Cake Boss

I remember driving from Provo, UT, to Albuquerque, NM, (10-11 hrs. depending on if it was before or after my speeding ticket in Navajo Nation--55 feels like a standstill after you have been going 80+ for awhile) and thinking that it wasn't that bad of a drive. Put three kids 4 and under in the car and anything above 2 hours, turns into 4 hours feeling like 10 hours when you factor in the children's music (have you ever listened to the children's station on Pandora and counted how many times they play the hawaiian somewhere over the rainbow song within an hour). Then anything above 4 hours makes you wonder what the guinness world record is for number of times a human can go to the bathroom in a day. So on our way up to the Boston/Cape Cod area (6 hours, or 3 years of lost life expectancy due to premature insanity) we decided to break the traveling time up by stopping in NYC and visiting Mia's high school friend for a couple days. (In case you were wondering, I'm pretty sure it took 5 hours just to get to NYC. Why is it so hard to find a gas station with a bathroom out East?).

Instead of driving straight into NYC we first went to Hoboken, NJ, to visit Carlo's City Hall Bakery, home of the Cake Boss. Buddy makes some awesome looking pastries and cakes, but I wasn't sure how that would translate as far as taste was concerned. But we decided to wait in the 2 hour line to find out. Luckily there was an ice cream truck to help the girls cool down and distract them from the fact that they were in a line. It was a good distraction for the 5 min. it lasted. It's hard to justify waiting in a line for 2 hours just to get pastries . . . that is until you have tried one of Buddy's lobster tails or a cannoli. (earmuffs) Holy crap. After we ordered, what I initially thought was too much to ever eat but what ended up being not nearly enough, we had a little impromptu photo shoot in the back alley behind the bakery. This is where the flour gets dumped on the delivery guys, unfortunately we did not get to see that live.

The next NYC day was spent walking around, a lot, and discovering that all the big photo stores in NYC are run by Hasidic Jews, and therefore closed on Saturday. People actually adhering to their religion, weird. We ate at a delicious Mexican establishment, called La Esquina. Evidently the entire corner has 3 or 4 different restaurants all under the La Esquina brand. The most popular, and hardest to get into was a dinner only place, so we ate at the cafe (there's also a taco shop). Great place to check out if you're ever in NYC.

Caught Mia while chewing. Turns out she does a little Blue Steel while she eats.

Yes, Hallee is sleeping standing up.

Even crack is more affordable on Canal Street. (Every time we go to NYC with Mia, the girls hit up Canal St. for some new purses).

NYC Parking

That night Megan and I went out with our friends, the Calls, and hit up the Comedy Cellar. Aziz Ansari was headlining. There were about 6 comedians and each was dang funny. It was very hard to refrain from loud laughter, or from keeping my eyeballs from popping out of my head, my mouth from drooling, and my pants from being peed. I'm pretty sure when I laugh hard I turn into an infant, or old man.

The place we stayed has an amazing view being right in between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges and right in front of this amazing park. Hallee was using these binoculars to people watch. There are always wedding or other special occasion photo shoots taking place here.

Maddie was deathly afraid of the dog, Brooklyn, when we first arrived. By the time we left she had warmed up to her and was only mildly timid, but with a smile.