Ry and ted take in the view – 1720

New Years Eve morning

Ted has been enjoying lazy mornings playing on the bed and is now quite happy to sit unaided which he started to do on the plane but seems to have mastered on holiday.

Its currently 1720 here and we have just spoken to South Africa to wish a Happy New Year to all there – 2 hours to UK and 7 hours for us here. We have turned the sofa around so we can look out fo the window and enjoy the view – and we might go out for a wander in a little while.

Walking on Broadway and in Central Park

Ted had his first pretzel walking in Central Park and he liked all the night lights on Broadway

1st night in NYC

We were impressed to find we had a great view of Times Square from our hotel room so can see right into the heart of the action at night

Ted thought the bed was a little on the large side

But he was very pleased to get his hands on the remote controller

Teds first class flight experience

Ted fell asleep for his morning nap on take off so we made the flat bed and had a snooze, when he woke up we found him his own chair since the flight was not full

Ted was able to watch In the Night Garden which he seemed to enjoy and he especially liked having his own headphones and controller

The flat bed converted nicely into a play centre for Ted although he spurned most of his toys in favour of following sun shadows and fiddling with gadgets – as well as looking at himself in the reflection on the screen. Wonder where he gets that from??!

Teds first class lounging

Ted found it challenging to keep his balance in the chair swing!

New York New Year

We arrived on Friday in the afternoon after an amazing flight – Ryan is going to struggle to get me to go anywhere in anything other than first class now – Ted had his own seat as there was plenty of space and I got a head neck and shoulder massage in flight! Really the food and seat comfort meant it was not a chore at all to travel – and the full english in the lounge before we left was not too shabby.

The only park of the journey that was difficult was the hair raising taxi ride from the airport to the hotel – if you are ever in NY don’t get into taxi number 4Y18 – he is a really bad driver and seemed oblivious to our discomfort given we had Ted on my lap in the back – belted in but even so he was eating, talking on the phone, swerving and speeding all the way – he amended his style slightly when Ry lost it and yelled at him but all the same his attitude sucked from the get go.

We lucked out on the hotel and have a huge room and a huge bed with plenty of space for Ted and his cot. We have a view of Times Square and when they put the ball up this morning if we go right to one side of the window we can actually see the ball drop from the hotel which is great as it is insane process to be outside. To be in Times Square you need to be out there from 4pm, they put you in a pen! and then you stay there for the next 8 hours, there is nowhere to get food or drink once you are in your pen, and you can’t take a bag or backpack, there is no drinking alcohol in the street so it would be pretty dry too, and it is likely to be quite cold!!! Totally impractical with a baby, and not ideal if you want to eat or drink in the run up to new year – there will be lots of entertainment and the atmoshphere will be amazing I expect but even so…..

Although our hotel is on the corner of Times Square and Broadway if we leave in the evening we will be directed away from the action to 8th Avenue and will then have to walk 15 blocks to Central Park and then come back down Broadway or 7th Avenue to see the action at street level – 15 blocks is actually not hat far – about a 20 minute walk so we might give that a go at 9pm and see whether it is feasible to get to be outside and see everything. If not or if Ted is not taking the noise and hustle well we will come back to the hotel and watch from our window and on the big screens in the square and with the TV in the room and have some bubbly. We might then go for a wander afterwards – basically alot is Ted dependent too. Exciting though and bound to be quite a new years whatever we do.

Saturday we went downtown to the site where the WTC stood – it is enormous and the scale really strikes you as to how big an area was destroyed. It took us about 6 attempts to get the right subway line to get there and at one point we ended up accross the river in Brooklyn – at last I have found a place with a worse underground network than London – dirty, slow and complete with drunk scary looking bloke who was hassling single women – one of whom came and stood with us and chatted in order to have him leave her alone. Its also harder to navigate than Tokyo’s subway even though you have to navigate that in another language. We also did some shopping in  Century 21 a huge retail store like TK Maxx – Ted now has some fancy clothes although we stopped short of getting him a Juicy Couture tracksuit! I looked around but with Ted and the craziness of the store and the different American style and my different post baby figure shopping is not all that fun at the moment – I am going to get some specific things from specific stores today and tomorrow.

Ted has been great and is already on NY time having taken one day to work through the time change, so we are getting plenty of sleep. More so because Ry ate something bad on Saturday so we have been having early nights while he has got that out of his system. Yesterday although he wasn’t feeling 100% we still had a good day walkign in central park and visiting the Metropolitan Mueseum of Modern Art which was amazing – we only scrathched the serface but still saw paintings by Van Gogh, Matisse, Rembrant, Pollock, Monet, Cezanne and many many more.

In the city that never sleeps it seems we have been sleeping alot – about ten hours a night for the last two days which has been great in catching up as Ry had a crazy December and I have been sleep deprived for months! We have also been walking everywhere so not getting as fat as we could given the size of sandwiches and pizzas here. A ham sandwich basically has a whole pack of ham in a foot long baguette roll – Americans must be sorely disappointed when the order a ham sandwich in the UK!

Today we are waiting for Ted to have his morning nap and will then be going out to do some shopping, back to the hotel mid afternoon so we don’t get stuck out in the melee too early and then we will monitor what happening from our window, and I expect Ry will be in and out fo the hotel to guage what the best course of action is.

So its been great so far bar the food incident and we are looking forward to tonight and then our trip to Tampa on Wednesday through Friday.

xxxxxx C,R and T

Bedtime cuddles

Bedtime cuddles are great – one of my favourite times of day to kick back in the feeding chair with my feet up and a post bath sweet smelling warm baby curled up and dozing off in my lap. I am not sure theres much to beat it for sheer relaxation.

We are all ready for our trip, looking forward to it even the flight which is a first for me :O). I will be glad to get underway though as sorting out all the bags and the house and everything can be abit stressful. Early night I think as we have an early start too. Laptop is coming too so blog should be updated from time to time.

Can’t wait to see Emily and her littleuns, and Times Square should be quite exciting. Hope everyone has a wonderful new year and we will be waiting with baited breath for texts from Cliff and Antia and Dan and Emma with news of new arrivals.

Love to all

Ry applies discipline

Christmas and Boxing Day