New York

This weekend we took Bluet and Ilona for an overnight trip to New York. First stop, the Upper East Side, where we ate lunch then took a walk to the apartment we used to live in on 79th Street.



Onwards, to Rainbow Hardware, where we used to buy our DIY supplies (they also stock more or less everything else you could think of for your home), where we also took a look at paint colours for our new house.

We then walked further downtown to the hospital where Bluet was born, then took a taxi down to our hotel near Grand Central. After dumping our bags, we headed up to Central Park via Bloomingdales, where Ilona got a new pair of shoes



And then Central Park, the kids favourite, where they ate ice cream and climbed big rocks.




There was time to visit Whole Foods Market for refreshments



And then for dinner, then bed





Sunday we headed downtown to get the best view (land based) of Bluet's current obsession, the Statue of Liberty




Then the train home

Paris! : Eiffel Tower

So here we are, last Saturday, exploring Paris. The highlight for most of the kids was the Eiffel Tower (which Bluet said was the most beautiful tall building). The highlight for Ilona was her new shoes. Bluet was fascinated by all the souvenir sales people peddling their wares around the tower, and we ended up bringing 5 Eiffel Towers home with us. She has also been spotted pretending to buy and sell these Paris souvenirs. As you can see, we walked all the way around




Here is Bluet's picture of the tower



And her tower souvenir



Ilona's shoes:

busy weekend II

So then last Saturday we did the usual Saturday things - Bluet's English class, a trip to nespresso, then on to Sihl City to pick up some new trainers for Bluet, Burger King (which almost blew Bluet's mind when the toy was SpongeBob Squarepants). Fortunately they got matching toys. Then a ride home.



It was a long, tough morning



Just wait til you see last Sunday.....

Leaps and bounds

Ilona's walking has come along in leaps and bounds. Indeed, she is walking, running, and climbing stairs fearlessly. Not only that, but spring is springing, and Bluet and Ilona are finally able to play outside in the garden again, which is a great relief for everyone.

Ilona is also getting interested in books - you may recall that Bluet used to enjoy the 'that's not my....' series. Ilona particularly enjoys finding the mouse on each page. Here she is with 'That's not my Aeroplane'

Another popular game is to put on hats (Ilona also loves shoes. Especially holding them up for you to put on, and then when you have put them on, to remove one shoe and probably the sock also, then to walk around for a while until she finds another shoe she can hold up and ask you to put on)

And often she learns things by watching Bluet, e.g. in this example how to draw:

A tired Bluet at the end of a long day

Shoe Fiasco: notes from the weekend

Yesterday was St Patrick's day, the day when all Americans pretend to be Irish by wearing green and milling around New York, not drinking, just like real Irish people. Anyway, it was co-incidentally nice out, so we found ourselves in Central Park, where Bluet tried her best to jump in the boating lake, but was thwarted (see video). She also found herself some green sun glasses which were of some fascination for a while. But she became distracted long enough that we did not have to take them home.

Check out the blue sky, Bluet and people in green

Later we met up with Steve and Caroline.

Today, we headed out to buy Bluet some shoes and get some lunch. When I was little, I remembered the shoe buying process as quite laborious, as a fastidious shoe shop clerk would measure your feet with some crazy mechanical contraption, then find some well made but boring and uncomfortable leather shoes ideally designed for growing feet. This was not the case even in the Step Rite (equivalent of Start Rite), where unhelpful shop staff took forever to measure Bluet's feet, and the shoes that fitted her were only available in synthetic pink materials. This process took so long that even though Bluet enjoyed playing with the kids in the shoe shop for a while (it was very busy) she eventually got too hungry and/or we did, so we that we left without purchasing anything. Although I was thinking of making Bluet go barefoot to avoid undergoing this horrific process ever again, I realised that as we now know her shoe size (4 1/2, extra wide) we can order her shoes off Amazon from the comfort of our own home, and never ever go into a children's shoe shop again.

As long as her feet don't grow. So all in all a thoroughly successful shopping trip, aside from the failure to buy shoes, and the missing salad in Emily's lunch.