Treasured Day

It is rare when you have four children, who range in age from eight to almost seventeen, to find any activity that they all enjoy. But we sure hit the jackpot on this day.

The day after Big Boy's cross country race we explored some new spots in NYC. I wanted desperately to see the famous Waterfalls that were scheduled to be turned off and shut down after that weekend. We saw them. Many of them. But those were just snapshots. The real fun of the day came in the activities.

Because everyone says you must do it at least once in your life, we walked the Brooklyn Bridge. It was pretty cool. It was crowded, and I look forward to returning on a day with not so many strollers and tourists but it was definately worth the hike. Except for the poor clueless guy in the background I got a pretty amazing shot of my whole gang without one smile between them. I promise, they were having a good time.


Then came this newfound treasure. It is called Governors Island and I had read about it many times in my copies of New York Magazine. But we finally tried it out for ourselves.

It was a blast. For not much dough you can rent bikes - single, tandem, and this crazy Chitty Chitty Bang Bang version. We just had to sample a bit of each. We took turns on the tandem, just to see what it was like, but the real hit was the bike built for four.

Did I mention it has no brakes? Well, it does have brakes. They are called "your feet". Much like the Flintstones car braking system. So it is important to remember this when picking your driver. Soon to be turning sixteen year old boys who love speed are not necessarily your best bet.

It made for a lot of laughs and a lot of fun new family memories. We saw a new view of Lady Liberty and a new view of how much fun our family can still have, even with the crazy age gaps we have.

The pictures of that day are great. But the memories are even sweeter. Riding home on the long highway that night, Hubby and I had that sweet contentment you rarely get when you've just spent a full two days away from home with four children.

It all went well. They all had fun. They all seem to love each other after all, at least for these two days they did.

We soaked it all in, made plans for our next trip down to the City, and hoped like heck we could catch that magic in a bottle just one more time.