A great weekend to be had

So this is the email that my mom sent out to the family about our weekend together in Manhattan... names have been changed :) but I think this pretty much sums up our weekend- it was so great :)

"We had a wonderful time! We wish you had been there. We went to littleItaly, Chinatown, Times Square, Central park, and Rockefeller Center. Wewent to the upper 80's, SoHo, Midtown, Uptown, Downtown, East Side, WestSide and Underside. We gave money to cab drivers, waitresses, buggydrivers, skate park attendants, Canal Street hawkers, street vendors,subway ticket machines, tour guides, pedicurists, restaurants, beggars(in the form of food), bad hotels and good ones. We ate Chinese,Italian, New American, seafood, diner, famous bagels and famous cupcakes. We walked and walked and walked and walked, sometimes schlepping (my newfavorite word) suitcases along. We met my college room mate Ginnifer(who gave NYnanny 2 tickets to opening night of Don Pasquale at theMetropolitan Opera for Friday night), Christina's bosses (the husband is so Irish he got married in a kilt), our old friend Allie, andour new friend the cabby who left 2 children behind in Bangladesh. We proved we were tourists by taking pictures of every place we went,looking at our subway map every other block, and ordering water and swapping plates at a fancy restaurant. Nynanny proved she was a NewYorker by giving directions to people who knew even less than we did;hailing not one, but 2 cabs at the same time; taking us places that shehad already been and loved; and haggling for a watch in Chinatown. Welaughed, we cried, we giggled, we slept, we ate, we walked, we ran, weshared, we ate, we explored, we conquered!! We loved being together andbeing in NYC together!"

So great, huh? The worst part of the weekend was having to say goodbye, but that would have stunk no matter what, so I would say we had an awesome weekend... some things mom forgot were ice-skating in central park (so fun- Care totally biffed it a couple times trying to be really impressive on her skates... even with the falls she's still way better than me, but oh well, it was great), when Mom tried to hail the SAME "out of order" cab like 5 times in a row and he started to get freaked out, and when we had a vegan- cupcake birthday party for mom on a bench somewhere on the lower East side. It was a great weekend- so great. Caroline actually came into town on Tuesday, hung out with Allie, than Wednesday I went down to the city to get her to bring her up here. We found the cupcake place that won "Best Of..." in New York Magazine, which I'd been dreaming about for weeks, and walked about a million blocks since we got off at the wrong subway exit... oops! :) Thursday and Friday we hung out with the kids (Care was great help and even watched them while I took a nap! awesome! Of course, they were new and cute to her so she was lovin it) So that was just awesome. Than this weekend I'm headed to the opera (which I have a new dress and coat all ready for haha) with Allie then to Little Italy to explore on Saturday- I realized while Mom and Care where here that you can't just walk into what the map says is little Italy and find a good Italian restaurant. Ugh. So I need to figure that out this weekend. This weekend rekindled my love for the city, which is sweet. I'm looking forward to exploring more so I can be an even better hostess for my best friend Megan who's coming up here next weekend. So all is well. The kids are in rare form.... but at least they're not mine! Haha. love you all

christina