New York, New York!

I want to be a part of it.. New York, New York!  Well, you get the idea.  After middle child finally managed to graduate from high school, I took him on his graduation trip.  This tradition began in our family with me.  My Dad did not want me to head out to Ocean City with the other "wise" members of my graduating class, so he took me on a 4 day trip to California.  I still vividly remember the trip.  It truly is one of the highlights of my life.  So, for our children, we take each one on a trip for 4 days after graduation to someplace they want to visit - but we added the caveat that it had to be east of the Mississippi River.  So, middle child said he wanted to go to New York.  And off to New York we went!

New York City at night.  We stayed in New Jersey, and this was our view across the river.

9-11 Memorial.  Freedom 1 is the tall building to the right.
It was a very wet, sad, and rainy day when we were there.

The lobby of the Museum of Modern Art.
Oh, the art in these museums!
Amazing!

We had a wonderful time.  We visited many museums - the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, the American Museum of Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The Statue of Liberty is still closed for renovations.  It will reopen on July 4.  Ellis Island, however, is closed until further notice due to the damage from Hurricane Sandy.  So, middle child and I spent a very wet and rainy day across the river in New Jersey, looking at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  We had planned to walk on the Freedom Walk, which extends along the shore line, but it, too was closed due to damage from Sandy.

All in all, it was a wonderful trip.  I hope that he remembers this trip when he grows up just as fondly as I do!

Freedom One on a glorious summer day.

Senior Week

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all!

We never wanted to put our kids into a situation where they could find themselves pressured into decisions that they were just not ready to make.

So, middle child was given his choice of where to go for his graduation trip this year.

He settled on New York City.

He and I spent 3 wonderful days hopping around museums and visiting the 9-11 Memorial.

We hit up the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met), the Guggenheim, and the American Museum of Natural History.

It was a whirlwind 3 days.  I've now been to the major museums on the East Coast.  I can honestly say that the Met was my favorite museum.  It just goes on and on and on.  Every single room leads to another discovery, and then another discovery.  It was an amazing experience, and I don't feel that I have even scratched the surface.  I need to go back at least two more times to see it all and absorb everything that is there to be seen.

We just got back home a little while ago.  Both of us are exhausted beyond words.  He's asleep in his room, and I'm ready to fall asleep at the keyboard, but I'm too wound up from driving home. 

I keep forgetting that New York - and all of those amazing museums - are only 4 hours away from my house.  I need to head up that way and explore the museums a little more often!

We're Really Roughing It

My son and husband are celebrating Senior Week by camping and hiking in the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina.  I received this picture in a text message yesterday, along with the caption "We're really roughing it!"

Senior week presents a special challenge for parents.  I live in the Mid-Atlantic, and the kids here head to the beach for the week after graduation.  Ocean City is the biggest destination. Thousands of eighteen year olds descend upon the beach every year, full of hormones, youthful energy, and a lack of parental supervision.  Every year, stories filter back of the horrible things that have happened to the kids.  Rapes, pregnancies, and alcohol poisoning dominate the stories.  Kids come back with stitches, broken bones, and STD's caused by bad decisions made under the influence of friends, alchohol, or drugs.

Years ago, when I graduated from high school, we were living in Virginia.  I wanted to go to Virginia Beach with my friends, but my father refused to let me go.  Instead, he offered to take me anywhere I wanted to go in the lower 48 United States.  With no hesitation, I told him I wanted to go to California.  Two days after graduation, he and I were driving down the Pacific Coast Highway in a rented convertible.

Now, here we are, twenty-seven years after my high school graduation.  I remember my Dad telling me when I was arguing about going to the beach: "I remember what I was like at eighteen.  There is no way on God's green earth that you are going by yourself to the beach for a week."  I look at son #1 with Dad's voice echoing in my ears.  Once again, I realize that he was right.

So, we offered our son a trip.  Anywhere in the lower 48 United States.   Just him and his Dad.  He decided he wanted to go camping and hiking on the back country trails of the Smoky Mountains.

We are not the only nut cases who have taken this stance.  I know of another family that pulled their younger children out of school for a week and are currently in Disney World.  I know of another family taking both children- 1 who just graduated High School and 1 who just graduated College - to New Zeland for two weeks.  Another family I know is headed out on a cruise next week as soon as school lets out.  The daughter is currently picking up tons of overtime at work, covering for all of the kids who are currently "Down the Ocean".

As I think through the last 18 years, midnight feedings, broken bones, homework, chores, sports practices and games, cleaning up vomit in the middle of the night, refereeing fights, and trying to figure out where to get poster board at 11:00 at night, it dawns on me:  Those were the years when we were really roughing it.

This post originally appeared in my now defunct "Mom's View" blog.  I moved it to this blog at the request of my kids, who wanted to have all of the various posts that accompanied their high school years in one place.  I've matched the publication dates here to their original post date.  If you're reading these posts, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to go back through them all!