Brooklyn Parks and Shopping

View of lower Manhattan & Brooklyn Brdg from Park

Manhattan Bridge from Playarea

After the subway fiasco the day before, I decided that today I would try something different.  Kelly was planning to spend the evening out with his coworkers so I decided to go to him for lunch.  I knew that there was not an accessible subway stop near his work, so if I took the double stroller I would have to walk the whole way, which is tiresome and time consuming.  I had already piddled the morning away and it was nearly 11 a.m.  So I pulled the umbrella stroller out of the car and told the kids they would have to take turns riding in it and headed for the closest subway station.  We got off at the nearest station to Kelly's work, walked a few short blocks to his office building where he met us on the street.  We walked a couple more blocks to his favorite deli and picked up some food and then went to the Empire Fulton Ferry State Park to eat.  Kelly kept telling Jonah about the playground in the shape of a big ship located there (which I didn't get a photo of), so he was excited about it.  The playground was in the shadow of Kelly's office building and right on the water which made it a bit chilly.  But it was nice to have a nice relaxing lunch while the kids played - they didn't really eat their lunch until after Kelly went back to work.  Then I played "shark" with the kids - imagine a modified tag where mommy tries to grab your legs while you run around on the play equipment.  This park had great views of Manhattan, but the Manhattan bridge being so close meant we heard the noise of the subway train going across almost constantly (we rode this same train a number of times on our visit).

After a quick restroom stop back in Kelly's building, we walked back up the hill and got on the subway just to get off at the next stop (in order to reduce the amount of complaining from Jonah for having to walk).  We got off on Fulton street and went in a few stores.  There was this kids only store called Cookies Department Store that I wanted to check out and a few other stores that were new to me.  I bought the kids a toy each among other things and we continued our walk to our apartment.  We took our stuff to the apartment and then I let the kids play at the playground, then picked up some "take out" from Rice.  We had a fairly relaxing evening in, while Kelly and his coworkers headed into Manhattan for some authentic Korean food that required him to remove his shoes.