New York, New York

Sam and I went to New York City for our anniversary last weekend. It was VERY cold, but we had a fun time. Now, when I say VERY cold, I mean VERY. We were bundled in just about as many layers as we could comfortably wear and still walk around and still found ourselves taking refuge inside of buildings to thaw out frequently. A nice reminder of why we live in Phoenix.

We stayed with some incredibly gracious and hospitable friends who live in Connecticut and then took the train in to the City. We went ice skating at Rockefeller Plaza and we went to the Top of the Rock (the observation deck at the top of Rockefeller Center). We hung out a little on Times Square people watching (from inside a store of course) and being amazed at the fact that there is a 3 floor M&M's store with a Hershey store across the street. I don't care what colors they came in, $10/pound is WAY too much to pay for m&m's!!! We also went and saw a Broadway show (The Producers starring Tony Danza) and had a nice Italian dinner at a place my dad recommended. A family with very good vocal projection was sitting next to us during dinner and we got to hear all about the mom's family's medical history past and present. It was incredibly distracting to say the least! But we were thrilled to hear that if her sister does end up having the gene for breast cancer then the folks at Yale will test her for free. Bonus.

On Sunday we went and visited one of my college roommates who now lives outside of Hartford, Connecticut. I haven't seen her in 6 years so it was great to catch up with her and meet her kids. Debra was actually kind of the reason that Sam and I met. You see, Feb. 24 is Debra's birthday and that year it was her 21st. A group of us decided that at midnight when it was officially her birthday, we would take her out. So we did, and a few people bought her a few too many drinks and she was, well, let's just say she was feeling under the weather on her actual birthday and never actually got out of bed. Yikes. So, that night our plans for celebrating her birthday were obviously cancelled. A group of girls was going to a party at Sig Eps fraternity house and my friend Colleen invited me to go along. I went and ended up meeting Sam there. He called the next day to ask me out and one year later (exactly) we got married. So, it was only right that we hung out with Debra on our anniversary weekend since we met and got married on her birthday.

We also managed to find the house that Sam's family lived in when he was 9 and 10. It's in a small town in Conn. called Southbury. His dad got transferred to the area and they built a house only to get transferred back to Chicago a year later. We stopped and took pictures of the house and Sam met one of the neighbors (the owners were in Florida). I had heard so much about this house that at this point I was thinking it was palatial and maybe had a plaque dedicating it to the Macrane family or something. Nope, just a regular house with brown siding in a wooded subdivision. Talk about disappointing.

We woke up to snow on Monday morning and were luckily able to still fly home because it was just a pretty snow and not a nasty close all the airports kind of snow. It was 77 when we landed at Sky Harbor. I need to remember that in August when I am cursing the desert heat with every breath.

My parents were here watching the kids for us--which was a huge blessing. Not too long after we got home they shot out the door saying they would call us in a few days. I'm assuming they needed time to recover from the whirlwind of conversation and activity that is known as my children.

I discovered something over the weekend too. The people we stayed with have only two kids--a boy and a girl. My friend Debra has only two kids--a boy and a girl. Their houses are very quiet and relatively orderly. Which, as I pondered that, is easy to do with only 2 kids. The girl stuff goes in the girl's room and the boy stuff goes in the boy's room. And if they get in a fight you can send them to their rooms. At our house if they are all bickering it goes something like, "Ok, everyone needs to go to their rooms for some quiet alone time, well, wait, go to your beds for alone time,...and wait, nobody should be talking to each other from their beds, well, wait, you go to your room, but you go to the living room..." Not as neat and pretty. And the stuff. If you have one daughter with 10 stuffed animals, you can arrange them neatly somewhere in her room. 2 daughters with 10 stuffed animals each=20 stuffed animals that end up in a variety of places. I have to say I, at times, was coveting the peace and quiet of only 2 kids. Not that I know exactly who I would opt to get rid of--that list is different depending on the day. But, in the end, God has blessed us with 5 kids and a life that is most certainly never dull. So, all of you two kid families can have your peace and quiet while we enjoy the constant noise and chaos over here. I'll just have to go out of town more often to get my peace and quiet!