South Riding Stingrays

Yesterday Joshua swam in the 'A' meet for our team, South Riding Stingrays and today both boys swam in the relay carnival. Here are the results, which pretty much speak for themselves!

New York, New York

Last Friday we drove up to New Jersey to attend Stuart's cousin's daughter's Bat Mitzvah. It was a lovely event and the boys were good about dressing up and wearing ties for the first time!

Boys at the Bat Mitzvah

We also visited New York City with Stuart's college friend Michelle. Early Sunday morning we drove to Liberty Landing State Park in New Jersey, where we caught a ferry to Ellis Island.

Fancy a Cruise?

We looked at some of the exhibits of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island and then caught another ferry to the Statue of Liberty. You can't go inside the statue at the moment but we got some pics of the boys and Lady Liberty. They also learned why she's green...in case you didn't know, she's made of copper, which turns green when exposed to the air. I was able to show Joshua another example of this as people had thrown coins near a fountain, some of which were green.

 

Then we hopped on another ferry to Battery Park, which is at the bottom of Manhattan Island. From there we took the subway to midtown (with the help of Michelle, who is much more familiar with the NY subway than we are!) so we could go up the Empire State Building...currently the tallest building in New York.

Subway Boys...nothing phases them

Thankfully there were no crowds or long lines and we breezed right through our second security checkpoint of the day (the first was at Liberty Landing where my Swiss Army Penknife was confiscated...darn.) We took an elevator up to the 80th floor and then another elevator to the 86th. (Fun fact that Joshua discovered: the Empire State Building has 73 elevators!) We stepped outside to view the city...

After that breathtaking experience, we took the subway back downtown for our 9/11 Memorial tour. Tickets for the memorial are free but you have to get them in advance...we had an entry time of 3:45. After going through the 3rd and final checkpoint of the day we walked around the memorial. It's a parklike setting...very peaceful and serene and tragic all at the same time. The spots where the buildings stood have been turned into giant waterfalls with the names of all the victims engraved in granite around the outside. Victims' names are organized based on associations such as people they knew or were related to and/or where they were when they died. Relatives requested associations, all of which were honored when the placement of names was created.

One World Trade Center under construction

Survivor tree...the only tree to survive the attacks

All around the memorial other buildings are going up. One of them - One World Trade Center -  will become the tallest building in New York City. The idea is that the new World Trade Center buildings will surround the memorial, signifying rebuilding what was destroyed while remembering this senseless act of terrorism. It was a very moving experience, especially as I could see directly across the street the Millennium Hilton, the hotel I stayed in last time I was in New York, from which I watched people enter the Twin Towers.

After visiting the memorial we had a short walk to the World Financial Center ferry terminal, where we caught our final ferry of the day back to New Jersey, but not before some last minute parkour:

Some people were really tired:

It was a great day. We saw so much in such a short time, and also had so much fun with Michelle. Thanks for coming with us!

Ninja Warrior

Joshua is obsessed with a Japanese contest called Ninja Warrior. It's a test of strength, speed, and agility. You have to be 18 to participate, so he has started training. Here's an idea of what he does on a daily basis. I'm not sure how long our house is going to stay standing at this rate (since it's made of cardboard) but hopefully he'll make a ton of money when he wins the contest and will be able to buy us a new house.

Candy Cane Swim Meet Results

Only Joshua swam in the Candy Cane Meet (Daniel opted to attend a friend's birthday party instead) but he represented well with wins in each of his heats and an overall win in Butterfly!

Boys 7-8 25 Free
1	18.54Y	F	Callaghan, Riley	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
2	18.97Y	F	Moffitt, Anderson	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
3	19.98Y	F	Yu, Nathan	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
4	21.37Y	F	Phan, Kyle	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
5	21.78Y	F	Anastasi, Matthew	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
6	21.84Y	F	Sweetser, Samuel	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
7	21.95Y	F	Carver, Christian	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
8	22.28Y	F	Hendershot, Owen	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
9	22.67Y	F	Gittelman, Joshua	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
10	22.84Y	F	Rice, Noah	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
11	23.01Y	F	Cho, Maxwell	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
12	23.82Y	F	Gillingham, Alexander	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
13	24.03Y	F	Land, Nate	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
14	25.87Y	F	Wilson III, Michael	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
15	26.11Y	F	Bargen, Johnathen	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
16	26.37Y	F	Lopresti, Dylan	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
17	27.08Y	F	rangu, Ritwik	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
18	28.63Y	F	Aller, Zach	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
19	28.75Y	F	Reeder, Gavin	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
20	29.44Y	F	Grady, Jacob	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
21	31.70Y	F	weatherly, nathan	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
22	32.57Y	F	Balda, Jameson	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
23	33.25Y	F	Sutherlin, Evan	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
24	34.78Y	F	Lapus, Colin	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
Boys 7-8 25 Back
1	23.10Y	F	Yu, Nathan	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
2	23.18Y	F	Gittelman, Joshua	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
3	23.25Y	F	Moffitt, Anderson	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
4	24.47Y	F	Callaghan, Riley	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
5	24.87Y	F	Anastasi, Matthew	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
6	25.21Y	F	Hendershot, Owen	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
7	25.50Y	F	Phan, Kyle	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
8	25.56Y	F	Gillingham, Alexander	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
9	26.41Y	F	Rice, Noah	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
10	27.06Y	F	Sweetser, Samuel	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
11	27.75Y	F	Cho, Maxwell	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
12	29.80Y	F	Lopresti, Dylan	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
13	29.95Y	F	Aller, Zach	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
14	30.67Y	F	Carver, Christian	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
15	31.69Y	F	Grady, Jacob	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
16	32.73Y	F	Sutherlin, Evan	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
17	32.75Y	F	Wilson III, Michael	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
18	33.51Y	F	Land, Nate	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
19	36.09Y	F	rangu, Ritwik	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
20	40.71Y	F	Bargen, Johnathen	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
21	41.40Y	F	Balda, Jameson	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
22	56.92Y	F	Lapus, Colin	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
Boys 7-8 25 Breast
1	28.14Y	F	Rice, Noah	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
2	29.90Y	F	Callaghan, Riley	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
3	31.81Y	F	Land, Nate	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
4	33.82Y	F	weatherly, nathan	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
5	33.97Y	F	Reeder, Gavin	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
6	39.14Y	F	rangu, Ritwik	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
7	40.45Y	F	Cho, Maxwell	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
8	42.92Y	F	Anastasi, Matthew	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
Boys 7-8 25 Fly
1	27.75Y	F	Gittelman, Joshua	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
2	28.94Y	F	Hendershot, Owen	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
3	29.60Y	F	Moffitt, Anderson	8	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011
4	34.91Y	F	weatherly, nathan	7	12/18/2011	Candy Cane Meet 2011