Abe got in late on Sunday night (or early Monday morning…he walked in the apartment around 3 am). \u00a0We slept in a little in the morning and then took the train down to Central Park to watch a puppet show at the Swedish Cottage. They do old fashioned marionette puppet shows at the cottage, and the show we saw was called\u00a0Bessie’s Big Shot<\/em>. It was a cute little plot about a cow named Bessie who wants to join the circus. The plot was mostly an excuse for the show to use a lot of fascinating circus puppets, but we didn’t mind!<\/p>\n Then we ate lunch at a Druze restaurant called Gazala’s. We loved our food.<\/p>\n Afterward, we went to the Natural History Museum. Our favorite room was the Hall of Large Mammals. That room is amazing. I could not believe the detail in those dioramas, the girls were fascinated. The room also made me grateful to live in the West because most of those gorgeous scenes took place in the west. All the road trips we need to make flitted through my mind as we walked through that hall.<\/p>\n Lydia’s favorite part of the museum was the skeleton in the evolution room. She demanded to sit in front of the skeleton for a full five minutes and then protested when we said it was time to move on. She has a skeleton app on her iPad, and it has made her very interested in skeletons.<\/p>\n By the time we were done at the museum, we were pooped. We took the train home and I got a pedicure and a lot of long-overdue waxing done while Abe and my Mom watched the girls at home. When my pedicure was done, it was almost time for my high school friend, Lauren Merkley, to come over for dinner. She and her boyfriend joined us for sushi at Clark and Swathi’s apartment, and it was wonderful catching up. My only regret is that we didn’t have more time. I love Lauren.<\/p>\n Tuesday<\/strong><\/p>\n I got up early on Tuesday to go to Times Square and try to get rush tickets to the musical,\u00a0Beautiful: The Carol King Musical<\/em>. My friend from high school, Jessie Mueller, is the star of the show and recently won a Tony award for her work on the show. While in line, I bumped into another high school\/elementary school friend. It’s amazing how Jessie’s success brings people together–I’ve felt more connected to my high school class than I ever did in high school because it’s been so fun to watch everyone cheer Jessie on in Facebook. Jessie is such a marvelous person; she was the type of person who was nice to everybody and made everyone feel special. She also was so obviously talented even then.<\/p>\n Abe and I ended up waiting in line for cancellation tickets because I couldn’t get two tickets together in the morning. After a two hour wait, my feet were swollen, but we got tickets!<\/p>\n And it ran over more, because after the show Abe and I got the best gyros I have ever had in my life (and I have had gyros in Greece on multiple occasions) in Times Square. That was a happy night.<\/p>\n Skipping back to Tuesday afternoon, the most memorable thing we did was eat in Dominique Ansel bakery, home of the cronut. They were sold out of cronuts, but our lunch and dessert were amazing.<\/p>\n We did some shopping in Soho and got rained on, so all of the rest of our plans got replaced with a subway home. I had already walked several miles from midtown to the West Village, not to mention all around Soho, so I was fine with going home by that point. The evening ended with the show, so no complaints.<\/p>\n Wednesday<\/strong><\/p>\n The girls watched\u00a0Frozen\u00a0<\/em>for the umpteenth time in the morning.<\/p>\n We ordered one last meal from Seamless, the NYC online take-out service. My yellow curry carried me through our flight until we got home. Tom and Suzanne picked us up, and we ended up getting Subway for dinner and eating outside. The weather was gorgeous, and we were happy to be home. It was a perfect trip and a perfect homecoming.<\/p>\n Thank-you, Clark and Swathi, for a fabulous trip.<\/strong> We love you so much. Thank-you, Mom, for being wonderful.<\/strong> The girls love you and already miss you so much. Thank-you, Grandma, for lending us Mom for the trip.<\/strong> We love you and only wish you could have been there, too!<\/p>\n Thursday<\/strong><\/p>\n The only thing of note today was that I gave Lydia an Elsa cape I had been saving until Christmas. I’ve decided to use it as a tool to help her share better. She can only wear it when she’s in the mood to share. I even have a motto: “You can wear it if you share it!” We’ll see if this helps. The whole day has been a series of tantrums and screaming fits. I think the girls are tired from the trip. I did go swimming this morning and then took the girls to story time at the library, but it’s been tantrums ever since.<\/p>\n Puerto Rico<\/strong><\/p>\n Here are Abe’s photos from Puerto Rico!<\/p>\n Now Abe and I are folding laundry…only I’m blogging instead. Back to the laundry!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Okay, so I got behind in New York. Thankfully, I haven’t taken any pictures for the past two days, so I only have to post from Monday and Tuesday! Monday Abe got in late on Sunday night (or early Monday morning…he walked in the apartment around 3 am). \u00a0We slept in a little in the … Continue reading massive make-up<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,14,21,32,40,41,42,49,50,52,58,61,63,67,75,87,94,95,103],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abe-pics","category-book-of-mormon","category-cooking","category-exercise","category-floor-time-with-my-children","category-folded-laundry","category-food-pics","category-k","category-library","category-lily-pics","category-lydia-pics","category-make-up-blog-post","category-mary-pics","category-naps","category-phone-call-with-mom","category-reading-to-my-children","category-scripture-journal","category-scriptures","category-swimming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"nycpic20\"](\"http:\/\/abeandlily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/nycpic20.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>Seeing Jessie perform was extraordinary. It probably ranks as a life highlight–certainly, it’s my favorite performance of any kind of show I’ve ever attended. I still feel elated in my heart from the experience. Afterward, I got to see Jessie outside. That was a kind of “my cup runneth over” experience.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n