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January 15, 2003
January 15, 2005
To say that this is late in coming is the understatement of the year. But I PROMISE there’s a good reason! Since I last wrote, we’ve had company twice, each for over a week, and literally the day after our second wave of company left, we flew out for our Christmas vacation. I even stayed up late one night while we were gone, and finished this entry on our laptop, but I saved it incorrectly and everything I had added was lost. So it’s taken me awhile to get this finished and out, but here it finally is. Better late than never, huh?
Thanksgiving 2004
If you read my last entry, you know that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year (or at least it’s an equal tie between T-day and Christmas). I suppose this belies the kind of relationship I have with food, but I swear it’s mostly because of the opportunities it provides to be with friends and family. One of these days I should go back and write an entry about LAST year’s Thanksgiving, as it was probably the most memorable (and meaningful) Thanksgiving celebration of my life. Really, it was that special.But I digress. This year also lived up to all my expectations, and then some.
As I mentioned in my last entry, our friends from San Diego came into town for the week, and it was a happy, fun time for everyone from start to finish. (O.k., getting around the City with 3 kids, 2 of whom were NOT used to being in their stroller so much, proved to be stressful at times, but other than that it was great).
The W.’s arrived very early in the morning on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, having taken the red-eye from San Diego. The three of us had slept upstairs that night, so that the downstairs beds would be available to them when the arrived. Sure enough, J. and B. had fallen asleep on the way home from the airport, so we quickly took them downstairs and put them to bed. Aidan thankfully didn’t wake up when they arrived, and the 4 adults were able to chat for a little while before sleepiness set in again, and we decided to try and get a little more sleep before the kids woke up for good. You should have seen Aidan’s face when he woke up to find his friend J. playing in the living room! =)
Obviously, we did a lot with our friends while they were here, but I don’t want to write a minute-by-minute/day-by-day rendition of everything, so here’s what I think were the highlights (which doesn’t mean that this will be short; it’ll just be short-ER).
• Taking pictures in the Park (the one next to our house, not Central Park). We needed to take our Christmas card pictures, and the W.’s decided to take theirs here as well, so we all got dressed up, walked over, and got some BE-AUTIFUL pictures of everyone. The leaves were still spectacularly colored, and even the ones that had fallen to the ground were fresh and made for a stunning blanket for the kids to sit on. I got great video of Aidan and J. running around, and some sweet pictures of them together. I also took some great pictures of Aidan, with bright yellow leaves at his feet and the trees in all their glory behind him. I took a couple of GREAT pictures of Benjie and Jamie together (again, the foliage in the background was amazing). The sun went down too quickly that day, so we weren’t able to get any of our family pictures, but we did the following day (I can’t tell you how many times we got all gussied up for those pictures!), and I was very happy with the pictures we got. We took ours by the Boathouse Bridge in the Park, and I hope to put a grouping of some of them up on our walls, in addition to using one for our Christmas card.
•GIRL’S NIGHT OUT!!!: One evening, the guys freed us up to have an evening out, just the two of us. Let me tell you, it was HEAVENLY. After dragging three kids around, we both were in serious need of un-interrupted adult conversation. So, we changed into something other than our jeans, put a little makeup on, hopped on the subway and headed Uptown. Our first stop was Macy’s, to do a little shopping. I don’t think I was able to get there last year, so I was excited and amazed at the Christmas decorations. They’re unbelievable! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, with the long-standing history this particular Macy’s has with Christmas (think “Miracle on 34th Street … yep, it’s the same one!), but I found the huge ornament arches, and famous “Christmas Windows” to be breathtaking.
Poor Jamie had to stand there while I bought some new makeup from Clinique, but soon we were heading upstairs to look at shoes and browse the sales racks. We both found something in one of my favorite sections, Liz Claiborne. I hadn’t intended to buy anything, but when I found a 70$ pumpkin/rust colored sweater on sale for 20 BUCKS, I couldn’t resist. What a deal! Jamie found a sweater for herself and one for her Mom for Christmas.
We closed down the store, and being the footloose-and-fancy-free women that we were for the evening, we headed up to the fanTABulous restaurant SERENDIPITY 3. This place has been a popular/famous restaurant since it opened 50 years ago, but in recent years it received an added boost when it was featured in the movie (you guessed it!) “Serendipity”, with John Cusack and the beautiful Kate Beckinsale. It’s drawn even more attention the past few months when the restaurant’s Frrozen Hot Chocolate was featured on Oprah’s “Best of Everything” episode. You know something’s gonna be good when Oprah (the calorie-counting queen) has TWO of them. You can also expect to have to wait a looong time in line for said item, so we weren’t surprised when the host said it was a two hour wait (but to come back in an hour and check in).
We hadn’t had dinner yet, so we looked around the neighborhood and settled across the street at Patsy’s, one of the best pizza parlors in the City. We ordered pizza and pasta, and a mozzarella and tomato salad … soooo good! I was actually glad for the wait at Serendipity’s, as it gave Jamie and I more time to really catch up and talk. We talked about church, and how our roles there are changing and how that’s been really exciting, but also scary and sobering at the same time. We talked about the church I grew up in, how that experience continues to impact me and how I’m finally beginning to truly move on. Of course, we also talked about the kids and the guys and how our relationships with both are growing and deepening.
