Day 8

The week before we left for the States, I recorded a series of marketing videos for HP in Barcelona. The day after we arrived in New York, I get a phone call from the production company in Spain asking if I could come in to the studio the next day for a simple rerecording of three lines of dialog. I point out how difficult that would be considering my current geographical location, they freak out, and so began the manic search for a New York-based sound studio that could record 20 seconds of my voice and send it to Spain ASAP. Thanks to the generous help of many good friends (thanks!), I went into Manhattan on this morning and, after working as a professional voice actor in Europe for over a decade, I recorded my voice in an American recording studio for the first time! That was pretty cool.

With the hectic insanity of my a.m. audio adventures out of the way, I made my way back upstate to Cookie and Mike’s house in record time where I promptly loaded up the minivan with Jan, the kids, my mom and Phil, and GG and we drove to Stamford, Connecticut to meet up with my aunt Amy who was staying at the house of her very good friends Lauren and Howard and celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. Well, we thought it was just going to be them at the house. Turns out their entire family was there!

We had cocktails in the backyard, relaxed on the beach, passed Sebastian around for a while, and had a wonderfully grandiose family-style dinner thanks to our wonderful hosts. All very civilized and lovely.

Day 9

Much of this day was spent poolside, gathering our energies, greeting the throngs of cousins who were all converging upon us in preparation for the weekend’s big event: Cousin Jennie’s wedding. Fourteen people slept at Cookie and Michael’s house that weekend, and we were all joined by the complimentary group of six cousins staying at Ali and Philip’s house that night for a scrummy Chinese take away dinner.

Day 10

It was nice waking up a little bit later than everyone else in the house and getting dressed and ready to go out a little bit slower. It’s not that we didn’t want to sit through Saturday morning temple services with two small children. It’s just that we didn’t want to sit through Saturday morning temple services with two small children.

We made our way down to Jennie and Ben’s temple over on the Lower East Side just in time for the end of services, but right before the family brunch was about to start. Score! Three bagels and a couple of pounds of tuna salad later and we were driving back up to Cookie and Mike’s house with the Cousin Armada in tow, but not before making a pit stop to see Aunt Penny, whom I hadn’t seen for well over a decade! Seeing her was nice.

So we had the 20 cousins from the night before plus GG, Aunt Ruthie, Aunt Amy, and my sisters. Some sat around chatting. Some partook of the pool. We all ate pizza.

Day 11

This was the big day. The reason we were all there. Jennie’s wedding day! But it wasn’t until 5:30pm so we all jumped back in the pool for a few hours.

Of course, there was another event that made this day special. It was Emily’s third birthday! We were able to drag her out of the hot tub just long enough to scarf down some chocolate birthday cake. Much fun (and cake) was had by all.

Jennie’s wedding was sublime. From the trendy Village loft locale to the stunning bride’s maid’s dresses. From the sunset view over the Hudson River to the rooftop sushi bar. From the emphatic and vertigo-inducing hora to the wedding singer rocking out to some Coldplay (and doing it well!). The wedding was wonderful.

I spent 87% of the wedding dancing with Emily. I soon discovered that our little dace floor zombie, once she stays up at least five hours past her bedtime and is seriously jet lagged to boot, can become quite surprisingly violent if you try to explain that she isn’t allowed to join in during the bride and groom’s first dance. She was up and dancing non-stop until well after midnight, though I think her brain fell asleep somewhere around 9pm.

It must be documented that Emily thought Jennie to be so beautiful on her wedding day that she must have been a princess. Just like Cinderella. It was because of this, and only this, that Emily was found on several occasions looking under Jennie’s dress in an attempt to verify if she was indeed wearing glass slippers.

Day 12

It was on the informational Web site, so I imagine all 240 wedding guests knew about the brunch at Erica’s apartment the morning after the wedding. You could probably fit 15 people in her apartment at any one time. If they all held their breath. And you stuck three out on the balcony. So we decided to arrive casually late in the hopes that most people would have already eaten and left. We made the wise decision. More bagels and lox and lighthearted family shenanigans served as lovely closure to an already lovely event.

