recovery!

Sebastian woke up on Saturday morning, and the first thing he said was "I'm fine. I feel fine. I'm not sick anymore. Please can I go to Grandma's house now?!"  (In the middle of Thursday/Friday night, after throwing up, he asked Steve to keep it a secret and not tell Grandma, so he could still go there for his special weekend. So sweet.)  So we called up Mom and Dad Raab, and they said come over! So we packed up the kids and drove out to Long Island, and left them there, and thus Steve and I had an unexpected and very sweet date weekend at home.

On Saturday we stopped in Astoria on the way home and spent a few hours wandering our old neighborhood. I'm not sure we've been back since moving out in 2006. We visited Omonia for Greek pastries, the Island Bakery for rainbow cookies, and Laziza for Middle Eastern desserts.  We saw a lot of our old restaurants as well as a lot of new ones, and had lunch at a fantastic place called Butcher Bar (pulled pork and brisket sandwich).  The ethnic diversity of the neighborhood is still stunning - young professionals mixed with older Greek and Italian families, recent European immigrants (speaking Eastern European languages) as well as families from India (swirling saris and all), the Middle East, Mexico, etc etc.  It's an amazing place to walk around. Still - crowded, and with a dearth of trees and parks. We couldn't imagine moving back there with the children.

We had dinner at the Cookery in Dobbs Ferry, and then a lovely, uninterrupted sleep. On Sunday we went for a bike ride along the trail in the morning and then went to see a matinee showing of the Hunger Games. I can't remember the last time we were in a movie theatre, and it was super fun. Good action movie. After that we had lunch at Tarry Lodge in Port Chester, a Batali/Bastianich restaurant, and then came home and went for a long walk on the trail.  Mostly, for the whole weekend, we just talked. Talked and talked, without interruptions from little people. It was incredibly restorative.

Mom and Dad Raab showed up at 6 pm with two happy, well-rested, children who actually were not ready to say goodbye to their grandparents.  That might have been my favorite thing of all, since it means we can plan to do this again sometime soon...

Thanks, mom and dad. You're the best, and we appreciate you.