Jersey Trip

This past week has been a crazy one--Celia was baptized on Sunday, so family was up here for that, and then we headed down to New Jersey on Monday. So I'm catching up a bit here, and will try to post more on last week (including pictures) very soon.

Natalia and I bought a Wii a few weeks ago, and playing it has been a lot of fun (especially MarioKart and Wii Boxing). So far we have been playing after Andres has gone to bed, but earlier this week he got his first taste of Wii tennis. He definitely liked it, and I think he understood what he was doing...though he was having a hard time making contact (he is only 2, after all). This is not at all surprising considering what he can do with Natalia's iPod Touch. He tried out Wii baseball a couple days ago and, though only marginally successful at "winning" the game, was clearly having a great time:



I particularly like his exaggerated throwing motion...he never lets go of the remote, but I wouldn't be surprised if that happens eventually. It is also worth pointing out that he did strike out a couple of the Wii batters.

Today we headed into Philly for a day at the Philadelphia Zoo. I will say here, briefly, that I miss Philadelphia, and that I think the city gets a bad rap. Sure--the sports fans are goons and the people talk funny here...but the city is a great one, and the Zoo is no exception. I love Boston too, but it has coasted on its reputation for a few too many years now. The Aquarium is sub-par, the museums are not really kid-friendly, and not enough attention is spent (IMO, anyway) on making the city kid-friendly (and no--BC students do not count as "kids.")

I haven't been to a zoo in a long time, largely because I think they smell bad and I hate seeing rare animals in crappily-maintained facilities. (I don't think any of the zoos around Boston are any good for these reasons, though I may be wrong--someone contradict me?) Today we saw monkeys, lions, tigers, bears, penguins, gorillas, SNAKES, and free-roaming peacocks (seriously--we were sitting down for lunch and a peacock walked right by us). It was a lot of fun...Andres got a kick out of seeing all the animals, and he held it together really well. Celia seemed to enjoy herself as she rode along in the stroller or on my chest in the Bjorn.

Here she sees penguins for the first time:



She's clearly enthralled!! And here Andres shows us what he would look like as a gorilla:



No trip to a zoo, aquarium, or museum is complete without a trip to the gift shop, right? Both kids (and all adults) somehow survived that madhouse and came away with some souvenirs for the kids...a stuffed giraffe and a shirt for Andres, and a shirt for Celia.