Happy Birthday America

Ty proudly standing in front of the NY Stock Exchange building.

The Big Piano

No visit to FAO in NYC is complete without checking out the BIG piano.

Look Out Frank Oz

Our NYC visit also took us to the other side of Central Park where Fifth Avenue meets 59th Street. Home of one of the only two remaining FAO Schwarz retail stores in the USA. Thankfully this place is still there because it remains one of my favorite stores to browse. I personally know a lot about it having worked there one summer after college.

They did not, however, have this new cool department where I snapped this photo of Ty. You can create your own Muppet! How cool is that? Here's Ty holding one of the samples that really works. One of the puppeteers showed him how to hold the puppet and the rod. Great gift idea indeed.

Bedtime Stories

Ty and I were downtown and we stopped in for dinner with an old friend of mine. I have known Vanessa since a teen tour across America we took together after our freshman year of high school. All these years we have kept in touch and made plans to finally get our kids together.

Here is Ty showing off his awesome reading skills to Vanessa's daughter, Ava Rose. He read her a bedtime story after dinner and then we headed back uptown to bed ourselves.

Out of This World

Right next door to the Museum of Natural History is the Rose Center for Earth and Science (formerly the Hayden Planetarium). This place is the mecca for astronomy geeks like me. I remember the room full of scales where you could see how much you weighed on different planets. Ty was in awe of all the photos and exhibits here. He loves science and that's cool by me.

Day at the Museum

The world famous American Museum of Natural History. Site of a few few field trips from my youth and recently brought to the attention of movie fans worldwide. Ty took his first subway ride across town with me to arrive at this institution near Central Park West. Here are a few images of exhibits as well as our budding paleontologist.

Welcome to Westport

This small little town in Fairfield County, CT is where Ty's Dad grew up and my parents still live. Westport is home to a few celebrities and some historic revolutionary war sites, it can now boast a place in Ty's travel log. Ty has been here a few times before, but now it's official with these photos.

The weather cooperated a bit to allow us a stroll down Main Street where the banners hang. Then behind Main along the Saugatuck river, Ty poses with the bridge in the background. That road is US 1, or the Old Boston Post Road which winds through the whole town along it's journey all the way to Florida.





History lesson over. On to more pictures.

March of the Penguins

On our first full day in CT we headed to South Norwalk to visit the Maritime Aquarium where Ty had gone once before when he was very little (link to old post). The fun part about that is at his age, that means virtually no recollection of the visit. So everything is new again.

We looked at sea lions and penguins first outside, before checking out some of the other marine life inside that is found along the Long Island Sound.

Lego Showcase

Ty shows off some new designs at Gram and G-Pop's house. I am sure that the folks who build the stuff you see below once started out this way.

Jet Blueing

Ty and I returned from an awesome week in CT and NYC with friends and family. This post begins the recap of what we did and who we saw.

I tried to capture the wing out the window while we were flying, but the exposure difference was too wide for the digital camera to read. Either way, it still makes for a nice introduction as we headed from Austin to JFK.