Restaurant camp!

Taiyo is doing "Restaurant camp" this year at SOY and he's already making spicy tuna bowls! Oh yes, he's been quite helpful these days. As soon as we walk in the restaurant he'd ask, "Mommy, can I have a snack?" "After you help me set up." "Then you will give me a snack?" "Yes, I will give you a snack." So then he would help with taking down the chairs (at least half,) wiping the tables, and sweeping the sidewalk. This of course puts smile on faces of people passing by. I look at him sweeping in some funny motion and feel so good that it's finally beginning to pay off. Oh, motherhood.

But seriously, we've been having great summer fun. I've been running to the East River with Taiyo leading me on his bike. Boy, how he makes me run! We've already started a Friday summer tradition of bringing breakfast sandwiches from the corner deli and having a breakfast picnic by the river. We visited Brooklyn Museum, par Taiyo's request over the weekend. It was wonderfully quiet there, perhaps because it was such a sunny outdoorsy summer holiday weekend and Taiyo got to ran around a bit (quite a bit) in the beautfil Beau-Arts court. We made it out to the fireworks but couldn't get to the best view area- we couldn't access FDR drive from Houston street!

Then we even hit the beach! We spent all day on Coney Island on Wednesday. It was like a perfect mini vacation. Ocean breeze was wonderfully soothing. Ocean was calm and surprisingly clean. We went up on the ferris wheel, then I had oysters and he had a cone dog on boardwalk. Only a 45-minute subway ride. Why don't we do this more often?

And of course we've been having lots of ice cream. This one was Van Leeuwen on East 7th Street. Flavors were wonderful but I thought it was too sweet. But life is never too sweet!