A Day in New York

New York state, that is! We spent the day in Albany yesterday, visiting with Nikos' godparents and their two sons, one of whom was graduating from law school (the real reason everyone was there). We didn't attend the graduation, since we wouldn't have been able to make it there on time, but we did actually watch it as it was streaming live on the internet, haha! We got to watch Nikos' godbrother receive his hood. I even took a screen shot! It's a little blurry, but this was the big moment!

As soon as his name was called, we piled into the car and made the two-and-a-half hour drive across western Massachusetts and into New York. It really is a straight shot through the state to get to Albany, which is not very far into New York. And the entire drive looks pretty much like this:

We ended up getting there with a few hours to spare, since they were all still eating lunch (huge crowds because of graduation = super slow service!). We saw this fantastic park nearby (Washington Park), and ended up wandering around there to kill time. It was so nice! There was a big tulip festival there this weekend, which they were setting up for, and the flowers were absolutely amazing!

The kids were particularly enamored with the squirrels, who have clearly been around so many people that they aren't timid like the ones in the woods behind us. These ones were bold and well-fed, ha!

They also liked sitting in the various trees, many of which had interestingly-shaped branches and whatnot. These pictures were actually taken on the exact same branch, but I made Nikos' picture a mirror image for no other reason than that it looked more aesthetically pleasing to me...

I also asked Gus to take a picture of me with the kids, since it was Mother's Day weekend and all. Yeah... he tried! But Maya just wanted to snuggle, and Nikos adamantly refused to have his pictures taken "in front of flowers." Sheesh! So you can see the back of his shoulder, behind me. This is as good as it got!

Finally, though, they were done with lunch and back at their hotel (right near the park), so we zipped over and met up with them in the lobby. Here's a group shot of our two kiddos and Nikos' entire godfamily-- together again in an entirely different state, haha!

We sat and chatted in the lobby for a while, and eventually moved to the adjacent Starbucks for some coffee. It was so nice to see them again, and the kids had a blast! Nikos kept talking about how much he loved New York! Here are a few more shots from inside Starbucks... the first one is a much better pic of the new graduate, haha!

They had dinner plans for the evening, so we piled into the car at around 7pm and headed back home. It was a long day, but a fun one! And now I can say I have been to New York (not counting airport layovers)!