The Mansfields in New York @themansfieldsinnewyork - Tumblr Blog

Where do I start?!

Can't believe it's been nearly 6 months (MONTHS!) since I last posted here about happenings in Brooklyn.... we've moved house, summer has come and gone, Tash is in Kinder (Prep back home) and Lucas has started day care, Mum & Dad visited in August, and there's been heaps of firsts and moments and achievements and it's going to take a pretty concerted effort to bring things up to speed..... so here goes (deep breath)....

Lucas, getting his groove on to Saturday morning music videos

The Field Trip

Tash goes on school excursions almost every week. One week it might be some cultural performance - like Sleeping Beauty in Spanish, or a puppet show - the next it might be down to the Prospect Park Zoo.

They ask parents to be chaperones on these trips, and there seem to be a few usual suspects that keep volunteering. Tash's teacher, Ms Herran, mentioned one day that it'd be nice if I could be a chaperone for a trip, so with a little advance notice, I took a day off work last Monday to accompany her and her class to the Natural History Museum butterfly conservatory. I don't believe I've ever seen Tash so excited - not only did Dad get to walk her to school, but he was coming with her on the field trip as well!

So at the agreed time I rock up and we all clamber into one of those awful yellow American schoolbuses. I swear, these crapboxes have NO suspension at all. It was a seriously uncomfortable ride, especially given New York's famous potholes.

It was interesting to see the dynamics of how the trip worked. The kids have obviously been well drilled, and all stood holding hands with their partner lining up against the wall for the lifts & waiting patiently & knowing what to do at various different stages of the day.

First up we got a quick look at the dinosaurs on level 4:

And everyone lined up for a class shot:

Ms Herran is on the (L), Mrs Morales is the teacher's assistant on the (R). We all got herded down into the lunchrooms before being shown into the butterfly conservatory:

(Not bad shots for a phone camera huh?)

On the bus on the way home (which was just as bumpy as the way up), a strange thing happened: all the kids collapsed and fell asleep. It was if someone had snuck on board the bus and gassed everyone - they were all lying on top of each other or in these really strange contorted positions like they'd been knocked out, and they limply jiggled & rocked over the potholes all the way back to Brooklyn.

Aside from it being a great day, what was really interesting for me was seeing how Tash is beginning to craft a bit of a life for herself, independent of us. I was impressed that she's learning her own skills and has her own friends, something I would not ordinarily had the chance to see...

Spring in New York

Wow, things have gotten away from us here a little with respect to keeping the blog up to date. Spring is most definitely here, and the weather has finally started to warm up. After such a long and cold winter, each of us is desperate to get outside and start doing stuff.

We've made it to the park for impromptu picnics... still doing roast chook on bread rolls...

...and gotten stuck into milkshakes down at the local hotdog joint we go sometimes..

...and one rainy Sunday afternoon Dad & Tash finally got around to baking an apple pie..

... which turned out pretty well, I have to admit...

Certainly tasted alright....

We've been down to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens to have a look at the Cherry Blossoms coming into bloom...

...and after Tash had a week off school at Easter, she came back and saw the love of her life, Archie (who she tells us she's going to marry one day)...

Domaine Chevrot 'Sur le Chêne' Maranges 2011

The Burgundy Wine Shop is, unfortunately, only a couple of blocks away from work. With some unexpected good news about our Australian Tax Returns, I headed up one Friday afternoon with a strict budget, pleading complete ignorance for the wines of Burgundy and asked them to put together a mixed half-dozen for me.

I'd written previously about classed growth (premier cru, grand cru) grapes being something of an indicator of quality. Well, as it turns out, it's not quite as simple as that (of course!) Some unscrupulous winemakers with access to these high quality grapes let the classification do the work for them, rather than put in much effort themselves, making some of these wines very poor value for money. The opposite is true of some village or regional level wines, where in an effort to establish or impress, some producers really overachieve.

