Goodbye New York & DC

To all my faithful readers, I’m sorry the Alis have been so quiet.  

In other news, we are here! In Manila! We are settling in and doing great.  We are battling some jet lag but still exploring and have lots to share already but first a quick synopsis of how we spent January. 

As much as I’m sure you would all love to hear the million items that had to be completed before our move to the other side of the world, I’m going to spare you all the details. It has consumed us the past month.  But we did manage to squeeze in loads of family and even a trip to New York and of course my 21st birthday came and went 🙂 Ok, maybe it was my 33rd.

First weekend up was a visit from Aunt Daf and Uncle Meej.  It was great to see them as always and Adam was in heaven with all the attention the Jordans lavished on him.

We spent Saturday just relaxing, which was nice.  We did manage to squeeze in some burgers from Spikes and a visit from Pamela, Sal and baby James.  After that Aunt Daf, Adam and I decided to head to Home Goods while the boys went to catch some of the game (no idea what game all I know is it was a game). 

Well, halfway there we had a flat tire, on the hightway, with a one year old.  I was pretty worried about how this would go down.  BUT thanks to Geico we were only there for 45 minutes. Before we knew it we had a new tire (well, the spare at least) and were on our way home.  Adam loved the whole thing.  He thought it was hysterical and snacked on crackers the whole time. 

After that, we decided to forego Homegoods and headed to meet the boys and have a much needed drink.  Then is was time for the grown ups to go out. We got a sitter and went to Graffiatos! Which was delicious.   It was definitely one of the top five restaurants we’ve been to in DC.

The next morning, Aunt Daf and I snuck away to Home Goods which was a huge success for some of us! Adam was OBSESSED with the basket that Daphne got. He insisted the Jordans carry him around in it for hours. What is this boy going to do without the Jordans to boss around in the Philippines 🙂

The next weekend we headed to New York to see Aunt Daphne and Uncle MJ’s new apartment and to celebrate my birthday. It was a great weekend. The Jordan’s new apartment aka my pied-à-terre in NYC is amazing!  The Jordans even greeted Adam at the door with balloons in hand.  They know the way to Adam’s heart.

Friday night we took Adam out to eat at Pearl, which was amazing as always. Then we put Adam to bed and taught the Jordans how to play Spades. After a couple of hours we finally called it a tie (although looking at this score it turns out the boys actually won and the score should have been 190-199 but don’t tell them that).

Grandpa Terry came over Saturday and bought Adam his new favorite toy.  We went to the playground in Union Square which was awesome and then to the dog park. Adam had a blast!

Grandma Gertch babysat Saturday night and we went to dinner with Daphne and MJ at Casa Mono. Dinner was good but the company was better. Then we met up with a bunch of our friends which was so much fun. It’s been a long time since we’ve gone out with so many of these people in NY and it’s the last time we’ll see a lot of them for a long time.

Sunday the Jordans hosted a big goodbye dinner for us and invited our whole family.

I made pasticchio and Daphne made a yummy roast and Grandma Gertch made tons of yummy salads.  Granty Lori, Granty Vange, Grandma Yuyu, Cousins Kathryn and Steve, Jeannie, Kevin, Christine, Dimitra, Dimitri and Josh and Peter all came over.