few make-up items that I really love and I do feel really good about them and using them so frizzy hair or not, the consultant was some what helpful.

This is how I felt after a day or two of New York life with a 16 month old and an outdoor temperature that had to be hovering somewhere around the 310 degree mark with the humidity.

Here we are on the peer at Coney Island in true New Yorker (must get in at least one more text message) style.

Here we are about to take our place on the over crowded beach at Coney island. Note the background people in the following pictures. I am very glad I managed to capture this rather large man in a rather small swim suit as part of the trip. This picture reminds me of another incident on the beach where another rather large man with a dude rag on his head and a very small swim suit stopped us to ask for the time and then lingered a little to closely for a very uncomfortable minute or two like a seagul looking for a free meal. I wanted to say, "excuse me sir, but we have told you the time now move along, there is nothing more to see here and we have eaten all of our lunch. Kindly continue on down the beach."

Small fry loved the sand even though it was rather warm. Speaking of warm, this lady in the background looked like she had been out in the heat far too long. She kind of reminded me of an over cooked steak.

Here we are at another beach on Long Island. Though it is quite brave of me to post pictures of myself in swimming attire, I wanted all to know that I am not ashamed of putting on a swim suit to play with my daughter at the beach. Clearly, however, this colorful wrap that my brother had and loaned me (don't ask why he had it) is doing absolutely nothing to disguise my "curves". Note to self, bold printed, tie dyed wraps are not figure flattering...use only on a private beach.

And so with that we conclude our trip to the Big Apple. Thanks to my brother for showing us a great time. I am really glad we went. I am really glad I didn't talk myself out of the experience because of fear of being able to do it alone. We made some memories to last a life time and I love spending time with my brother.