It was unbelievably wonderful to sit across the table from Jamie again, like we used to in San Diego and talk about EVERYTHING. I met Jamie just a few weeks before she got married, when Toby and I were also still newlyweds ourselves, so we’ve seen each other through the biggest of life’s changes. It was a great blessing to share with one another the many evidences of God’s grace we saw in each other’s lives and in our spouse’s and children’s lives as well. It’s not often that a friend like Jamie comes into one’s life, whom you can count on to speak the truth to you in love, to lean on for support, and whom you can trust will always continue to be a true friend.
On the way home, we laughed and shook our heads that we, two small-town girls from the California Valley, were now sitting together on the subway in NEW YORK CITY. “How in the world did we get HERE?” I asked. It still surprises me that I live here, and seeing friends that I lived with in CA always brings that up again. Jamie also commented, and I had been thinking the same thing, that it felt so NORMAL to hang out together, as if almost no time had passed since we last saw each other, and our relationship just picked up where we had left it. I think as I get older, I realize how hard it is to find a friendship like this, and what a treasure it truly is.
• THANKSGIVING: Ok., if this entry is all about Thanksgiving, I should probably write a little about Turkey Day itself! =) Realizing that it’s not very likely that they’d be in NYC for Thanksgiving again, the W.’s really wanted to see The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. So, we scrambled around and got the kids ready, I caaarefully placed all the food I had prepared the day before in the bottom of Aidan’s stroller, and we headed out to see what we could catch of the Parade.
I was expecting insanity on the subways, but they were surprisingly empty and we zipped right up to 34th Street, and made our way up to the street. Now, the STREET was crowded! They had a lot of it barricaded off, so we walked around the block until we were able to find a spot where we could stand and see the floats go by. Because we got there more than half-way through the Parade, we weren’t exactly close, but it was still exciting to be there. We saw the Big Bird, Grover, Garfield and Clifford floats go by, plus a couple of other Holiday themed smaller balloons. You should have SEEN Aidan and J.’s faces! Their looks of pure joy are something I won’t soon forget. I know it made Benjie and Jamie really happy to see their children having so much fun.
After the Parade, we hopped back onto the subway and headed up to Courtney and Jon-Paul’s place for our Thanksgiving meal. My SIL did a fantastic job at decorating their home for the occasion, as usual. She even remembered the Pumpkin Godiva chocolates she and I had found last year when we lived on Long Island, and had placed one on everyone’s plate for an extra-special touch. The food was also wonderful, and we had a great time together, eating and drinking and enjoying one another’s company. We were joined by a friend of ours from church, Jeff, who is quickly becoming part of the family. All in all, it was a very, very nice Thanksgiving Day.
• I know this is rather morbid, but one of the more memorable (and heart-breaking) moments of our visit with the W.’s was when they went home. We went out to brunch (at a great place called Bubby’s) and let the kids run off some steam at a local playground before they headed to the airport. I had avoided telling Aidan that they were leaving, b/c I knew that it would really upset him. BOY was I right!
When the W.’s were almost ready to go, Aidan and J. and I were downstairs (he and J. were jumping on his bed and running around the room, laughing). I pulled Aidan to me, and explained that J. was going home on the airplane with her Mommy and Daddy now, and he should say good-bye to her. He said, “Good-BYE, J.” in the most pitifully sad voice I’ve ever heard, and promptly burst into tears. My heart just BROKE to see him so sad, and then I got tears in my eyes. I hoped my sniffling wasn’t too obvious as we helped them put their bags in the taxi. Aidan, on the other hand was SOBBING for J. as Toby held him next to the car. “J.! J.! Noooo! Don’t goooo! Good-BYE, J., I love you!”. Aidan often cries a little when family leaves, but I’ve never seen him cry like this before. It was awful!
I was full-on crying by the time I hugged Jamie good-bye, with Aidan hiccupping behind me. He was inconsolable until we came inside and his Daddy gave him a lollipop, and I’m embarrassed to say I was so sad I flung myself onto the couch for a few minutes. I stopped when I looked at Aidan, and he looked at me, and we were BOTH crying and sniffling like big babies. THAT made me laugh. How pathetic we must have looked! I guess it just goes to show that even though we’re very happy here, we still love and miss our “old” friends very much! *** THE END***
I could write about our Christmas vacation now, but I’d NEVER get this posted if I did. So, I guess I’m STILL behind, LOL! =) In the meantime, for those of you who haven’t checked it out yet, I started a new blog (link below). I’m not giving up over here … I just wanted a place where I could write shorter entries about more than what we’ve been doing every month, and I felt like a blog would allow me to do that better.
I hope that everyone here had a WONDERFUL Holiday season, and a very Happy New Year. Here’s wishing for a spectacular 2005!
Blessings,
Rebekah and Aidan
http://boundarylines.typepad.com
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