My Adventure Today

The Gallery has moved the morning service from the UWS to the SALT space, where the church offices are located. This is a great building where the church rents a floor that houses the offices and the SALT art space. This doesn't necessarily affect many people who normally go to the morning service other than having to leave the apartment a little earlier to go a little further to church.

Our family is another story...

Any of you who know the schedule of a pastor on Sunday mornings know that the pastors wife and kids go to church alone, no help from dad. Usually this is not a big deal, but today was another story.

Since the church decided to make the move downtown I have been given permission to drive the churches 4-Runner each Sunday morning. Freddy will pick it up on Saturday night and we'll load the car seats in it so Sunday morning I roll the kids down the the car, strap everyone in, and go to church... not a big deal!

This morning the truck had to be used to move a keyboard to the new space and I found out a little too late to get any help from another church member in our area to help me get to church. I had the urge to just stay home but Jack LOVES Gallery Kids. He talks about it multiple times a week and I could not with good conscience not go to church this morning and make him miss Gallery Kids.

So I put Elliott in the single umbrella stroller. Strapped Lillie on me in the Baby Bjorn. Threw the diaper bag over my shoulder and Jack walked. We went to the corner to catch a cab. Easy. The cab driver put the stroller and bag in the trunk for me and we loaded up. I've never gone in a cab with all 3 by myself before. I quickly realized that traffic was a nightmare this morning. The West Side Highway was blocked for some biking event. Riverside was jammed from all the traffic rerouting from that event. I told the drive to just find the shortest route and he cut over to Broadway. We got to Broadway and 110th, 20 minutes from leaving my house, 15 blocks away. Broadway was closed for a street fair. Street fairs are fun if your not in the taxi trying to get downtown. We were right at a subway stop, so I told the driver I needed to get out and catch a train. I had 30 minutes by this point to get to church on time. I've never been on the subway with all 3 kids alone before! Another first for the day. I got help with the stroller down the steps, we got on the train, everything was good. Until we got to 34th St. My stop was at 28th, the next one down. The conductor came on the intercom and announced that due to construction the 1 train would be express from 34th to 14th. So the only good option I had was to ride down to 14th then transfer to a 1 train going uptown and get off at 28th. So that's what we did, again had help with the stairs. We finally made it to church 20 minutes late. Crazy morning, thankfully the kids were great. Jack and I talked as we traveled and Lillie and Elliott just took it all in, hardly a peep out of them. By the time I got the kids signed in and sat down I had missed most of Freddy's sermon and most of the music, but I did make it in time to see a sweet friend of ours, Laura, who was in our small group last semester, and her mom(who was in town visiting) get baptized this morning. What a sweet celebration! So cool! And it's Laura's birthday. It was a great morning at The Gallery even though it was quite the adventure getting there.

Freddy drove us home. I was thankful. The kids all fell asleep in the car, but all took great naps once we got home. Again thankful!