It was a great weekend! I traveled out early, leaving Wednesday afternoon, for some girl time with Stacy. Two dear friends who love Jasper (Gayleigh and Teri) alternately took care of him Wednesday - Friday so that Drew could go to work. Then Drew and Jasper followed me out to NYC on Friday night. Everyone did well with the separation. As you've probably already read, the Austin firetruck visited the house later in the afternoon after I left. Then Gayleigh took Jasper on a trip to WalMart the following day to get something to commemorate the firetruck's visit. They found a t-shirt with a firetruck on it with LED lights that flash red light. It's pretty cute! On Friday Teri took Jasper to the park and then got him all set and delivered to Drew at work so they could leave for the airport right from there. Unfortunately, that's where all the smooth sailing came to an abrupt halt.
Drew ran into gridlock traffic on the south side of town just after he left work. It probably took him close to an hour to go less than 5 miles. It turns out there had been a bad accident that completely brought traffic to a standstill. He arrived at the airport 20 minutes before the flight was supposed to depart. Thankfully he had already checked-in and had no bags to check. (I brought our only checked bag with me.) But he had to park close to the airport in short term parking and sprint through the airport. As he arrived at the gate 10 minutes later, he called me completely out of breath to tell me the flight was delayed 2 hours. The gate agent was a lovely woman who showed compassion on Drew and encouraged him to go move the car and come back, taking his name and cell phone # and promising to call if the plane (which was at the gate) boarded early. But it didn't.
At 7:30 they boarded for a hopeful 8pm departure. That was missed, and then at 9:30pm they finally took off. By this point, Drew had burned through all the books with him and was coloring with Jasper. Jasper did well through all this (thankfully there was an extra seat he could sit in), but he would not fall asleep until about 2 hours into the trip. Add to this that we flew into Newark and didn't bring the car seat. You can't take a cab outside NYC without a kid in a car seat, but Drew was going to take the train when he arrived. He was cool with that. He loves public transportation. However, at 1:30am - when they were supposed to arrive - we were concerned about the train schedule.
Thankfully Joel and Stacy are well connected and were able to borrow a car seat and a car. So, at 1:15am after just coming in from a party, Stacy and I changed into comfy clothes and drove out to Newark to pick up the boys. We pulled up just as they walked out of the airport. Of course you'd think Jasper would be sound asleep at this point, but he wasn't. There was too much activity. All the way home he pointed out all the buses we saw.
On Saturday morning, on precious little sleep, Jasper was up around 8:30am. None of us were alert to move quickly, but we did finally make it out and down a few blocks to Tompkins Square Park for some R&R. Jasper did all his normal stuff: running up and down the ramp, swinging and generally burning off steam. It was a beautiful day!
By 1pm, Jasper had hit a wall. He & I came home from lunch so he could nap (and I could, too.) After nap, the boys ate a mid-afternoon snack together.
Jasper had peas.
Gideon had cereal.
Everyone had a good time!
Saturday night, we took a taxi up to Central Park for a birthday party for Sarah Graham. (Jasper just soaked in the entire ride.) Here is the beautiful birthday girl with Stacy. Sarah is a friend I originally met in Austin. She and I were walking buddies, especially after Stacy moved north. But then Sarah followed (less than 1 year later), and I have since been walking-buddy-less, and all the worse for it. But it was great to see her in the city. We three girls went to a show on Friday night together and generally had a blast.
While we were in the park, Jasper had so much fun just running around. He could run as far as he wanted, and we were still able to keep an eye on him. At one point, Drew said to me, "I wonder how far he'll go." Here you can see, he enjoyed just being free! (He's the blonde in the red shirt.)
In addition to just letting him roam free, we played catch and spent time spotting airplanes and helicopters that flew overhead.
Here he's inspecting a helicopter.
here's a family shot:
Jasper and Stacy became buds while we were in NYC.
Gideon is quite an accomplished little guy. He's already feeding himself! (Not quite, but pretty darn close!)
Central Park is such a beautiful place. As the sun goes down, and the eastside buildings glow in the sunset light, I can think of few other places I find so beautiful. Unfortunately, you can't capture it on film (or digital imagery) like it is in real life.
At the end of the evening, as we hailed a taxi on Central Park West, Jasper said "Our Taxi!" This became what he said for every taxi he spotted. Sunday was our rest day. The boys napped in alternate schedules, and Joel did his best to recover from whatever bug had him down and out for the majority of the weekend (although he was a total trooper despite being sick). We made an afternoon trip to Washington Square Park before heading back out to Newark to catch our flight home.On our return trip, Jasper was again good on the plane but squirmy. He's becoming quite attached to me, so he was less than willing to sit with dad. Despite my significant lap shortage, he eventually fell asleep on my belly after I sang to him over and over. I found if I stopped he would ask me a question. He'd say "airport?" and I'd say, "We left the airport. Bye-bye. We're going home to Texas. It's time to sleep." Pretty soon, Jasper would respond, "Home. Texas." But even that got old. So I just stuck to "Daisy" and "Jesus Loves Me" ... over and over. We all got some sleep on that flight - not much, but some. Despite the difficulty of traveling with toddlers, it was a great trip. We so enjoyed seeing Joel and Stacy's new apartment and spending time with them - up on the roof deck, over meals, attending church, etc. and spending more time with Gideon. We're looking forward to when they're back in Austin with more frequency.
Parting shots of our gracious hosts: Joel getting goofy with Gideon.
Stacy and her big little boy!
1 comment:
Hooray for visits to NYC!!!
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