NYC- visiting Family and Friends

We are back in NYC for a week, visiting family and friends and checking in our house in Yonkers (we are renting it out, because it made much more sense than selling it, from the financial perspective)  This is our first time back east as a family since moving almost exactly 1 year ago.

My new favorite candy store- better than Dylan's Candy Bar!

We got into Kennedy at midnight, and the bear was a complete trooper-- he didn't even sleep on the plane!  And then we arrived at my brother's house at around 1 am.  Fortunately they had the bed made up for us, and we got to tool around in Manhattan in the morning.  We found a great Lebanese fast-food place,SemSom  (which is an international franchise!) an amazing candy store, and my wife's favorite pastime, shopping!  There are 3 or 4 stores that are not in Chicago, ONLY IN NY, and she enjoys shopping the bargains there. (UNiqlo, Joe Fresh, and Muji)

We then went to Brooklyn to my brother's sister-in-law's house (confused yet?) to hang out with my other brother, his wife, their kids, and my brother's sister-in-law and her wife.  We had some fun time with them at a local park, followed by dinner.  My brother's sister-in-law and her wife are great people-- the kind of people that we choose to have as relatives!  They are expecting twins in the next couple of weeks, (to be named Gustave and Camille, to which my other brother apparently responded-- "Really?  Do you want them to be teased?  How about Bob and Mike?") which is that brother in pretty much a nut-shell.  Outspoken and without a filter!

After the playground we walked by a cool Brooklyn street festival on our way to dinner, where they closed off the street and put on Shakespeare in the middle of the street, which was pretty darned awesome!  They were doing Much Ado, and while the performance looked middling to good (to be fair it was their first performance!), they had a huge crowd, who were clearly enjoying themselves, so I say MORE POWER TO THEM!  Shakespeare in the Streets is something that should happen more often!  And it will a few more times On different blocks of the festival there was music and yoga classes and fencing and all kinds of fun stuff.

After dinner, we were so tired, that we ubered home rather than take the subway, which was financially unfeasible but physically necessary.

Fun at Le Pain Quotidien

Sunday  morning we ended up having 4 get togethers with various friends.  Early breakfast with my host brother and his wife at the always delightful Le Pain Quotidien (although my brother ended up not making it- not feeling well)  We then packed up and moved north to some friends in Yonkers who are out of town and lending us their car  and beautiful house for the week.  We then had brunch in Tuckahoe, an informal high tea (ice cream, iced tea, and cookies!)  on the upper west side, and then dinner with friends in Riverdale.  

It's so much fun to see all these people from our past and pick up with them where we left off. With most of them we have been keeping in touch via Facebook, but seeing how a kid has grown in a year (and how quickly the kids can just jump into playing with one another) is pretty awesome.

This morning was lazy recovery morning, but this whole week we've got a full schedule of sightseeing, friend seeing, theatre going (scored tickets to An American in Paris!) and in general fun fun fun times.  We then pack it all up and go on the road again to Rhode Island, my ancestral homeland, where we will do it all again!  I think I might need a vacation after my vacation!