Dad Turns 60!

Rachel and Nick got the news in December that they would be moving to Brooklyn.  Within a week of finding out when R and N would be there, Mom suggested that our family go up to visit them and to celebrate Dad's 60th birthday.  We all looked at our calendars and Easter weekend actually worked for everyone's schedule, so we started planning. 

We all flew to NYC on Thursday and met at R and N's apartment in Brooklyn.  We spent most of Thursday walking and touring around R and N's neighborhood and some of areas of Brooklyn.  

Friday morning we went to the New York City Transit Museum in downtown Brooklyn and then had lunch at Brooklyn Pharmacy with some delicious desserts.  That night we were going to see Newsies, so we decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge (which despite my 7 or 8 trips to NYC I had never done!).  We walked through Little Italy and took a subway up to Rockefeller to see the Easter Egg display.  

Nick's potato chip caramel sundae. 

We all enjoyed the show and then we took the subway down to our dinner reservations that were at 11:15 pm.  Dad had researched a restaurant he wanted to eat at for his birthday.  The restaurant would not seat parties of 6 or more and Rachel even tried to get them to split us 4/4 and make two reservations but they wouldn't let her do that.  Not wanting to disappoint Dad's only request of the weekend, Rachel and I decided to beat the system.  She called and made a reservation for 4 under "Hatfield", and my David called and made a reservation for 4 under "Walton".  We split up boys and girls, and walked in separately, and then what do you know??? we were seated next to each other.  ah ha! Our plan worked!  We pretended not to know each other for a while, and then we could tell the wait staff had figured out that we knew each other.  All that to say, it was hilarious and ridiculous, but the meal was fabulous!  We left the restaurant after 1:00, and headed back to Brooklyn. 

Saturday we walked a couple blocks to the Brooklyn Flea and spent a few hours there looking around and eating yummy food.  We decided to head back into Manhattan and the girls went to Soho and the guys went up to Midtown to some game store or something. 

Of course, we stopped at Purl Soho again and drooled over the skeins and skeins of cashmere yarn and bright colors.  While we were waiting for the guys to get to Soho, I had two celeb sightings.  I saw Joshua Malina and then Bradley Whitford.  Bradley Whitford's character on The West Wing is probably one of my all-time favorite characters in the history of the world (he's right up there with Mr. Darcy in my list).  

We ordered Thai and played game Saturday night and then packed our bags to head back to destinations.  It was really fun to get to be together.  We don't know when that will happen again, but until then, I'll just be very thankful for facetime, Skype, and conference calls with the fam.  

Oh yea, I also got to spend lots of time with H and F and David and I got to take them for a walk! They are adjusting to their new home quite nicely. 

They miss me.