The guys at the store were patient and accommodating, explaining that you really need to know the different villages within Burgundy first (akin to Greenock, Marananga, Vine Vale & Seppeltsfield in the Barossa, for example), as they all had different styles, and then get to know the actual wine producers (such as Torbreck, Rockford, Charlie Melton, etc) to work out where your preferences lie.

So bearing all of this in mind, to accompany tonight's dinner of roasted salmon we opened & decanted first of our half doz (4 reds & 2 whites), a Village level Pinot Noir from the southernmost village in the Cote de Beaune, Maranges, from the producer Domaine Chevrot.

Color: a beautiful clear light crimson. For some reason I really quite like the color of this wine. No brickish tint at the edge, in line with it being a relatively youthful wine (although recommended for early drinking)

Nose: a plate full of fresh cherries here, suggesting that this is going to be a lighter style of pinot. It's really opened up after being in the decanter a while (I'm writing this after dinner, with the last of it in my glass..) Initially it seemed a bit green & stalky, which I have been told is suggestive of whole bunch fermentation, something that is often done with Pinot to stimulate a bit of complexity, rather than destemming the grapes.

Palate: Again this has developed as the wine has opened up. Red berry spectrum, pretty much bang on cherry fruit, it's quite an elegant, measured & structured wine - an attribute of the acid I believe - which means that it's not delivering a great fruit hit at the front of the palate, but more about consistency of flavour over the length of the wine. Quite savoury, and although Ester didn't really think much of it initially, she did concede that it was much better as a food wine..

Finish: The tannins are soft, I don't find it particularly oaky, and the finish is quite long and nice. It's a bit of a textural wine,

And so as a wine that accompanied a salmon dish, it's turned out to be quite appropriate (maybe as the acidity has balanced the richness of the fish) and as it's opened up in the decanter, become more interesting as we've gone on. The palate has flattened and lengthened, but it's remained just the slightest bit aloof, almost as if not wanting to share all its attributes with me at once (I'm starting to waffle, this I'm told is also a side effect of Burgundy, although maybe its possible that I'm just a little pissed as well...)

Maranges is by no means one of the more highly regarded villages in the Cote de Beaune region of Burgundy, and I think Ester & I both like the somewhat fuller & funkier Pinots, but as an introduction to one of the many styles of this region, we could certainly do worse... much more interesting than the Oregon Pinot we had, that's for sure..

#Winespeak

Tash racing Dad along the footpath on her bike.

On the footpath outside our apartment. Sunday March 8th, 2014, Brooklyn, NY

Lucas rides the Wishbone Trike

First ride for Lucas, the first time I've ever seen anyone crash into a sliver on ice on the ground!

Sunday March 9th, 2014, out front of our apartment in Brooklyn.

Spring has sprung!

It's been a long, cold winter here, the worst for many years. So far we've had no fewer than 13 snowstorms, and you know it's been cold when you start to consider a temperature of +2 degrees is 'not bad out'.

But this weekend just gone, conditions changed abruptly. On Saturday at the snow it was +7 (positively balmy), Sunday was a little cooler, but still nice, so we figured it was time to encourage Tash to give it another try on her bike that she got for her birthday (and has been ridden about three times since!). I put the balance bike together for Lucas in trike form to see how he would go with it...

He's wearing my bike helmet, adjusted to maximum smallness. It actually fits quite well..

Tash, having actively avoided riding the bike since she freaked out and crashed into a fence at 1kph, was revelation. Ester reckons she rode about 2kms in total, from home over the park, and then partway around and back again. It's been a weekend of breakthroughs for her..

Look out for a couple of short vids of them both riding..

Tash at the snow, part 3.

After Tash's somewhat disasterous introduction to snow sports a month or two ago, when she was off her face on Phenergan, we thought we had better give her a chance to actually remember what she did, and planned a day at Shawnee, a ski resort in the Pocono mountains of Pennsylvania, about an hour and three quarters from Brooklyn.

