New York State of Mind

At the beginning of January, Sean's older sister, Erinn, moved to Huntington, New York, located on Long Island. She works for Ikea and hardly ever has time off to come home to Utah, so we went out there to visit.

Trip Highlights:

• Spending time with Erinn. She introduced us to her new town and was able to spend a lot of time being a wonderful aunt to Matilda.
• Sean and I spent three days in Manhattan, twice with Tilly and once without. We love New York. We went there on our honeymoon in January 2007. Who chooses New York for their honeymoon in the middle of winter? We do. 
• Broadway. We got some discounted tickets at the TKTS booth for 9 to 5 and Exit the King. 9 to 5 was ok, not great. It did have some amazing choreography, though, and Allison Janney was hilarious. We were really hoping to get tickets for In the Heights, but there weren't any discount tickets available for that. Exit the King, starring Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon, was truly amazing. I was a bit nervous at first about going to a play because I have so much more experience with musicals (after seeing 10 musicals on Broadway, this is my first play), but the extraordinary talents of Geoffrey Rush, who won a Tony Award for the role, made it incredible. Our seats were in the second row on an aisle, which gave us the perfect vantage point when King Berenger (Rush) hopped down from the stage to deliver a soliloquy while meandering through the theater. For at least a minute, he stood within inches of Sean's seat and made eye contact with us. He was spitting so much while he talked that some of it fell on Sean. That is right, Sean has been spat upon by an Oscar winner. Anyway, it was a beautiful, poignant, absurd play that revealed the emotions of learning how to die when one does not feel ready to do so. Also in the cast was Andrea Martin (who played the crazy aunt in My Big Fat Greek Wedding). I love her. 
• Sean and I love museums, so we went to two. We went to the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. They were both excellent. At the Museum of Natural History, there was a special butterfly exhibit that was pretty cool. My favorite exhibit at the Met was the modern art.
  
• After trying to decide if we wanted to take a day trip to Philadelphia or Boston, we chose to go to Philadelphia to visit Sean's great-aunt, Rosemary. She is the last living Murphy of her generation and Matilda is the first Murphy in her generation, so it was great to have them together. Rosemary lives in an apartment on the edge of Washington Square, with the Liberty Bell just a short walk away. Unfortunately it was raining so we didn't do a lot of sightseeing, but it was wonderful to be able to visit with Rosemary. Matilda actually crawled for the first time in her apartment!
  
• In Huntington, there is an old bookstore called Book Revue that regularly hosts book signings by many significant authors (Julie Andrews was there a few weeks ago). One evening while the three of us were walking around looking for a place to eat, we noticed that retired NBA All-Star Bill Russell was at Book Revue signing copies of his new book, Red and Me, which is about his relationship with his coach and life-long friend, Red Auerbach. My dad is a huge basketball fan and actually played in college. Bill Russell is one of his heroes, and with my dad's birthday just 4 days away, we decided to get a signed copy of the book for him. We waited in the long line for a long time, but luckily Tilly was sleeping in her stroller. She woke up by the time we got to the table, and we discovered that Bill Russell is a very nice man with large hands and feet and a great laugh.

These are just a few highlights of the many wonderful adventures we were able to share as a family. We were so grateful to be able to spend time with Erinn, and we absolutely fell in love with Long Island. So now for some pictures:

Matilda loved her newly discovered trick of standing up in her carseat:

Matilda and her Aunt Erinn:

American Museum of Natural History:

Getting ready to eat at the first pizzeria in America, located in Little Italy:

Meeting Bill Russell:

In Philadelphia with Aunt Rosemary:

Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Miscellaneous New York pictures: