The Bailey Planet : Winter Fun in the Bailey House

Meh, it's still winter... still definitely not fun.

But we kind of had fun in the latter half of winter!

Over February break, we took a few days to tour some relatively close college campuses. First up was the University at Albany - and Natalie drove us there. This was really a weird and surreal moment for me. Why is this tiny baby driving me to a college that she might attend? No, that's not possible.

We all really liked the University at Albany! It's one of the SUNY schools, and they give in-state tuition to Massachusetts residents so it's definitely a contender!

I think she fits right in!

We also made the long trek up to the University of Maine. After we arrived, Natalie admitted it's a pretty long hike up there, but we really loved the campus. Even our UNH grad Todd (UNH is a rival of UMaine) liked it!

We stayed a hotel in Bangor at the Country Inn, and they had this little warning in the breakfast room. He doesn't seem amused.

One of Natalie's favorite things at UMaine were these cute little delivery robots called Kiwibots that deliver food to the dorms if you don't want to go out in the cold. Kind of like a robotic Door Dash!

It was rainy but it wasn't overly cold in Maine, which it certainly could be this time of year. Look, there's one of the little Kiwibots ahead of us! Maine also gives a good financial package for Massachusetts students (if their grades are good!)

Our last stop on the three college tour was the University of Rhode Island. This one might be a bit out of our price range, but we wanted to take a look anyway.

The URI campus is very hilly although it doesn't appear so here! It was a lovely day and a lovely campus.

Ranger Hall is the home of the Harrington School of Communication and Media, which if she goes there, is where Natalie would be having most of her classes.

URI has one of only like, two ZTA chapters in all of New England! They even have a house!!

I also spent a week in Rhode Island doing preliminary damage assessments from a couple of storms in January, which is always an interesting part of my job - and I got to see the ocean!

I also visited a pond where the dam had broken, leaving the pond completely and eerily empty. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this before!

Someone found this on the ground and I took a picture to quiz my kids as to what it was. Not surprising - they had no idea what it was!

On another weekend, Natalie and I took the train down to NYC to see Hadestown on Broadway! We left out of 128/Westwood and the whole experience was just so much better and less stressful.

We went through Mystic with the tall ships on our way down to NYC.

Hmmm. I think these structures might be in the coastal floodplain.

I have a literal mile long list of dumb little things I want to see in NYC, so right after we escaped Penn Station (and the naked man who was spread eagle passed out on the sidewalk), we headed over to the building where Nikola Tesla died! If you recall, we saw his ashes in Belgrade! He died in this building in 1943.

The Empire State Building never disappoints, day or night!

I also really wanted to go to the corner of 39th and 7th to see Needle Threading a Button, an homage to the city's famous Garment District.

Also on this corner sits The Garment Worker, a statue modeled after artist Judith Weller's own garment worker father.

Come on, this is a pretty cool statue!

Natalie and I went to Gogi 37 for lunch in midtown for some Korean food and it did NOT disappoint! I had to try the Korean lager, Cass, which I opted for over Soju!

My girl, looking cute, waiting for Korean food before we went to the theater.

I had japchae with beef and it was AWESOME.

On our way north, we had to stop by the Line Friends store. WAIT. Are you telling me this is SHOOKY TOAST!? I still can't believe I didn't buy this. I want this so bad.

There's an autographed Van in the store (yes, I know, we have seen this before) but I really loved that Jungkook drew a picture of Cooky and then crossed it out and tried again, HA! His second version is actually much better, so I don't blame him!

Then we made our way through the always busy Times Square AND I SAW TAEHYUNG ON THE BIG SCREEN!!!! It's so weird when I get more excited about these things than Natalie does (especially because he is her favorite!)

We finally made it to the Walter Kerr Theater to see Hadestown!

I didn't know what to expect - I had never heard of Hadestown, but it was incredible! I mean, isn't everything on Broadway incredible?? The cast was magnificent... particularly Ani DiFranco as Persephone and Lola Tung as Eurydice. If you have a teenage daughter, you'll know Lola Tung from the show The Summer I Turned Pretty (one of Natalie's favorite shows, which is the whole reason we were here to see this particular musical). This was Lola Tung's last weekend in the role! I really liked the spinning floor, much like the one they had in Hamilton.

I particularly like the quote, "Hadestown sweeps you up in its joy." Only... it's a Greek tragedy.

Natalie *may* have also thought Jordan Fisher (as Orpheus) was cute!

I'm kind of partial to this guy (well, she is too!)

I was floored by the fact that Jameson whiskey was hosting a St. Patrick's Day green ball drop in Times Square, much like they do on New Year's. So funny!

I had never been to the big Macy's in NYC before, but they had a Starbucks inside where we wanted to go for one of the new lavender drinks. We had been to a couple of Starbucks that were sold out of it, but we were successful in our hunt at the Macy's Starbucks. I was ALSO successful in finding Jungkook modeling for CK!

No sooner had we gotten back from New York than I had to go to Orlando for the National Hurricane Conference. I really enjoyed watching the sign language interpreters - they would work for 15 minutes and then take a break, allowing another interpreter to work. It was fascinating for some reason!

I went out to dinner with the hurricane team - we were staying on International Drive where ALL the action is. No, I didn't partake in any of these!

One day for lunch at the conference, I went out by the pool and enjoyed this palm tree. Because it was still cold, wet and miserable back in Massachusetts.

My brother even drove over from Tampa to see me! We had a most delicious meal of Indian food.

We wanted some ice cream, but weirdly couldn't find any ice cream shops so we settled on McDonalds - and strangely enough, their ice cream machine was actually WORKING!

Are you kidding me. I needed this empty row SO BAD for my flight home. Go away, everyone. This is the nicest thing to happen to me on an airplane in a long time.

I thought this picture I took leaving Orlando was really cool.

I didn't even manage any pictures of Natalie and her friend Kaavya when we drove down to Newark so they could see IVE at the Prudential Center. I did manage a picture of the Iron Man, which sits here because the New Jersey Devils play at the Prudential Center.