A Post Only A (My) Mother Could Love (edited to add photo of Matthew and Bari's street. Thanks Mom!)

And by that I mean that it's FULL of photos!  I have the day off today and have only just changed out of my pajamas after spending the morning reading a book and watching random movies on TV.  Pure luxury my friends, luxury.  I also emptied the dishwasher, put some laundry in and cleaned the dining room floor so let's not be too judgy here, shall we?

I will feel like such a big jerk if I don't get this post done today what with my whole day of leisure and all, so forgive my lack of witty captions.  The pix are pretty self-explanatory anyway. 

To summarize: we drove down to NYC a few weeks ago to celebrate my nephew Asher's arrival en famille.  My Mom flew in from Vancouver so it was an reunion of sorts (minus my sister, the Baby Guru who is having a birthday today! Love you!) and the first time Liliane got to hang out with a baby.

It was stinky stinky hot, the kind of heat where you say to yourself, hey, I should really get out the camera but then just don't because it's all the way down the hall and it's just too hot to move.  Suffice it to say that the party was super fun, the food was amazing and all the guests were adorable.  I did bring the camera when we snuck away from the festivities to go to the park, conveniently located a mere block and a half from Matthew and Bari's flat.

OK, serious techical issues with the new Blogger photo formatting. Anybody else ready to kick in their computer screen or is it just me?  I can't seem to move my photos around so I'm throwing in the towel and will now write around the random groupings...  Sigh.

This bunch is from Sunday night after dinner.  We spent the day out in the big city and completely forgot to take a family picture in Times Square to update our one from last year.  You know when you just have to accept that things won't be going quite as planned on some trips?  This was one of those trips.  (It started when our brand new portable DVD wouldn't play the ONLY DVD Liliane wanted to watch on the trip down.  How many times can you explain that you WANT so badly to play that DVD but just can't because the player is BROKEN and not because we secretly enjoy making you miserable? But I digress.)

Anyway, we accepted that our Times Square photo didn't happen so we went for a walk after dinner and Stéphane put our long lens on the camera so we can take a few photos of our Brooklyn walkabout. 

Matthew and Bari's street is the Greenest Block in Brooklyn!  I can't believe we didn't take a picture of the street (what am I saying, it was THAT KIND OF TRIP, okay?), but here is the sign that proves it!

EDITED TO ADD THIS PHOTO OF THEIR BLOCK (courtesy of my Mom):

Sunday as I mentioned we went into Manhattan and stopped into the big Toys R Us in Times Square and promptly hopped on the ferris wheel that's inside the store.  Yes, it's that big.  I was so glad to finally have a good reason to ride that thing!  Liliane wasn't too sure at first (having a My Little Pony car didn't assuage her suspicion) but she enjoyed it in the end.

I think these are from when we first arrived.  Hello baby! 

There's my Mom, Grandma of SEVEN granddchildren.  She's got the hang of it I would say.  This was a familiar site during our trip - she's the original Baby Guru.

So these are from Prospect Park.  The day of the party we snuck off with Christine and her daughter Maddie to the playground.  Maddie is a few months younger than Liliane so Christine knew exactly where to go.  I had a cute picture of Maddie but Blogger would not like anyone to see it.  Sorry about that.

On Monday we got ready to hit the road back home, this time with Grandma's laptop!  Hooray! No wretched malfunctioning DVD player trauma! 

These are some last minute pix of Liliane planting some goodbye kisses on  her cousin. 

What is happening to me?  Dad! She keeps DOING that!

And maybe nomming his fingers a little. 

And her most favourite activity of all: getting tickled by Uncle Matthew!  Asher was impressed by his Dad's multitasking skills.  Just you wait little guy.  Keep those little arms firmly clamped to your sides because the day will come when he asks "hey, what's under there?" 

Oops!  Back to the park!  Stéphane took this brilliant shot.  This one's for the calendar!

And that my friends was our trip.  Sorry about the disjointed and jumbly quality of this post, but you know, it's a good representation of how that little trip went.  Full of lovely moments and good food and not worrying about the details.  Like completely forgetting to get a family photo.  Whatever!  That's just how we rolled this time around.

As I mentioned earlier I am off work today, but the debauchery doesn't end there!  Liliane is going to spend TWO NIGHTS with her godparents in Ottawa.  We are meeting up with them tomorrow somewhere halfway between us and them (they are about a 2.5 hour drive from here) to do the transfer then Stéphane and I have two whole days of freedom leisure!  Irresponsiblity! The possibillity of sleeping ALL NIGHT with no interruptions!   I am dizzy just thinking about it.  On the schedule: FOUR, count 'em FOUR films, like in a movie theatre and everything, a little shopping, a pedicure, some bike riding and sleep. 

Next week I'll get on to the Parc Safari post not to mention the birthday party.  I will also be heading to the Toronto International Film Festival next weekend so I'll be updating my FB status with tidbits as we go.  George Clooney is rumoured to be coming to one of the parties I already have an invite to, so stay tuned!