As most of you know, we were in the US this past October for a series of rather important events.
We arrived in Newark on a Thursday night, and crashed at our cheap hotel. It was quite possibly, the nastiest place I have ever stayed. There were No Smoking signs everywhere: on the door, on tiny placards on the nightstand and desk, slapped on the wall. And yet, there were ash trays on the nightstand and the desk. Someone decided that the ashtrays overruled the signs, and the room reeked. When we discovered that the windows were fused shut, we asked for another room, but none were available. So we asked for some air freshener, and someone appeared at our door with a can of Pledge. Pledge, my hotel personnel friend, is not air freshener. It's a can of unnecessary synthetic toxins. I think I'd rather deal with the smokey smell, which was at least generated in part by something grown in the earth. We considered relocating, but it was late and we were all tired, so we crashed with the comforting knowledge that I had already cancelled our reservations for the next night.
We spent most of Friday in the city. Shortly after getting into the city, we stopped for the oh-so-necessary cup of joe. The kids are drinking milk, not coffee, I promise!
We wandered around Times Square looking for a pair of shoes because I hadn't brought a pair to wear to the wedding we were attending on Sunday. After a failed attempt, I went downtown to meet some of my writing friends from school for lunch, while Eric took the kids to lunch at Ruby Tuesdays (where three pasta lunches and whatever Eric ate cost over $70 - ah, New York!). He then spent a couple of hours in the giant Toys R Us. After lunch, I found them in the giant Barbie house. Go figure.
We hit Cold Stone (cake batter ice cream + strawberries + rainbow sprinkles = a little bit of heaven) before heading out of the city for dinner with Eric's friends, Randy and Misty. They have cute twin baby girls, and Ben was absolutely fascinated with them. I expected the Rhys and Desi to be ga-ga, but it was Ben who fell in love with them. He couldn't keep his hands off of their nearly-bald little heads. It's a good thing Randy and Misty aren't the "we need to sanitize everything" kind of parents!
After a dinner of piles of rice, beans and guacamole (there's a severe shortage of Mexican food in England), we headed up to Poughkeepsie.
We had our sat nav with us, and we trustingly punched in the address of our hotel in Poughkeepsie before heading off. According to the sat nav's calculations, we had about an hour and a half drive ahead of us. We'd been driving for about an hour when Desi started to get fussy. The kids were all asleep, but she was tired and uncomfortable and wanted nothing more than to be out of her car seat. I assured her that we were nearly there. A few minutes later, we took an exit as instructed by the sat nav. Much to our dismay, it indicated that we had another sixty miles before our next turn. I tried to calm Desi while Eric drove on. About forty-five minutes later, as we were going down a big hill, the sat nav suddenly blurted out "RECALCULATING" and began blinking. Our suspicions that something was wrong were confirmed when we passed a big blue sign welcoming us to PENNSYLVANIA. We stopped at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center to figure out just where the heck we were. It didn't take long for us to figure out that we'd been going the wrong direction. Stupid sat nav. Backtracking was going to be fairly easy, though much longer than we'd anticipated, and neither Eric nor I were happy campers. I'd printed out a hardcopy of the directions, but hadn't bothered to pull them out until we found ourselves in PENNSYLVANIA. The stupid sat nav was banished to trunk. It should consider itself lucky that I didn't rip it off the windshield and bash it into a billion pieces with my bare hands.
We finally made it to our lovely hotel in Poughkeepsie, complete with a suite waiting just for us. Our room was sans smokey smell, and best of all, Monica and Jules had left goodie bags for all of their guests. Thank goodness for German chocolate (Monica's parents live in Germany). I think I ate an eighth of a pound of fudge myself.
We spent Saturday relaxing and hanging out at the hotel pool. It didn't take much convincing to bring out the fearless side in the kids, and they were soon leaping off the side pool whether or not Eric and I were ready to catch them. At one point, Rhys decided she should just let go of the side of the pool. I was close-by and pulled her out within seconds of her blond head sinking below the surface. I expected her to be sputtering and scared, but her I'm-under-water-so-I-should-hold-my-breath instinct must be pretty strong, because she'd not inhaled a single drop and was giggling when I pulled her out. I see swimming lessons for all three of them in the very near future.
Later, I caught up with Jules and Monica and Jenny, my closest friends from my Villanova days, while the kids (and Eric) took an afternoon nap. That evening, there was a reception for all of the wedding guests who were staying in the hotel, but as the rehearsal got started later than it was supposed to, Eric took the kids to bed long before Monica, Jules and the rest of the wedding party arrived. Once the kids were settled, I spent the evening catching up with old friends, some of which I hadn't seen since I left Villanova.
The weather on Sunday was absolutely perfect. Our hotel was right next to Samuel Morse's house and grounds (the guy who created Morse code), and we spent the morning hiking through the most beautiful autumn folliage. The leaves here in England change colours, but the autumn's the rainiest time of year, so the colours don't seem nearly as brilliant here as they do in New York. Autumn has always been my favourite of seasons, and wandering through these beautiful woods was a couple hours of bliss. I only managed to take about a million pictures of the trees and the Hudson River (and a couple of the kids).
The reception was lovely, and I again had the opportunity to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in a very long time. Rhys was so excited - I'm pretty sure she thought that Monica and Jules got all dressed up and threw a very big party just for her. Ben and Desi had such a good time, that they alternately slept, despite the constant buzz of conversation and music around them.
I'm so very happy that we were able to share in Jules and Monica's wedding. They are so perfect for each other, and it was great to be able to celebrate with them.
On Monday morning, we packed our suitcases and said good-bye to our friends. After a busy weekend of doing some of my favourite things and seeing some of my favourite people, it was time to start on the next leg of our journey...
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