After seeing Jennie and Ben off to Greece for their honeymoon (that’s where we went, too!), I sent Jan and the kids back up to Chappaqua with Cookie and Mike. I had a date with longtime college friend Lori down on the Lower East Side. We met in a playground under the Williamsburg Bridge where I had the pleasure of finally meeting her two kids and her husband. Lori and I hadn’t seen each other for 10 years but, after a couple of minutes, it didn’t seem like more than a few months had passed. After watching her kids go nuts in the park for a while, we headed uptown where I was supposed to buy theatre tickets for the evening’s main event: In The Heights.

Lori couldn’t stay in the city for a show so we said regretfully goodbye and I was left at the TKTS booth to buy tickets for myself, Brian (who had already seen the show but is addicted to it), and Aunt Amy (who really wanted to see a different show but I convinced her to join us). Amy soon showed up and we went out for some fantastic Italian food with a friend from California and then we met Brian at the theatre. I already knew the songs from the show so, since the soundtrack is 90% of the book, I knew I was going to like the show. Without going into a detailed review, I’ll just say that I was very right. But it’s a shame I didn’t get to see Lin-Manuel Miranda perform before leaving the production. Alabanza!

Day 13

Very relaxing day. Very little to do. I invited a couple of more college friends – Melissa and Rob – over to the house for an evening “So, what have you been up to for the past 10 years” session. It was so nice to see them and catch up. It’s amazing how so many of my friends look exactly the same as they did over a decade ago. Maybe my eyes are just getting older. I was reminded, however, of my friend Brian’s review of our 15 year high school reunion. He commented on how, even though we hadn’t seen each other for the longest time, we still knew many details of each other’s lives thanks to being connected on Facebook. So a lot of the big news, I already knew. But it’s always the details that are more fun, anyway 🙂

I didn’t take a single picture all day so I’ll end this day’s summary with a picture of my cousin Marcy making a silly face.

Day 14

On our last full day in The States, we monkeyed around in the Bronx Zoo. Most of our time was spent in the kiddies section of the zoo, which was fine with me. The more climbing, rolling, sliding, and jumping the better! The hours flew by like minutes and we were forced to make a swift exit in an attempt to pick up GG and Aunt Ruthie and swing by Alice and Phil’s for dinner before Emily turned into a werewolf. Had a great time in a perfect little Italian restaurant where the Veal Cutlet Parmesan sent me reeling. We had to say goodbye to cousin Ali but not before she tried to rent us half her townhouse. We considered the offer but dutifully declined. Not this year. Too many things waiting for us back home in Spain.

Day 15

Last-minute packing. Rushed cleaning. Sad goodbyes. It was so nice having the entire family meet Sebastian for the first time and get to know the young lady that Emily has become. Life marches on so fast.

We had such a wonderful time in New York and we have cousins Cookie and Mike to thank for almost all of it! They are the most amazing hosts one could ever hope for. They did so much for us while we were there. And this was all while they were planning their daughter’s wedding! I do not want to even imagine all of the preparation, work, phone calls, emails, and stress that were going on behind the scenes, but they held it together, never broke stride, pulled off an incredible and memorable event, and always made time for us. There is no way we could possibly express our gratitude for all that they did for us. Thank you.

I only took one photo on our last day but it was out of focus and boring so I’m not gonna post it. I will instead leave you with a photo of our glorious hosts, carrying bagels, preparing to give away their eldest daughter the day before the wedding, and under the watchful eye of the New York Police Department.

Here is a list of seemingly nonsensical and unrelated words that will probably mean nothing to you but will serve to bring back other very valuable memories of this week for us: Smithtown, speaking in tongues, botched order, break the ice, Shabbat photos, Elmo’s violin, wet shirt, liver spot, lumpy, queue flirting, headphones

More photos to come…