The Adventures of
David
Elizabeth
and Leif

On Saturday, Mommy was busy, so Daddy and Leif decided to attempt another adventure. It was 60 degrees at 9:00 am — incredibly beautiful weather — so we headed out the door to our favorite kid-friendly breakfast place in walking distance. When we got inside it was like 85 degrees. They needed to turn on the air conditioner. We got our food to go and jumped on the subway, heading for the Staten Island Ferry.

Unfortunately, the ferry was not running on schedule — I think because of the fog. Leif was getting impatient, so we took a walk out on the balcony. Here’s what we saw.

We decided to go to the playground across the street at Battery Park. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Leif like the puddles more than anything else there.

I succeeded in getting him to climb a little bit, but he quickly returned to the puddles.

Thursday was an incredible day. I swapped days off with a guy at work, so technically I was “off” (although I was answering emails all day…).

Leif and I jumped on the F-train for an adventure down to Coney Island.

After a 30 minute ride, we got off the train and onto the beach.

Leaf acknowledged the presence of the ocean…

… surveyed his surroundings …

… and got to work.

After a while, he decided to explore.

He soon discovered a bird. “Bird!” He exclaimed! (It sounds like “Dah!” In fact most of his words sound like “Dah!” It’s sort of like his sound for *.* in DOS … or “.*” if you’re into regular expressions)

He gave chase for a while and soon bored of the futile pursuit.

He was happy to get back into the stroller.

We had a couple hot dogs (Hot Dog = “At Ga” in Leivish) and fries, and then hopped on the subway home.

It was a really fun day.

A week ago, Scott was in town for work. We took Leif to Roosevelt Island. This is what it looks like from about 13,000 ft — it’s the island at the bottom-right of the picture.

While you don’t take a jet, getting there is almost like flying — you take a cable-car over the east river.

That’s the 59th street bridge right next to the cable-car. The climactic fight scene in Spiderman was filmed here. Scott, Leif and I, were just feelin’ groovy though.

There are ruins of an old asylum on the south end of the island. Just beyond that is a nice grassy area where Leif walked around.

He likes helicopters and airplanes. If you go to the flickr site (click any of the images) and view the images after this at full resolution, you can see the helicopter he was watching.

Behind us is the UN, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler building, the erstwhile Pan Am (not MetLife) building, and a the Green Goblin’s building.

Other than Leif’s runny nose in the cold, we all had a great adventure.

You may know that I’m a choreographer and I’m working on a new show right now to be performed in NY and Atlanta this 2008…A friend of mine is composing the music for this piece (a first for me!), and last month the musicians came over for a first look at everything before going into the studio to record. It was a very exciting night!

Here is Evan, the composer, on accordion; Zach on violin, Rolf on guitar (me on ears…)…

…and Matt on bass

Leif was very curious and impressed…

“Look at THOSE cool toys!!!”

The wonderful Rolf; the wonderful snack on the coffee table…not that I needed to bribe these guys to play amazingly!

Matt in action…a photo cannot adequately capture his “game face.” It’s great.

Zach and Rolf, and the illustrious composition.

Some break time entertainment, courtesy of the littlest musician.

Evan, Herr Direktor.

I just couldn’t resist this one…

And Daddy just couldn’t resist THIS one!