A City So Nice...

It was a tearful parting from Ellie on Saturday afternoon at the Cincy airport, and an uneventful flight as we embarked on Phase II of our "real vacation" - visiting Lizzie and JT in New York.

We took a cab in from Kennedy to 1 West Street, teamed up with the Davis', and headed up to the Theater District for Mary Poppins. Lizzie had come across the best secret in New York - "partial view seats" at a deeply discounted price. But the partial view means sitting in your private box at the front of the theater! The show was great fun - supercalifragilisticexpealidocious, as they say. See Lizzie's blog for more on this.

On Sunday we attended the Union Square 2nd Ward and had a great time. We visited with ward member Murray Green who was our home teacher 35 years ago. Much has changed since we lived here: this ward alone has had 30 babies born in the past twelve months! The aisles in the chapel were crowded with Maclaren strollers - it looked more like a ward of young families than anything else. During priesthood and relief society they announced they needed about 20 apartments who could house 5 five people each on their floor for stake youth conference next month! After Church, Al Woodhouse gave us a ride home - he was the bishop of the Manhattan 2nd Ward when I was in the bishopric of the Manhattan Ward 35 years ago! Al has lived in the same apartment in TriBeCa for 30 years - the joys of rent control!

Lizzie prepared a lovely dinner of baked shrimp with tomatoes and feta cheese. Afterwards, we took an evening walk along the harbor and the Hudson. A nice neighborhood.

Monday morning we went for a run along the Hudson in Battery Park City. We then met up with Sami and her friend Lisa Midgley for lunch at the Shake Shack at Madison Square, followed by visits to a variety of locales, finishing at Max Brenner's Chocolate. We then met back up at Lizzie's for dinner on the roof (catered by Zaytuna's), capped off with cupcakes from Crumb's.

Wednesday was breakfast at Sarabeth's followed by a session at the Manhattan Temple. We then met Sami and Lisa for lunch at Grey's Papaya and dessert at Grom Gelato. Then it was back to Ocean at 1 West Street to pack our bags and head for the airport. The good news is that Lizzie came with us.