Anything Daddy does I can do...

The other morning we were all hanging out in the bathroom while Craig was getting ready for the day.  It was shaving day, for Craig, so Craig started to put the shaving cream on his face to shave.  Lucas saw this and decided he wanted to start shaving.  So this is a picture of Lucas with shaving cream on his cheeks.  No he did not get to use a razor.

Movie

Lucas went to his first movie in July (not counting the time when he was about three months old and we took him to the 9:30 showing of Star Trek, where he ate and then fell asleep.  As a side note - I couldn't feel my arm half way through the movie from not wanting to move him and wake him up. Not one of our best ideas.)

We had two free tickets to see Cars 2, plus kids 3 and under are free, so we all got to go see the movie for free.  Lucas has been a little obsessed with cars lately, so he was more than excited when the cars started to appear on the screen.  I had been collecting the Cars snacks  (graham crackers, shaped like the cars, marshmallows, and fruit snacks), so Lucas would have them to take to the theater with him.  Lucas really enjoyed it, he wanted to sit on Craig's or my lap the whole time, but he did sit and watch the movie.  He was quick to point out the cars, the water, and at one point during the show when the cars crashed into each other Lucas said, "Uh-oh, Mommy look, uh-oh."  Luckily the movie theater was loud enough, I don't think anyone heard, Lucas' commentary.  All in all it was a success!

Pancakes

A while back, Lucas and I had conversation that went something like this:

Katie:  "Lucas would you like some Cheerios for breakfast?" (This is pretty much what we have every morning for breakfast, because this is usually want Lucas wants).
Lucas: "Pancakes"

I couldn't quite understand what he was saying, but after a few minutes of trying to figure out I finally got it.

Katie: "Lucas, do you want pancakes for breakfast?"
Lucas:  "Don't want cheerios, pancakes."

This is one of the few times Lucas has made a request like this, so how could I not make pancakes for breakfast.

Humidity

I love the spring and summer.  Lucas and I pretty much spend our days outside soaking up the sun and playing.  However, this past couple of weeks it has been too hot to go outside.  I am sticky all of the time from the humidity.  Poor Lucas, his head is soaking wet by the time we get home from picking Craig up at work.  We went swimming yesterday and that was a nice break, but today it is hot and driving home from the grocery store I could see the humidity hanging in the air.  There is a plus side, I will be leaving this all behind in a week, I know it will be hot in Utah, but I am sure looking forward to that dry heat, my hair not looking like a frizzy wavy mess and my clothes not clinging to me.

EDIT:  In addition to all of the heat and humidity, our A/C died over the hottest weekend of the year.  We set new records for temperature that broke previous ones from the 1930s.  It was 102F outside and the heat index with the humidity was over 112F.  It got up over 90F in our apartment.  Unfortunately we were hosting some youth for a regional youth conference at our house on one of those nights.  We felt bad for them.  Thankfully we have some wonderful new ward members who loaned us a portable window A/C unit that we put in Lucas' bedroom.  So while we had 93F+ in our bedroom during the night, Lucas slept in a comfortable 78F room.  The A/C did get fixed on Monday morning, but by then the temperature had dropped to the mid-70s (of course).

Family visit

We are so glad that my family came to visit.  We had a ton of fun.  Lucas loved it.  He really enjoyed playing with Aunt Kenzie and Grandma and Grandpa.  Though he calls grandma and grandpa by the same name (it is a variation of 'grandpa'), they both enjoyed seeing him.  We went swimming up at Green Wood Furnace, watched the fire works, Lucas helped Aunt Kenzie and Grandma husk corn.  It was fun, and came and went way too fast.  No worries, we will be seeing them in about two weeks, actually less than that (I'm writing this weeks late).  I keep telling Lucas were going to fly on an airplane to see them and he seems to think that will be fun, maybe not the plane ride, but the visit will be fun!  We look forward to see everyone.

New York City, Part 2

The next day was spent in Midtown Manhattan.  Once again we hit all the touristy spots (of which I didn't take many pictures for some reason.  Probably because I already took pictures of them all when we went to New York before).  We walked from Juilliard down Broadway to Times Square.  Then walked to the New York city Library, down to the Empire State building, back up to the Rockefeller Center, across the street to St. Patrick's Cathedral, picked up a hot dog from a street vendor, made our way to Grand Central Station, across Manhattan to the United Nations building, up to Dylan's Candy Bar on our way to Central Park, cut through Central Park on our way to Levain Bakery (the real reason for Katie going to New York), back down to Times Square where we ate dinner at Ben's Delicatessen (awesome pastrami!) and finally picked up cheesecake to go at Juniors before sprinting back to the car so we didn't get charged extra.  Whew, what an exhausting day.  Previously when Katie and I had gone to New York, we did a similar walking route and I think the tally was somewhere around 15 miles of walking.

The one thing that we did that Katie and I had never done before was go to the top of the Rockefeller Tower, where I took these panoramas:

Looking North from "Top of the Rock".  Click HERE for high resolution.

Looking South from "Top of the Rock".  Click HERE for high resolution.

New York City

After our adventures in Maine, we continued on to New York City. We spent two days in the city, one in the financial district and one in Midtown Manhattan, both times driving into the city, parking and then walking everywhere. It was a fun and exhausting two days in the city. Lucas, however, thought it was great.....especially the pigeons.

We saw all the standard tourist stuff in the financial district including Wall Street, Trinity Church, St. Paul's Chapel, and Ground Zero. Ground Zero is currently closed off entirely in preparation for the opening of the 9/11 memorial that will be opening on 9/11/11. We did see the progress being made on the new World Trade Center tower.

One cool thing that we saw, that I didn't even know existed, was the Federal Hall across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. New York City was the Capitol of the United States for ~1.5 years from mid-1788 to 1790, and is the site of George Washington's inauguration.

For lunch we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge and ate at Grimaldi's Pizzeria. The walk across the bridge was long and hot, but the pizza was completely worth it. It probably has something to do with how hungry I was, but Grimaldi's is among some of the best pizza I've ever eaten. Even Lucas had a good time.

After more wandering around, we made our way up to Little Italy for dinner. We ending up picking Ristorante Da Gennaro and had a good time, although I don't think anything could top the pizza we'd already had for lunch.