NYC

we just got back from our trip to NYC to visit victor's family. all in all, it was fun, but unfortunately, we ran into many hiccups throughout the trip.

1st hiccup- our flight out of houston was delayed 3 1/2 hours. yikes! now, delays are already a terrible thing, but delays with a baby... hellish. we had planned things perfectly so that caleb would take his nap on the plane, and we'd get into NYC a little before his bedtime. obviously, this didn't happen. instead, he barely got a nap, and went to bed at 1 am EST (4 hours after his usual bedtime).

2nd hiccup- we went to caleb and my first yankee game on saturday afternoon. after watching half an inning, the game was called off due to rain. i was so sad. had we gone to either the friday night game or the sunday afternoon game, we not only would've been able to watch them play and win, i would've gotten to watch #42 mariano rivera bring in the saves! argh.

hiccup #3- (no picture available) coming home on monday afternoon, all was going well. we boarded the plane on time, taxied out towards the runway... all to find out that we would be an hour and a half delayed again due to bad weather west of NYC. caleb slept during that hour to hour and a half that we were on the runway, but then woke up right before we took off. that meant 3 1/2 hours of entertaining baby and trying to keep him from bothering others. grr... so much for planning.

on both ends of the plane trip, i was so thankful for great fellow passengers. for both flights, there were several really friendly women who would play with him and entertain him. he, in turn, would reward them with smiles and laughs. it was beneficial for all. interesting that they were all women, though. the men would barely even look at him. interesting...

on the flip side

it wasn't all bad news. caleb actually did awesome on the trip. i was really worried about how he would take to victor's family since he has never met most of them. sometimes, he has stranger anxiety pretty bad. however, he was great! it only took a short amount of time for him to warm up to them... and pretty soon, he charmed them all with his infectious laugh.

for the trip, victor and i bought the combi urban carrier.

this was so handy! because we were taking the subway most of the time, a stroller would've been the biggest headache. imagine lugging a stroller up and down the stairs of a subway... and all those stairs at yankee stadium. yikes! so we didn't even bring the stroller with us on the trip. we used this instead. while victor could never get used to it and hated using it, i found that i was able to carry caleb for over an hour in this thing without too much strain. it also freed up my hands to hold umbrellas or pull luggage through the airport. and the best feature of all? he fell asleep in it!!! woo hoo! if you know our kid, you know that he doesn't fall asleep outside of his crib easily. leaning up against me + the monotonous rumble of the subway = baby sleeping. so awesome.

and here's the ultimate shining star moment of our trip. just look.

drool...

i wish i had pictures, but the food was so good that we ate it and didn't think of taking pictures until the entire meal was over.

jenn, jussi, steve, and sunny came to NYC at the same time. jussi mentioned that he wanted to try the famed nobu restaraunt. coincidentally, victor's sister is the CFO of the restaraunt company that owns nobu so she hooked us up. we had the omakase, where the chef basically chooses the menu for you. or in the words of the menu, "OMAKASE - (CHEF'S CHOICE) Experience the essence of Chef Matsuhisa's cuisine with the multi-course omakase menu."

SWEET FANCY MOSES! i'm not exaggerating when i say that my mouth fills with saliva every time i think about our meal there. The first pic was our first dish, toro tartare with caviar. this was my favorite. a perfect blend of toro, caviar, and a wasabi dip. holy smokes. excuse me as i wipe the drool off my keyboard. we also had Sashimi Salad with Matsuhisa Dressing (i think it was tuna) this was jenn's favorite, their signature dish, Black Cod with Miso (2nd pic), Salmon with Teryaki or Pepper Sauce, Miso Soup, a plate of 6 sushi (Salmon, Tuna, Hamachi (Yellow Tail), Fluke, and Clam... hmm.. i'm missing one. victor, jenn, do you remember what it was?). Last, but not least, a mint chocolate souffle with green tea ice cream. decadence.

can you tell this was my favorite part of the trip? :)

side note to ted: can you believe how far i've come since you coerced me into eating that 1 piece of sushi 6 years ago? :) and baby, i can never go back.