It was a good day, she enjoyed her three hour lesson and Ester & I got to have a decent ride on what was surprisingly good snow. What marred the day a little was missing out on snow tubing, which Tash was keen to try.

So last weekend, with Ester & Lucas feeling under the weather, Tash & Dad headed back to Shawnee for another lesson and intent on going snow tubing. It was a top day, Tash had a ball, the weather was great (firmly in the spring conditions spectrum) and we got to go tubing!

So, in Tash's first ski season, it's mission accomplished - she likes it. Now next winter we might be able to plan a weekend somewhere a bit bigger & better, safe in the knowledge that it won't be a waste of time & money!

Enjoy the highlight reel...

Ballet

Tash continues to enjoy Ballet on Friday afternoons after school. She was having swimming lessons on Tuesdays as well but we ended up pulling her out of them as she seemed to be getting worse rather than better - her confidence suffered and she tried a few times to weasel her way out of going. We haven't quite worked out yet whether the water was too cold or too deep (her skills came roaring back while we were in Jamaica - she paddled around on her own in the shallow end of the pool for hours).

Anyway, no such problems with Ballet. I managed to sneak a peek in at her on Friday afternoon and shot this little snippet..

Jamaica - Yah maan!

It was a terrific week in Jamaica - 25 degrees on land AND in the ocean, the kids had a great time, I got my SCUBA certification & Ester finally got to relax (in between sending work emails on her blasted Blackberry!). Much rum was consumed, sandcastles built and destroyed, tennis balls hit & waterslides slid. Franklyn D. Resort was a fairly modest, three-star looking place, so by no means the most luxurious digs you've ever seen, but it's relatively high cost was justified by the all-inclusive tag and the provision of our own dedicated nanny. Don't ask us what Jamaica was like: we didn't leave the resort!

The nanny thing worked out well, although it took us a day or two to learn how to use the service to its best effect. The kids took a liking to Sharnet and she looked after them in the evenings a couple of times so that Mum & Dad could have a grown-ups dinner.

The only downside is that we lost our camera - more importantly the memory card, which contained a heap of photos we hadn't uploaded yet (won't be making THAT mistake again) and some of this trip as well.. so the only photos we have are those that we took using our phones...

Most of the other families there seemed to be repeat guests. They all seemed to know each other and were actually pretty friendly. One woman told us (as she settled into her double vodka and orange juice at 10:30 in the morning) that it was her family's 13th consecutive year.

They wanted to know if we'd become regulars too - it's a good question. Ester & I, for all our travel adventures, have never been to the same place twice. There's so much more to explore in this region - Central America (Costa Rica is supposed to be amazing), Mexico, other parts of the Caribbean - but on the flipside this was such an easy holiday, the kids loved it, and doubtless we'd be welcomed back. Decisions, decisions...

Fossils

Tash came home from school on a Friday a few weeks ago and announced that they had been learning about 'Thossils' (she still hasn't quite nailed that 'f' sound yet). We were at a loose end with what to do on the weekend but after she told us this we thought it would be great to capitalise on it and choof off to the Natural History Museum.

Lucas loved having all the space to run around in and all the nooks and crannies to explore (the whole place is pretty Lucas-proof), but what was fascinating was how Tash started to think about the things she was seeing - she started asking questions - what's this, why was that - rather than just looking at stuff and being impressed by it.

A couple of weeks later, she came home and recited the planets to us, so we schlepped off to the Planetarium, although we don't have any photos of that one...

Here's the dinosaur highlight reel..

Lucas enjoys the new climber. Prospect Heights, NY, 26/1/14

A Late Xmas Present

It's awesome to have a car for the whole weekend - we rented a Mazda CX-9 SUV from JFK Airport to head up to the snow last Saturday, but also to choof around in on Sunday.

