A really good day

What is it about having a really good day that almost makes it inevitable that it is followed by a really bad day?

This is a brain post that has been written in my head for two weeks.  Memory may fail me, but I'll try.

March 30 was finally good weather.  We were all starting to get a little stir crazy from the winter and decided we would make a trip into the city.  It was Easter weekend and we really didn't have much in the way of plans for Easter, not being very religious and definitely not being into the commercialization and all.  So we figured we would use our zoo pass and go and check out the Central Park Zoo.  Did I mention it was a holiday weekend and the weather was nice?

First off though we stopped by the local Easter Egg hunt with Ellie's friend from school Serene.  In proper fashion, I said we should leave the house no later than 10:30 because it promptly started at 11 am and who knew about parking.  This of course meant we left at 10:53 am with a new plan of I would drop Mike and Ellie off and find parking with Zack.  I'm very bad at deciding how many kids there were, but there were a lot.  We tried strategizing with the girls, and Serene caught on.  Once the air horn went off, Ellie donned her standard deer-in-the-headlights look and froze.  Fortunately we snapped her out of it and she managed to get some eggs and we didn't have to be those parents that were picking up eggs and putting it in their kids baskets (of course Ellie would have had to have a basket.  You can see our makeshift basket in the photos.)

Awaiting the fog horn

Deer in headlights in action. 

She probably could have only picked up one and been happy

The girls checking out their loot.

She of course had fun, it was a great start to the day and off we were to the city.  After a poor choice of a grass fed version of McDonalds, we made our way towards Central Park.  Us and about 1,000 other people.  I always come up with these ideas during times in which they would be very popular, although I suppose on most given Saturdays the CPZ is probably pretty popular.  To say I was underwhelmed would be a fair statement, but it was nice out, we were having a great time and we were in the city so who cared.

On the way back I also had another "brilliant" idea which was to go to Dylan's Candy Bar on our way back to the car.  Ellie was now tired from walking so I was continuously luring her with a very special treat.  I had heard amazing things about the candy store and Ellie has never really been to a candy store and it has been featured on TV.  So we headed there, with the 1,000 people that were in the park.  It was mahem.  Because the park is much bigger than the candy store but there were the same amount of people in the candy store.  Ellie was pretty overwhelmed and I bought a lot of candy that we didn't need just to prove our need to be there.

Waiting a reeeeaaaaalllly long time for our fast food grass fed burger.

Who can resist a brightly colored large lollipop?

She ate about 1/100th of the lollipop and we subsequently put it out of eyesight and she has completely forgotten about it.  She also didn't really like having her fingers so sticky (and neither did I)

Got home in plenty of time to watch Syracuse head off to the final four which was good because Mike was going to turn into a pumpkin or turn off both of our phones if we didn't make it home in time.  Kids went to bed early and we even got to watch a movie.  What a really good day.

Sunday sucked.  It just sucked all over and over again.  Ellie must have cried for an hour and a half straight in the afternoon, that sort of half screaming, half wailing fake sort of cry.  I had been rushing around to get her Easter Egg hunt in order and by that point I wanted to take it away except for all the work I put into it.  When she had calmed down enough and we felt like it was finally time for the hunt, exactly 2 seconds after we stepped outside it started raining.

I had no idea I was being watched....