Last Thursday I got a strange email from Delta about my upcoming trip to LaGuardia... I was confused because I had no idea that we had plans to go to New York any time soon. David had to spill the beans that we were leaving on Friday for a weekend jaunt up north! I was SOOO excited and surprised. About every other day for a month now I've been talking about wanting to go visit my brother, and David jumped on it. He actually had this trip planned weeks ago (before he became jobless), but it worked out just fine for us to have the day free on Friday :). I was glad to know about it a couple days in advance because it was my first time to ever leave Crawford over night (14.5 months). D had arranged for him to stay with Ash and Chase (and for Heather to babysit during the day on Friday), so I wasn't worried about him at all. I missed him a ton, but it was such a fun time to getaway just the two of us. And... New York City is no place for a Crawford-aged child in my mind. It would have been nightmarish to have him with us.
Soooo... we left Friday morning and got to NY in time to meet up with Greg in Harlem around 5:30.
We snagged bit of the south (aka- a Chick-Fil-A sandwich) for him in the airport.
Greg told me we had dinner reservations at 7, and I was so surprised he had made plans! We got the restaurant and my cousin and his wife were there to meet us! It's almost just as exciting as I replay it right now as it was that night. I had hoped to see them, but I knew it was a long shot since our trip was SO short and they live in Brooklyn (a good hour from Greg). Seriously. It was awesome. So we ate some authentic Italian food in this fabulous courtyard on a beautiful night, and we chatted away for hours. We could've stayed all night. What a treat!
We went to bed way later than I'm used to (which is like 8:30, so "late" isn't hard to come by...), but slept in Saturday morning. Sleeping in= glory! We slowly got started on our day, and made our way to eat breakfast at Greg's favorite little place. I have no idea what it is called or where it was because as it turns out\, I have no sense of direction in that city. The shocking thing is that David (who sort of regularly gets turned around in Chattanooga) totally does. Anyway, the food was marvelous and the company even better. Derek Jeter was sitting at the table next to us and he almost got in a fight with David because he was trying to slyly take his picture.
FaceTiming with my baby. He couldn't have cared less that we were gone.
After breakfast we just walked. And walked and walked and walked. Seriously we covered a ton of mileage over the course of our one full day in the city. We didn't waste any time! We decided to go to Central Park and get some ice cream since it was such a gorgeous day, but little did I know Greg (and David who had arranged for Greg to make all these plans) was coordinating with my other nearby cousin! We literally bumped into Kelly and her boys (Ben and Leo) while walking down the sidewalk. I was SOO happy and surprised! They live in New Jersey, so again, I had thought about wanting to see them, but knew it wasn't really feasible to squeeze it in. I couldn't believe they all drove so far (the Buckleys too) to see us for a short while. We hung out for a few hours in Central Park with a few zillion of our closest friends. I'd never been to the park before, but I can't imagine it is always that packed. Greg said it was really the first pretty spring day, so everyone was out enjoying it. It was so fun to talk to Kelly about life with two boys and catch up all sorts of things. It's not often that we get one-on-one time with any cousins (I am one of 14 first cousins on my mom's side), so when we do I cherish it!
Greg, being an awesome cousin.
adorable boy. again, not caring his parents left him and ran away to the big city.
I've been wanting to see the Newsies since it went to Broadway, but again, I didn't think there was any way we would be able to squeeze it into our short trip. We stopped by the box office Saturday morning, but the cheapest tickets they had were $160 and we just weren't willing to fork that out. We decided to try for lottery tickets, and lo and behold- David won! So, we got two tickets for $30 a piece!! I was PUMPED. In addition to Newsies being an amazing show all around, one of my brother's roommate's from his freshman year of college (when we visited him in Boston) has been in the show since it's beginning. It was SO fun to watch someone we know perform on Broadway! Jack doesn't have a set part, but he is on the swing team so he has 14 different parts he fills in for. Nuts. He performs in about 5 of the 8 shows they put on a week - but almost always in a different part! I cannot imagine the stress he is under. The night we saw it he played the part of Race, which was such a fun role to see him in. He had tons of lines and songs, and obviously danced a ton. We made eye contact at the beginning of the show (oh, and our $30 seats were in the 7th row) so he really played to us the whole time. It was so fun.
After the show we met up with Jack and his family that was visiting from Ohio, and he took us backstage! I know I'm using tons of exclamation points, but seriously, I couldn't have asked for a more perfect weekend. Backstage on Broadway!
Jack is in the very center of the grid.
When we left the theater, we walked to Junior's Cheesecake (my only must-do for the weekend) and got some to take with us back to Greg's. We were out and about for roughly 15 hours, so when we crashed at Greg's around 12:30 it was BEDTIME. We got up at 4:50 Sunday morning to begin our journey home, and we were pooped.
I know I've written a ton, but I still can't really convey how awesome of a weekend we had. It was so fun to just hang out with my brother on his turf - to see where he gets his haircut and goes to the grocery store and meets his friends to hangout. Seeing two of my cousins, going to Newsies and exploring the city on a gorgeous spring day were all really just icing on the cake. Thank you, my sweet David for the best Mother's Day gift ever!!
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