One of the errands we had to run was to drive over to the Toys 'R' Us in Queens to collect the last of the Xmas presents for Tash & Lucas. Since it's been such a cold winter so far, there's been several occasions already when Lucas in particular hasn't left the apartment for several days at a time (as I write this it's currently -7deg C, with a wind chill of -17). Worried that he might become obese or something from not getting out to have a run around, and also because the cheeky bugger is climbing on everything he can reach, we decided to set this up in our living room....

The look on his face once he saw it set up was priceless. He hasn't stopped using it since and has stopped climbing on everything else. It does dominate the room somewhat, but it will stay until springtime when we can all venture out to the playground again. Check with highlight reel to see it in action...

Tash, snow ploughing like a champion through the fog of too much Phenergan. Thunder Ridge Ski Area, Patterson, NY, 25/1/14

Tash's First Ski Lesson

Last weekend the stars aligned for us to head up to the snow. There had been some heavy snowfalls followed by some persistent cold weather during the week (other times it had snowed the weather promptly turned warm and the snow melted as soon as it had arrived) and I'd received the good oil on where to head for some ski lessons.

We've been talking up the prospect of Tash learning to ski, showing her YouTube videos of other 4 year olds, telling her how much fun it will be. As Murphy's law would have it, the day I booked the lessons, Lucas spiked a 39 degree temperature. We pumped him full of drugs and it came down, in time for Tash to develop a cold.

She had difficulty sleeping on Friday night, so we hit her with some Phenergan left over from trying to sedate Lucas on the flight back from Australia. She was still sniffly the following morning, so we gave her another dose.

Unfortunately the cumulative effect of these two doses was to turn her into a complete zombie. We're glad she kept her snow goggles on, she looked completely off her face and we were sure we as parents would be arrested and lose her to child protection if anyone saw her.

Audrey came along with us for the chance to try skiing for the first time, and Lucas stayed with Lola back home. And so it was that in this catatonic condition, we trucked Tash up to Thunder Ridge, strapped a pair of skis to her feet and totally fobbed her off to the ski instructor for her first lesson while Ester & I went snowboarding..

By all accounts she did quite well, although we're pretty sure she hardly remembers anything of the day. At least she didn't hate it.

To her immense credit, she was prepared to go out a second time and try it once more with Ester while I wasted an hour of my time trying to get Audrey down a green slope - she decided at the last minute to swtich from skiing to snowboarding - 'cos it was cooler - but which unfortunately meant that she also spent a good 60% of her day sitting on her butt in the snow...

Tash would have stayed like this on the snow all day if we'd let her...

All in all it was a reasonable day, and good to get the first one out of the way. We have vague plans to go again in the next couple of week so that she doesn't lose any of her newfound skills. I think this time we won't give them any advance warning so there's no time to get sick, etc...

Winter in New York

Winter has been a very mixed affair so far here. It got cold in early December - I had a couple of rides in below freezing conditions before Xmas - and it certainly made us get a wriggle on when it came to buying all the kit required to winterize the kids. Then, on the day we flew back to Australia, it was 17deg C!

And that's been the trend all the way through. The day we got back from Australia there was 6inches of fresh snow on the ground, but by the middle of the following week, most of it was gone.

Those milder temperatures then gave way to something the meterologists got very excited about - the polar vortex! Listening to Fox News, it sounded like armageddon was about to strike.

And to be honest, it wasn't awful far off - this is a screenshot of my phone giving you the temperature as I was about to head off to work one morning. Take note of the RealFeel temperature - that's factoring in windchill, and really, that's what you have to dress for, not the actual temperature (although that was plenty cold too!)

The Polar Vortex lasted a couple of days, but then gradually dissipated, and now the past week have been back as high as 10degrees C. It's playing havoc with the ski resorts around here and our desire to visit some of them.

It's getting cold again tonight - the Vortex is due to return again and dump snow tomorrow afternoon, then stay cold through until the weekend, so maybe this weekend will be the one to try Tash out with some skiing lessons!

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