Visit from the Parents

After the reunion, my parents came back with us to New York, where they spent 5 days visiting, and seeing what our new life is like. I don't remember why, but I didn't take any pictures until the day they left...but these are pretty cute. I guess we are lucky they still wanted to hang out with us after spending such long hours crammed in a small car together!

We didn't do anything wild and crazy--just kind of brought them along with everything else we had going on. This involved a trek to Brooklyn one day for Maya's songwriting class, tagging along in the park where Jonah's book club was meeting, sitting and watching Chorus at NYU, attending a fire museum field trip to learn about fire safety. We met at FAO Schwarz one day after Maya's zoo class and showed them around and had dessert at the ice cream shop. Yummy! They went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and two Broadway shows--Wicked and Jersey Boys on their own. One afternoon we went to the American Museum of Natural History, and also took lots of walks in Central Park. We went to Brett's office to see the view of Ground Zero then out to dinner one night with him. He left for Florida shortly after we arrived back in NYC, so they didn't see much of him on this visit.
They slept on a mattress in the living room, and I am sure they were eager to get back to their own bed and a roomier domicile. It does get a bit crowded after a while--this many people in a one bedroom apartment. I especially had fun making coffee every morning with my mom, who fell in love with my N'Espresso machine, just like I knew she would. Fun also to see some pictures and hear stories of their Europe adventure and watch them have time to play with the kids. They loved "Physics Lessons" with my dad. I hope my folks got a good little slice of what like is really like in Manhattan--it is a different world. Interesting, but not necessarily something you would probably wish for for your own kids. While I was fully expecting them to have the same reaction they did when they first saw my first post-college residence ("Oh, Kristin! You can't be serious!"), they were troopers and fun to show around. I don't even think my dad hated the city thing as much as I had expected him too. I had just always thought the noise, the crowds, the traffic, the expense, the garbage, the shoebox living conditions would be his worst nightmare. But he found things that inspired and was generally a good sport about it all.