Prospect Park

For several months, my friend Jill and I have been trying to plan a day to meet at Prospect Park to go to the zoo. For one reason after another we hadn't been able to coordinate. Finally, today we made it happen! The weather, for NYC in November, was Ahhmazing! It was a glorious fall day. This was my first trip to Prospect Park. It should have taken me about 1 hour by subway, but due to multiple factors, it took me 2 hours to get from my apartment to the Prospect Park zoo entrance. Exhausted at 31 weeks pregnant? yes. Was it worth it? Totally.

One of the contributing factors to the fact that it took me so long to get to the zoo entrance was that I ended up entering the park at an entrance that was not so close to the zoo. So, I had a 20 minute walk through the park to get to the zoo. I had no idea where I was going initially till I finally found a map and a few friendly Brooklynites to point me in the right direction. To this fall-lovin' girls' delight, the 20 minute walk was worth the long commute to Brooklyn. The leaves were gorgeous and the weather was perfect. Jonah really seemed to enjoy himself too. He was convinced that although this too, was his first trip to Prospect Park, he knew the way to the zoo, even though Mommy did not. He would say, "Mommy, you just need to go through that tunnel right over there and we'll get to the zoo." He has most likely inherited his sense of direction from his daddy, so no doubt, he will know his way around NYC better than me in no time. He is constantly asking where we are 'on the map' when he sees a map... he also asks what streets we are walking on and what streets we are going to. He has a love of maps and geography like his daddy does.

On a similar note, but kind of a side story for this blog post-- he has picked up on what Mark and I say when we get in a taxi to go home, ya know, what we say to the driver when we get in -- "93rd and 3rd please", which is the intersection where our apartment building is located. He now, usually beats me to telling the driver where we need to go. The funny thing is, he will blurt out "ninety-thuwrd and thuwrd please" even if we are getting in a cab to go somewhere besides home, so I have to quickly correct him and tell the driver the appropriate address. So cute (and kind of amazing) what they pick up on!

Back to the current topic....Jonah had a great time at the zoo, once we finally made it there. He and Even toddled around after each other and had fun pointing out the animals and showing each other the different animals that they liked. It was really cute and fun watching them interact with each other. They also decided to switch strollers 1/2 way through the day so that Even was riding in Jonah's stroller and Jonah in Even's :)

Here are some pictures from our fun day!


Pathway through Prospect Park that we walked on to get to the zoo


Gorgeous fall leaves




Jonah liked this little tree and wanted his picture by it


Jonah spotted this very large leaf on the pathway through the park and hung onto it all day


Turtle Even :)


Jonah and Even in the Turtle shell together


Jonah acting like a turtle ;)


Jonah and Even looking at something in this tank... there were fish in there, but none showed up in the picture... I think it looks like there's a snake down in the bottom of the tank too :P


Jonah with his leaf


Jonah in the prarie dog play tunnels


More fall leaves


So, I think this large bird is an Emu -- but I asked Jonah what he thought it was and he said.... "hmmmmmm.... maybe a goat?" and Even chimed in with "Cow!"


Jonah cheezin for the camera

Trick or Treat! in NYC

The trick or treating experience in NYC is a bit different... just like most things in NYC.
Obviously in NYC the door to door trick or treating is different because there aren't houses like there are in most other places in America. There are townhouses, so certain areas are designated for trick or treaters to go to. Because these areas are designated and because there are ALOT of people in NYC, these areas are quite crowded. We took Jonah to a designated area, that consisted of a couple of blocks of town houses that were giving out candy. The streets in these areas were closed down and yes, they were quite crowded.

Jonah went trick or treating last year, but I'm pretty certain he had no recollection of doing so. This year, he was not sure what was going on. He didn't want to hold his bag at first and he certainly did not want to walk up to a door and say 'trick or treat'! Once he realized that the people at the doors were giving him candy for holding out his bag and saying 'trick or treat' he decided to willingly participate! So, for the first hour of our night that is what we did...and Jonah filled up his candy bag.

The second hour of the designated trick or treating time was spent inside our building. I went back to our apartment to hand out candy and Jonah and Mark went floor to floor for several floors accepting candy from the residents in our building that decided to participate in the distribution of candy. Jonah ended up filling his candy bag twice in one night, so needless to say he (we) have plenty of candy to last us awhile!

Here are a few pictures from our night with our sweet little train conductor!




Needing a little encouragment to go up to a stranger and ask for candy :)




Fighting his way through a crowded door step to get candy




These last two were taken on Mark's phone at our apartment. They seem blurry on here although they are quite clear on the phone :(