we got to be a part of it

i surprised him. i surprised the crap out of him. the day before left for new york city last saturday, which happened to be friday, we were out to dinner with my family and i handed josh a early birthday present. inside we the following: new york cheddar chips, a card that said "josh turns 30 TODAY", and a frommer's guide to nyc with broadway tickets inside. oh, and the card had the today show logo on it to make a little more sense. it took poor old josh til the tourist guide to understand that he was leaving the very next day for a birthday vacation. a SURPRISE birthday vacation. i nearly peed myself with the excitement of waiting until moments before leaving to tell him. the best part, everyone else in the family was is on it. including my dad who was watching finn while we were gone. the same dad who still said, "wait, i thought you were going to chicago?" moments after the reveal. oh dave, it must be since you're nearing 60 that your brain cells are failing you. i'm glad to have accidentally surprised him as well.

needless to say, my breath was taken away by new york city. there is something about the bustle and charm and other-worldliness that makes me forget the stench of urine and piles of trash lining the streets. ah, new york. we spent most of our time just wandering the streets pretending to know which direction we were going, even though 90 percent of the time we would get the next street and turn 180 degrees and head back. lots of unnecessary exercise. which is good since my gym membership hasn't been used in about 4 weeks. and without finn. bliss. do you know how good it is to wake up at 8am without the sound of a child screaming for you to wake up? just the fact that you can relaxingly reacquaint yourself with the world after 9 full hours of dream-slumber makes all the difference in the world. single people and those without children, relish in that liberty. oh, i missed him, don't get me wrong. but i didn't miss the work. not one little bit.

we ate. we went to a couple broadway shows. we ate. we went to a museum. we ate so much more. we shopped. we had dessert. it was the perfect 4 day vacation from the day-to-day and dieting. i highly recommend it. i think i'm going to write about a couple of the restaurants soon. it needs that much attention. for now though, here's a few of the pictures. the very few pictures. why is it that we nearly always face our camera at our little one and never at ourselves or the rest of the world? oh, duh. because he's so darn cute.